I wonder how popular The Carpenters would be these days?
That thought entered my mind when Loraine was listening to selections of their “Christmas Portrait” album when I was making cookies the other day. If you’ve not heard it, it’s a mix of instrumental and vocal holiday tunes, all segued together into kind of a Christmas symphony, and contains one of the most touching yet melancholy songs of the season ever, “Merry Christmas Darling”. It’s one of those albums that’s gained kind of an iconic status over the years, and that led us to wondering where The Carpenters would be these days, had Karen not died of anorexia in 1983.
Loraine and I, both being children of the 60s & 70s, have the gender-differing views of the duo you’d expect of children of the 60s & 70s. She grew up listening to and enjoying them, while for me The Carpenters were something my mom listened to and became something to which I should to pay little or no attention at all. Yet because Loraine still listens to a song or two of theirs on occasion, and because she listens to “Christmas Portrait” every holiday season, I find myself exposed to their music more than ever, and I have to admit something that no guy who grew up as a child of the 60s & 70s should ever admit--
They were actually pretty talented.
If you put aside all your pre-conceived notions of The Carpenters as schmaltzy or syrupy or any other sticky adjectives you’d care to conjure, you’d notice two things--that Richard Carpenter, who did most of their producing and arranging, really had a flair for melody. And, of course, you’d notice that Karen Carpenter could actually sing, despite the sometimes schmaltzy and syrupy material with which she had to work. You can tell that they both learned a lot from the people who wrote their songs, people like Burt Bacharach, and when you consider that Bacharach is now treated like a musical legend by several younger generations of artists, you have to wonder--
How would The Carpenters be treated by those same younger generations?
Would they still be vital recording artists, having albums produced by people like Jack Antonoff or having their songs covered by groups like Arcade Fire? Would they still be touring every year, perhaps performing albums in their entirety like other iconic groups of the 70s? Or would they be stuck playing Branson or Vegas eight months out of the year, and find themselves peddling their music on late night infomercials? After all, it’s a very thin line between kitschy and cool, and I’d be kind of curious to know on which side they’d fall--would they be like Burt Bacharach, or would they end up like, oh, I dunno, Tony Orlando, with or without Dawn?
Sadly, it’s one of those things we’ll never know, although that doesn’t stop some of us from speculating upon it. It's just one of those things that runs through your head when you listen to a Christmas album in the week leading up to the holiday. Amazing how things like that work out, isn’t it?
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