An Album A Day #24: Carpenters THE SINGLES 1969-1973

There are five female singers whose voices make HERC's ears really perk up: Alison Krauss, Chrissie Hynde, Linda Ronstadt, Natalie Merchant and Karen Carpenter. Karen teamed with her brother Richard to form one of the most successful groups of the late 60s and early 70s. With her hauntingly pure, sweet vocals riding atop Richard's lush backing arrangements, they were nigh unstoppable on both the album and singles charts, especially the Easy Listening chart where they notched 15 Number One songs. Eight of those chart-toppers can be found on The Singles: 1969-1973, along with a pair of #2s and their reworking of The Beatles "Ticket To Ride" that barely made it into the Top 20.

After five albums in five years, the duo released this obligatory hits collection which true to it's name contained every one of their charting singles up to that point EXCEPT a low charting b-side, the title song from the film Bless The Beasts And Children which was the flipside of "Superstar".

Radio listeners, singles buyers and fans of Carpenters albums may or may not notice that Richard Carpenter tweaked a few of the songs on The Singles 1969-1973. The first track on the album is an augmented version of "We've Only Just Began" which begins with the first line of "(They Long To Be) Close To You" and then segue to a few notes from "Superstar" before "We've Only Just Begun" begins in earnest. Other tracks have been sped up and at least three of the tracks on the album have segues so they play without gaps or pauses between them.

To listen to a Carpenters song is to hear the very definition of "easy listening": everything is smooth and mellow, soft, lush and plush. They covered rock songs yet they did not rock; instead, they polished those rockers into smooth stones. HERC's favorite time to listen to Carpenters music is when it's raining. And at Christmas!

Singles 1969-1973 is one of the best-selling albums of all-time with certified sales of just under ten million copies (HERC has two vinyl copies!) and it remains one of the cornerstones of any Seventies pop music collection.

Listen to Carpenters The Singles 1969-1973

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