'Close To The Carpenters'? Well you can see what
they've done there can't you? Name checked one of the biggest selling easy
listening acts of the seventies (or as the back cover note informs us, 'The
most successful brother and sister act since Fred and Adele Astaire')
with the added suggestion that anyone buying this is in for some pretty faithful
reproductions of how those Carpenters hits originally sounded . That seems to be
the sell anyway, but I think anybody coming to this what that
expectation is likely to be in for a disappointment.*
Although 'The Carpenters' were ostensibly a duo, it was Carpenter singular Karen and her voice (rather than her drumming) that effectively sold the band to millions of listeners. A uniquely pure and highly distinctive sound, it would take a singer with either a great deal of talent, balls or stupidity to go toe to toe and try to emulate it. Which is probably why the line up of lead vocalists here by and large don't try. True, some make an attempt to take on her mannerisms, some less so whilst others wouldn't even fool a dog that they're listening to the real thing.
Almost to compensate, the arrangements of the songs this more cluttered and busier than The Carpenters own versions and they're done in a way that draws the spotlight away from whoever is up front so as to make it easier to overlook that it's not Karen, but I'm not sure any of this is a fair stick to beat it with. After all, title aside, there's no real claim that this is going for pure authenticity - these are songs associated with The Carpenters sympathetically performed by The Hamilton Pop Orchestra and Singers and your reaction is going to be gauged by how high you'd set your expectations up front. To paraphrase that great philosopher Melanie, you shouldn't pay a nickel and expect a dollar song and buying this instead of a Carpenters compilation proper and expecting like for like would be as misguided as buying mutton expecting lamb and you'd deserve all you got (or didn't, if you see what I mean). If, however, you only wanted fairly faithful versions of songs associated with The Carpenters, played and presented in a reasonably competent manner, then you couldn't go too far wrong with this.
* I was going to mention that the wagon wheel and the bloke's hand on the cover seem very suggestively placed, but I'm not sure if it's deliberate or just my bad mind. The woman seems happy enough anyway. No discernable disappointment there.
Although 'The Carpenters' were ostensibly a duo, it was Carpenter singular Karen and her voice (rather than her drumming) that effectively sold the band to millions of listeners. A uniquely pure and highly distinctive sound, it would take a singer with either a great deal of talent, balls or stupidity to go toe to toe and try to emulate it. Which is probably why the line up of lead vocalists here by and large don't try. True, some make an attempt to take on her mannerisms, some less so whilst others wouldn't even fool a dog that they're listening to the real thing.
Almost to compensate, the arrangements of the songs this more cluttered and busier than The Carpenters own versions and they're done in a way that draws the spotlight away from whoever is up front so as to make it easier to overlook that it's not Karen, but I'm not sure any of this is a fair stick to beat it with. After all, title aside, there's no real claim that this is going for pure authenticity - these are songs associated with The Carpenters sympathetically performed by The Hamilton Pop Orchestra and Singers and your reaction is going to be gauged by how high you'd set your expectations up front. To paraphrase that great philosopher Melanie, you shouldn't pay a nickel and expect a dollar song and buying this instead of a Carpenters compilation proper and expecting like for like would be as misguided as buying mutton expecting lamb and you'd deserve all you got (or didn't, if you see what I mean). If, however, you only wanted fairly faithful versions of songs associated with The Carpenters, played and presented in a reasonably competent manner, then you couldn't go too far wrong with this.
* I was going to mention that the wagon wheel and the bloke's hand on the cover seem very suggestively placed, but I'm not sure if it's deliberate or just my bad mind. The woman seems happy enough anyway. No discernable disappointment there.
No comments:
Post a Comment