Let me begin with a brief background. We had Carpenters in the house while growing up. I’ve always liked parts of their earliest albums the best, and have long felt that A Song For You is their masterpiece. It captures the band at a creative peak, their careers having gained traction in a relatively short time. Songwriting was also top notch, with solid contributions from the Paul Williams/Roger Nichols and Richard Carpenter/John Bettis teams. The album is a snapshot of this combination, and if I have to recommend any one album to someone curious about Carpenters, this is the one that I point them to without fail.
Hang onto that “snapshot.” We’ll be returning to it.
I recently gave a listen to the newest installment: Carpenters with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Apparently, this is the latest installment in the realm of repurposing old recordings by popular artists, with the RPO strings added on top. Sure I’m oversimplifying it here. But if a particular recording works in that context, and it sounds good, then enjoy it for what it is! This type of project has its fans.
Yet as I listen to this Carpenters RPO release, it sounds…strange. Something is vaguely yet subconsciously “off” about the whole thing. To my ears it is unsettling, even disjointed. Why is this?
A little more background. Over the years, with countless compilations and handfuls of CD album reissues, Richard has been quietly remixing and even re-recording parts of these classic recordings. Remember what I said about a snapshot in time? Well, someone has taken that old family reunion photo, touched up Aunt Hortense’s warts, neatened up Cousin Roy’s hair, and replaced a couple of assorted other cousins with better head shots from a couple of more recent photos. It looks nicer, but something seems wrong here.
I have never liked the remixes. I also dislike the re-recorded parts even more. From a moral standpoint, it could be the idea of tampering with the past that upsets some listeners. But that is not what bothers me about them.
It’s how the remixes and re-recordings sound. When A Song For You was recorded, I’m sure most of the recordings were tracked in the studio with most of the band in there, and overdubs were likely limited to things like guitar solos and of course, Karen and Richard’s trademark overdubbed vocal harmonies. When you have all the musicians in one place, there is a certain vibe between them, an energy in the room that you can’t quantify, and is something that only musicians can understand. Overdubbing during the original sessions tends to convey a similar energy–you’ve witnessed those original tracks playing back through your headphones.
On top of that energy and vibe, another consideration is how the overdubs are being recorded. In later cases, the multitracks were converted to digital, and these overdubs and re-recordings were all done digitally. Why does this matter?
Those sonics during the recording of A Song For You are also a snapshot of how the studio sounded at the time. The microphones used, the mixing desks, the echo chamber, the analog tape recorders, even the formulation of tape used…these all contribute to how Carpenters (the band) sounded when the album was originally recorded.
Not only that, there are the recording and production techniques used in the 1970s that have no ability to be recreated. The mixing engineer had his own touch. The mics were placed in specific places to capture the instruments. Other decisions like using EQ, reverb, etc. on the original tracks were up to the engineer and producer. These are studio processes that happened on the spot when the recordings were originally tracked.
Now, enter the remixes. They can sound fairly close to the original sonics, but once digital EQ and reverb are added, this adds a brighter “sheen” to the originals that wasn’t there. Re-recordings make this far worse, though. Now, we have an updated performance, recorded in pristine (or one might say “sterile”) digital technology, sounding all new, squeaky clean and pure, against a performance recorded in the early 1970s. The two do not mesh.
This is like taking your family reunion photo, photographed on an old Nikon SLR, scanning it into digital, and inserting new head shots of a few family members in Photoshop taken with a new Sony mirrorless digital camera.
Hence, my issue with this new recording being unsettling, disjointed, and feeling like it was cobbled together. I understand that there are even more re-recorded parts now, and of course we have the RPO overlaid on top of it all. All of it note-perfect, of course. With all the original charm and soul slowly sucked out of it over all the years.
While I see that many are enjoying this new recording, I simply can’t get past the sonic collision of old and new. The definitive versions of all of these songs will always be the original album versions, all of which I have heard at least dozens of times (at least up through their album Horizon). Altered parts never did sound right (even the overdubbed guitar solo on the single mix of “Top Of The World”), but these remixes, re-recordings and now this latest orchestral project just removes me further from the originals.
The good things is, there are still a few scattered copies of the Remastered Classics CD series out there so one can get the original album mixes. And of course, original vinyl lives on in used record stores around the world, provided you can ever find a clean copy that hasn’t been played out.
What really struck me early on, though, was how terrible Chicago II sounded. Even back when I had crappy sounding Realistic stereo equipment, Chicago II made it sound worse than even those all-in-one stereos that were everywhere back then. Tweeters apparently aren’t even needed to listen to that sonic trainwreck–it’s that bad. That to me was a huge turn-off.
One that flew under the radar of most folks was the duo of Ira Stein and Russel Walder. I had first purchased their second album, Transit, thanks to one of the tracks being on a Windham Hill sampler I owned. (A feature will be forthcoming on this album.) That album featured the duo, but with a little extra instrumentation (and some vocals) for sweetening. A few months later, I picked up a copy of their first album, Elements, which is strictly the duo of oboe and piano…a 1932 Baldwin, no less. Just a few weeks ago, I found a mint copy via Discogs and have been rediscovering this album again.
I had that feeling today listening to 
The importance of the record should be put into historical context. At the time this was recorded, Carpenters were riding high on the smash success of “(They Long To Be) Close To You”, touring for dozens of weeks around the year, and fitting in recording during their touring downtime. As a result, a few things happened. They had spent time on the road honing their craft, so the band was performing as tightly as ever. And, the endless touring also made them road weary, which is reflected in the tune “Road Ode.” The frenetic pace also seemingly energized the production of this set, as it showcases Richard Carpenter’s full mastery of the studio as another creative “instrument.” Their popularity had swelled by this point, and this album celebrates it with some of their finest work.