Bloggerhythms

It has been written here several times before about the love-hate relationship I have with the Carpenters , the brother and sister duo who achieved great commercial success in the 1970s. While I recognized the rare beauty of Karen Carpenter's voice I also lamented the outright dreck the duo often recorded - especially "Sing," a children's song originally featured on  Sesame Street .   It didn't complement their more sophisticated work at all - hits such as "Superstar," and album tracks like "A Song For You," and "This Masquerade," both composed by Leon Russell. The young siblings greatest moment came when they woke up and realized they were making music during what would eventually become the first great era of classic rock. The result was their #7 hit, "Goodbye To Love," released off of their finest album, A Song For You in 1972. According to the DVD documentary,  Close To You: Remembering The Carp...

Today is the 40th anniversary of Karen Carpenter's unfortunate passing.  Last year, Bloggerhythms re-ran one post of a three part series on guilty pleasures in which I wrote that my number one guilty pleasure of all time was Karen Carpenter's golden voice. In it, while acknowledging their god-given talents, I lamented that the brother and sister duo should have used their gifts to make better music than the bubblegum pop they frequently pushed into the upper reaches of the Top Forty. Proving my point is a YouTube video of Karen Carpenter singing standards with the great Ella Fitzgerald in 1980 on one of the siblings’ TV specials.  The video easily suggests that the greatest album never made was The Carpenters Sing and Play the Great American Songbook . (The fact that they never recorded these songs while Rod Stewart did four times makes me want to cry.) The show clearly indicates that by this time Fitzgerald's age had taken its toll on her voice and Carpenter uses the ...

Until researching this post I never realized how many songs exist that never mention their titles anywhere in the lyrics. Both Led Zeppelin ("The Lemon Song," "Black Dog," "Four Sticks," and "Immigrant Song") and Bob Dylan ("Subterranean Homesick Blues," It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry," "From A Buick Six," and "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35") each have more than a handful of songs that fall into this category. Because it's too easy to pick a tune from one of these two legacy artists I ignored them while compiling my picks of five song titles not mentioned in the lyrics. Cream - SWLABR (1967) This track is from the power trio's Disraeli Gears LP and it later became the flipside of Cream's first, big  American hit single, "Sunshine of Your Love." The lead vocal is by bassist Jack Bruce who wrote the music. The obscure lyrics are by poet Peter Brown . The title is an acronym fo...

As part two of a three part series originally posted here in February 2008 I wrote about my all time top ten guilty pleasures with a statement that my number one choice would be receiving its own separate post. I'm bringing it back today - inspired by a tweet I stumbled upon by "Morning Joe" Scarborough that you can see below. The original article and links to the other posts in this series follow immediately after the tweet. This album reminds me of my parents more than any other. I listened to it countless times in my mom & dad’s car. One of many reasons I love this album and was just never cool enough to think the Carpenters were uncool. Always loved them. Always will❤️ pic.twitter.com/Q3DsRcTb2I — Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 7, 2022 One of the Twentieth Century’s most beautiful female singing voices belonged to the late, golden-voiced, balladeer Karen Carpenter. She was the more famous half of The Carpenters , the brother and sister duo who had a...