Best Carpenters Single POLL POLL POLL

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed

ok so i left some out.

Poll Results

OptionVotes
Superstar 18
Goodbye to Love 11
Rainy Days and Mondays 9
We've Only Just Begun 5
Yesterday Once More 3
(They Long to Be) Close to You/We've Only Just Begun 3
I Won't Last a Day Without You 2
Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft/"i don't like The Carpenters"2
Top of the World 1
Solitaire 1
Sing 0
Sweet, Sweet Smile 0
There's A Kind Of Hush (All Over the World) 0
Only Yesterday 0
Please Mr. Postman 0
For All We Know 0
Hurting each other 0
Ticket to Ride 0


jed_, Sunday, 29 April 2007 00:30 (seventeen years ago) link

damn, there's a mistake. i'm pissed.

sorry.

jed_, Sunday, 29 April 2007 00:34 (seventeen years ago) link

pissed and listening to The Carpenters!

jed_, Sunday, 29 April 2007 00:35 (seventeen years ago) link

This is really difficult. I can hardly stand to listen to these songs because they are so painful, but most of them are so great too.

Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 29 April 2007 00:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh no, I don't think I could handle drinking and listening to the Carpenters. I guess if I were really really drunk it would work. But just a little would leave more vulnerable.

Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 29 April 2007 00:39 (seventeen years ago) link

I love her voice - but you're right - it never makes me feel happy

roger whitaker, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:00 (seventeen years ago) link

What a choice that was between Rainy Days And Mondays and Superstar. Rainy Days gets the vote because it's about being a depressed housewife rather than a depressed singer. More realistic. Well, not for Karen I guess.

Matt #2, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:01 (seventeen years ago) link

The sound outburst of "Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby" and so on tipped the scales toward "Superstar" for me.

Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:03 (seventeen years ago) link

("Sound" should have been "sudden.")

Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Gonna have to go for Superstar since you made the interplanetary one a don't like carpenters damn you.

My mum has all the Carpenters albums. She played them all a lot when I was a kid.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:05 (seventeen years ago) link

i just went for "goodbye to love" but there were four other heavyweight contenders.

xpost - the main one being "Superstar".

xxpost Ha!

jed_, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:06 (seventeen years ago) link

time and time again the chance for love has passed me by

grebtesthit, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:09 (seventeen years ago) link

;_;

jed_, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Rainy Days gets the vote because it's about being a depressed housewife rather than a depressed singer. More realistic. Well, not for Karen I guess.

She's not depressed in that song. See Todd Haynes' Superstar for further elucidation.

But "Rainy Days" gets the vote.

Kevin John Bozelka, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:13 (seventeen years ago) link

I had to vote for "Goodbye to Love", though I came near to picking "Close to You" for personal reasons.

Arthur, Sunday, 29 April 2007 01:23 (seventeen years ago) link

"calling occupants" and i LOVE the carpenters!

get bent, Sunday, 29 April 2007 02:00 (seventeen years ago) link

It's between "Rainy Days" and "Hurting Each Other" but "Goodbye to Love" would be next. Will anyone pick one of their happy songs?

Sundar, Sunday, 29 April 2007 02:08 (seventeen years ago) link

What happy songs? (I'm not sure any of the "happy" ones ever really feel happy to me, at least not in a way remotely unalloyed with melancholy.)

Rockist Scientist, Sunday, 29 April 2007 02:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Top of the World or Close to You???

JN$OT, Monday, 30 April 2007 07:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft/"i don't like The Carpenters"


That's one awesome b-side!

Mark G, Monday, 30 April 2007 11:35 (seventeen years ago) link

Superstar.

xhuxk, Monday, 30 April 2007 12:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Nobody opting for Solitaire? The way Karen delivers that "every road that takes him, takes him down" line is so beautiful.

Dan Peterson, Monday, 30 April 2007 13:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Wasn't a single in the UK. We got the Andy Williams version.

