Product Description

1. Rainy Days And Mondays 2. Saturday 3. Let Me Be The One 4. (A Place To) Hide Away 5. For All We Know 6. Superstar 7. Druscilla Penny 8. One Love 9. Bacharach/David Medley: Knowing When To Leave/Make It Easy On Yourself/There's Always Something There To Remind Me/I'll Never Fall In Love Again/Walk On By/Do You Know The Way To San Jose 10. Sometimes

Track Listing

1. Rainy Days And Mondays
2. Saturday
3. Let Me Be The One - Jack Daugherty, The Carpenters, Richard Carpenter, Ray Gerhardt
4. (A Place To) Hide Away
5. For All We Know - Jack Daugherty, The Carpenters, Richard Carpenter, Ray Gerhardt
6. Superstar - Jack Daugherty, The Carpenters, Richard Carpenter, Ray Gerhardt
7. Druscilla Penny
8. One Love
9. Bacharach/David Medley: Knowing When To Leave/Make It Easy On Yourself/There's Always Something There To Remind Me/I'll Never Fall In Love Again/Walk On By/Do You Know The Way To San Jose
10. Sometimes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9251 in Music
• Released on: 1993-05-18
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 31 minutes

CD Description
The Carpenters' radio-friendly soft rock virtually defined the genre in the early 1970s, and this album--their third full-length--was the group's ace card. Following on the heels of the wildly successful CLOSE TO YOU, CARPENTERS features more breezy melodies marked by rich arrangements and beautiful lead vocals, courtesy of siblings Richard Carpenter and Karen Carpenter, respectively.
The record is most notable for two of the duo's strongest and best-loved singles. "RainyDays and Mondays", written by soft-pop gods Paul Williams and Roger Nichols, is a bittersweet pop masterpiece fleshed out by Richard's string orchestrations and smoothly produced backing vocals, while Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett's "Superstar", from its melancholic verse to its dramatic chorus,is equally hard to resist. (Both songs showcase Karen's sultry alto.) The rest of the album includes Richard's bubble-gum pop originals, another Williams-Nichols tune ("Let Me Be the One"), and a medley of Burt Bacharach-Hal David tunes. Even more commercially streamlined than its predecessors, CARPENTERS is a classic of early-'70s pop.

Customer Reviews

Good but don't buy this version
This album is a brill album but the sound quality on this version is quite bad because it is un-remastered. Particularly in track 9, there is an audiable tape-hiss type noise. The better version is the one with a peach cover and the Carpenters logo in brown in the centre. But nontheless a brilliant album.

the brilliant Carpenters
any album by the Carpenters is special, With richard's masterful ear for a song and pruduction talents, and Karens rich, sweet as honey voice is a winning combination. this album is beautiful. look out for 'a place to (hideaway)' a spine tingling ballad garuanteed to have you crying into your hanky.

A very strong album
Richard Carpenter didn't have much time to write new songs for this album, so he only contributed three of his own songs (Saturday, Drusilla Penny, One love), but all of them are excellent. For the other tracks, Richard was able to identify some brilliant songs from outside sources and the end result was one of the strongest albums that the Carpenters ever recorded.

The album features Superstar (which they recorded after hearing Bette Midler sing it). For all we know (from the movie Lovers and other strangers) and Rainy days and Mondays. There's also a medley of six Bacharach-Davis songs, though I don't know why they chose to include I'll never fall in love again, since they recorded a full-length version on their previous album, but that's a minor quibble. Hideaway (written by Randy Sparks, best known as the founder of the New Christy Minstrels), Let me be the one and Sometimes are other wonderful songs.

This album is a masterpiece by the Carpenters, and makes a good starting point for anybody wishing to explore their music beyond the hits.