Carpenters and Cars

The Captain and Tennille—Love Will Keep Us Together

Okay, this is another album that I will unfortunately not be able to play. This is a pristine, still sealed copy of an album so campy it has a photo of the Captain, Tennille, and two bulldogs on their laps. So, no, I’m not opening it. You know the song. It’s fun. The end.

Carpenters—The Singles 1969-1973

This was an album I found at the best yard sale I’ve ever been to. It was a regular yard sale, but also included an amazing selection of records that this guy in Keene was looking to get rid of for pretty reasonable prices. The guy is a collector, and had probably 20,000 records, many of which he put up for sale at this yard sale his wife orchestrated. I got a lot of oldies-but-goodies, if you will, including this collection of Carpenters singles. Say what you will about the Carpenters, but don’t try and tell me that Karen Carpenter didn’t have a beautiful voice. She managed to have a voice that could sound rich and strong one moment and fragile and understated the next. “Superstar,” “Rainy Days and Mondays,” and “Goodbye to Love” are all on this record, which is fantastic. “Superstar” in particular I find to be an amazing song. I know the Carpenters didn’t write it, but the vocals paired with this really perfect story about a young girl falling for a rock star while he’s moving through her town on tour is just breathtaking. I know, I know, but whatever. Karen Carpenter had the voice of a sad, beautiful, complicated your woman and happened to be a in a band with her brother at a time in American popular music that maybe leaned a little towards the lame. I don’t care, I love them.

The Cars—The Cars and Heartbeat

Here’s the thing about The Cars: I like them, really I do, but I don’t love listening to their albums. I love their songs, but not their albums. The problem for me is that their albums are so full of hooks and catchy melodies that I can’t think of their albums as cohesive works, more like collections of singles. This isn’t really bad, but it doesn’t make me run to the turntable to put on their records time and again. I do, however, feature The Cars on many mixtapes, so their influence is certainly felt. Both of these albums are good, and contain some awesome single tunes (“Moving in Stereo,” “Hello Again,” “Good Times Roll,” among others), but I just can’t say that I loved listening to these records.

**After I rushed to listen to these Sunday morning my friend Dan came over and I took a little break from the quest in order to highlight some good jams for him. I'm back on track now, though.