Marcello Carlin, Monday, 30 April 2007 14:00 (seventeen years ago) link

Goodbye to love, for Tony Peluso's guitar

whatever, Monday, 30 April 2007 15:23 (seventeen years ago) link

more votes please - closing tomorrow.

jed_, Thursday, 3 May 2007 09:36 (seventeen years ago) link

It's difficult!

Tom D., Thursday, 3 May 2007 09:37 (seventeen years ago) link

It's easy! Vote for Goodbye to Love; you know you want to.

or Superstar...or Rainy Days...or I Won't Last a Day...

It's difficult :-(

Guilty_Boksen, Thursday, 3 May 2007 11:21 (seventeen years ago) link

"We've Only Just Begun" was both an A and a B side?

either way, gets my vote...really heavy piano...(surely must have had some influence on Italo-house)...

henry s, Thursday, 3 May 2007 13:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I want to vote for ALL of these. Well, except 'Sing'.

braveclub, Thursday, 3 May 2007 13:48 (seventeen years ago) link

I plumped for Yesterday Once More. It reminds me of my grandpa's funeral. (perhaps not the most compelling argument here for its being the best, but that is the way it is)

Billy Pilgrim, Thursday, 3 May 2007 16:32 (seventeen years ago) link

Superstar, but this was hard.

admrl, Thursday, 3 May 2007 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

I've been on a big Carpenters' kick lately - Yesterday Once More for me

Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 3 May 2007 16:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Superstar wins because of those ominous last 11 seconds.

Matt Armstrong, Thursday, 3 May 2007 16:55 (seventeen years ago) link

And it won.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Thursday, 3 May 2007 23:46 (seventeen years ago) link

good show!

jed_, Thursday, 3 May 2007 23:51 (seventeen years ago) link

one year passes...

wtf 'only yesterday' got zero votes? That is an astonishingly great song.

Frogman Henry, Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:02 (sixteen years ago) link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQmbHGwMcCo

Frogman Henry, Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:15 (sixteen years ago) link

it amazes me how the same band can be responsible for that and the execrable 'ticket to ride'

Frogman Henry, Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:17 (sixteen years ago) link

They did worse stuff than "Ticket to Ride"

Tom D., Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:18 (sixteen years ago) link

they do a great version of ticket to ride!

amateurist, Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:23 (sixteen years ago) link

It's certainly better than the 5th Dimension's version, now that really is shit!

Tom D., Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:26 (sixteen years ago) link

The combination of Karen Carpenter's ductile, dispassionate contralto and Richard Carpenter's meticulous studio technique is admittedly more musical than the clatter of voices and silverware in a cafeteria, but it's just as impervious to criticism. That is, the duo's success is essentially statistical: I'll tell you that I very much like "We've Only Just Begun" and detest "Sing," but those aren't so much aesthetic judgments as points on a graph. C+

what does this mean? that he enjoys the melodies but doesn't find himself emotionally involved?

amateurist, Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:32 (sixteen years ago) link

also:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fsgj4xcxXyA

why is everyone squinting?

amateurist, Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:32 (sixteen years ago) link

well i know. i just watched it gain and jesus, got to be nostalgia talking on your part. they suck the life out of that song. props for the video location tho.

Frogman Henry, Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:42 (sixteen years ago) link

nostalgia for what? i first heard that version three years ago.

amateurist, Thursday, 17 July 2008 18:47 (sixteen years ago) link

five years pass...

Went on a "Solitaire" jag today. Found out that the Neil Sedaka original from 1972 was recorded with 10cc as his backing band*, and that Karen Carpenter always hated this song, but recorded it anyway and Richard said/says it's one of her finest vocal takes.

*Listening to the whole 1972 Sedaka album right now and it's simultaneously CORNY and pretty great.

Johnny Fever, Thursday, 7 November 2013 22:53 (eleven years ago) link

welcome to my world.

you are officially old now.

advise : buy the 10cc boxset.

"corny but great" : rule of mid-life chaos.

mark e, Thursday, 7 November 2013 23:06 (eleven years ago) link


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.