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Essential Collection: 1965-1997

Carpenters - Essential Collection: 1965-1997 Audio CD

A fair review of the Carpenters "Essential Collection: 1965-1997" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Carpenters reviews here, or go back to the Carpenters tabs.

Band: Carpenters
Title: Essential Collection: 1965-1997
Rating:

Release Date: 2006-08-31
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Caravan 2: Parting Of Our Ways, The 3: Looking For Love 4: I'll Be Yours 5: Iced Tea 6: You'll Love Me 7: All I Can Do 8: Don't Be Afraid 9: Invocation 10: Your Wonderful Parade 11: All Of My Life 12: Eve 13: Ticket To Ride 14: Get Together 15: Interview 16: Love Is Surrender 17: Maybe It's You 18: Close To You, (They Long To Be) 19: Mr. Guder 20: We've Only Just Begun 21: Merry Christmas Darling 22: For All We Know (from "Lovers And Other Strangers") 23: Rainy Days And Mondays 24: Superstar 25: Let Me Be The One 26: Bless The Beasts And Children (from "Bless The Beasts And Children") 27: Hurting Each Other 28: It's Going To Take Some Time 29: I Won't Last A Day Without You 30: Song For You, A 31: Top Of The World 32: Goodbye To Love 33: This Masquerade 34: Sing 35: Jambalaya (On The Bayou) 36: Yesterday Once More 37: Oldies Medley: Fun, Fun, Fun / End Of The World, The / Da Doo Ron Ron / Deadman's Curve / Johnny Angel / Night Has A Thousand Eyes, The / Our Day Will Come / One Fine Day 38: Yesterday Once More (Reprise) 39: Radio Contest Outtakes 40: Morinaga Hi-Crown Chocolate Commercial 41: Please Mr. Postman 42: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town 43: Only Yesterday 44: Solitaire 45: Tryin' To Get The Feeling Again 46: Good Friends Are For Keeps 47: Ordinary Fool 48: Sandy 49: There's A Kind Of Hush (All Over The World) 50: I Need To Be In Love 51: From This Moment On 52: Suntory Pop Jingle #1 53: Suntory Pop Jingle #2 54: All You Get From Love Is A Love Song 55: Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft (The Recognized Anthem Of World Contact Day) 56: Sweet, Sweet Smile 57: Christ Is Born 58: White Christmas 59: Little Altar Boy 60: Ave Maria 61: Where Do I Go From Here 62: Little Girl Blue 63: I Believe You 64: If I Had You 65: Karen/Ella Medley: This Masquerade / My Funny Valentine / I'll Be Seeing You / Someone To Watch Over Me / As Time Goes By / Don't Get Around Much Any More / I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart 66: 1980 Medley: Sing / Knowing When To Leave / Make It Easy On Yourself / Someday / We've Only Just Begun 67: Make Believe It's Your First Time 68: Touch Me When We're Dancing 69: When It's Gone 70: Because We Are In Love (The Wedding Song) 71: Those Good Old Dreams 72: Now 73: Karen's Theme

The Carpenters Quagmire of Hits Collections, Part One
I have been spending hours comparing the FOUR hits comps I've purchased so far. The world needs all these songs in their original mixes. Is this the best? I don't know. Here are the reasons why the answer could be yes:

1. You get the super rare stuff from the '60's, before "Ticket To Ride". Much of it is odd. But the songs where Karen is bathed in echo like a cross between Sonny-era Cher and the Mamas without the Papas are not bad, and good luck finding them anywhere else.

2. 72 tracks are more than any other set I know of. This count does include some oddities like a mega-scripted interview track, "radio contest outtakes", and a couple of radio jingles. I think these are fun and give insight into the C's' personalities, but I can see where others might find them distracting.

3. The medley with Ella! No other package has room to fit something like this in. Overall, this approaches the C's from more angles than anything else out there.

Here are the reasons why the answer could be no:

1. Richard continues to screw with the mixes! Of the duo's 20 top 40 hits, only ten escape remixing (acc'g to Richard's track notes): Close To You, We've Only Just Begun, For All We Know, Superstar, Hurting Each Other, It's Going To Take Some Time, Only Yesterday, Solitaire, All You Get From Love is a Love Song, and Touch Me When We're Dancing. The phrase "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is apparently not in Mr. C's repertoire.

1. a. To play my own devil's advocate, the remix of "Goodbye To Love" is excellent. The piano, almost nonexistent in the original, is rerecorded and much more prominent here. The drums are also kicked up to where they're about even with Karen's wonderful vocal. This works only because this was the duo's, ahem, "rock" number and the remix packs more punch overall. Of course, the original is more of a(nother) showcase for the vocal, and then Tony Peluso's (in?)famous fuzz-guitar playout.

2. "Top of the World" is not the hit version. It's the twangier LP version from A Song For You, which was substantially remixed for single release in 1973. Since it's one of the pair's three Number Ones, this is significant. Same is true of "Ultimate Collection" by the way.

3. "Yesterday Once More" segues into the medley from the "Now and Then" LP/CD. It's one of my favorite songs and I don't really like revving motors over the ending. "Ultimate Collection" doesn't correct the problem, it just has a few seconds of revving without the medley. Which is actually dumber when you think about it. . .

4. Enough other people pointed out that a few favorite album cuts and minor singles are missing (I am a proponent of "(Want You) Back in My Life Again") so I won't repeat that here.

More cross-referencing: "Gold" has many of the same liner notes as "Essential"; it changes "Solitaire" to the single version, has the hit version of "Top of the World", and the ending of "Yesterday Once More" is rev-free. It is still prone to the remixes above and is missing "Those Good Old Dreams". My fourth comp is a Time-Life Carpenters Collection with only 21 songs and fewer remixes (it came out in '93).

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Essential to Your Collection
If you're a Carpenters fan already then this is an excellent musical treasure to cherish and store. Its all been said so if you're not into the Carpenters yet get this album and surely you will be.
Tracks to download for starters, Goodbye to Love, Rainy Days and Mondays, (They Long to be) Close to you, We've Only Just Begun.

So many jewels with Karen's beautiful voice
Of course "We've Only Just Begun" and "Rainy Days and Mondays" were always my favorites from my high school days. A few favorites come to mind. But the real jewels were the songs I didn't really listen to until 20 years later. That's when I found "A Song For You" with Karen's beautiful and haunting vocal, and great tenor sax solo by Bob Messenger; which became one of my all-time favorite pop ballads. Prior to hearing this rendition, I had only heard Woody Herman's Thundering Herd play this on their Grammy Winning album "Giant Steps. " I hadn't even heard of Leon Russell.

But I must also add the wonderful "1980 MEDLEY - Sing/Knowing When To Leave/Make It Easy On Yourself/Someday/We've Only Just Begun", in which Richard orchestrated some beautiful string and woodwind movements. Especially on "Make It Easy On Yourself" - extremely lush string arrangement and first-rate vocal harmonies. Oh, but "Someday" stands out with the marvelous voicings of the strings, flute and oboe; plus the addition of the O. K. Chorale Singers (angelic choir-like voices) - WOW!. I almost lose it every time the singers come in. Thank you Richard, for writing some of the most brilliant string and woodwind accompaniments for Karen's "One-In-A-Million" voice.

I'd be remiss, not to mention Richard's orchestrating great strings and woodwinds (first oboe, then flutes and clarinets) in "Where Do I Go From Here. " Last, but not least (for me) - The happy, upbeat, Latin-tinged, "All You Get From Love Is A Love Song" showcasing the tenor saxophone of Tom Scott.

I'm a woodwind and percussion player (and have always wanted to play the string family), so I sometimes lean on the side of listening to more the orchestrations than I do of the vocals of The Carpenters. Not to take away anything from the moving and beautiful voice of Karen, but I feel that Richard really complemented Karen greatly by writing so many wonderful string and woodwind passages in their music, to move the listener besides just Karen's voice. So I'm not going to apologize for overdoing the kudos on the orchestrations and not enough on Karen. Most all of the reviews have done the praising of Karen, so that should satisfy her fans. I (like the majority) loved and adored Karen Carpenter. .

Essential And Telling
To counteract the difficult, sometimes unbearable issues that were happening historically, there seemed to be a kind of musical quilt being tapestried (if I may borrow a Carole King word here) to help people cope, to comfort or encourage. During the era of the late 1960s to the mid 1970s, there was a certain kind of music being made by a segment of the musical population.

Among the performers that fell into this category were Karen and Richard Carpenter. Karen's unforgettable and golden voice was the main instrument in delivering these beautiful songs, while Richard's keyboard instrumentation and song arrangements showcased his sister brilliantly.

Finally! What we have in this box set is a proper treatment of each song in their catalog. Every recording is presented singularly, showcased as the true gems they are. There is no cross fading from song to song; there is no obvious "updating" these tracks with extra instrumentation for their own sake as there had been in previous collections. You are getting each and every song as they were intended to be heard and it is nothing short of brilliant.

But the telling thing about this exquisite four disc set, as you listen to it, is the overall theme. A constant message in Carpenters songs is love, of course, but most especially it's about unrequited love, losing love or not being able to find love. What you might not know is that this existed even before the world had heard of the group.

Here, you get to hear songs like "Looking For Love" and "The Parting Of Our Ways," songs recorded before their breakout hit "(They Long To Be) Close To You," and that demonstrates that overriding theme of searching and dealing with heartache and heartbreak that was echoed in Karen's personal life.

This is more than a collection of hits from a group that helped to define an era in American History, it's a document for them, a biography for this sister and brother, and it is spacious, gentle, well crafted and a must for collectors of Carpenters' material.

Essential Carpenters, especially early Carpenters
As a Carpenters fan myself, most all of the Carpenters songs are hits, so there are always a few songs missing that you would like to have been included. If you were to obtain only one Carpenters greatest hits compilation, this would be it. For a beginning Carpenters fan, however, this is a very good collection. Especially valuable are the early Carpenters collection, disc one of four, 1965-1970. It has some very good recordings of pre-Carpenters songs, and some original recordings of early Carpenters songs, which were later re-recorded for the Carpenters albums. Richard Carpenter's booklet narratives explaining the history of the songs is very informative and entertaining. One interesting thing Mr. Carpenter said was that most of the master tapes recordings of the pre-Carpenters from their early days on the Magic Lamp label with Joe Osborn were destroyed in a fire in 1975. This may explain at least partially why there are so few recordings of early (pre)-Carpenters music available. In any event, I highly recommend this album, most especially for its early Carpenters songs, which you may not be able to find anywhere else. .

You can see a complete list of all Carpenters discography, or go back to the Carpenters tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.