I’ve only talked about it here once before, but I’m a huge, huge Carpenters fan. And I just took it to a higher level of fandom by ordering Twenty-Two Hits of the Carpenters 10th Anniversary Edition: a 2-disc compilation of Carpenters songs straight from Japan. At $50 (including shipping, gah), it is the most I’ve ever paid for a CD in my life.
Why plunk down 50 bucks for a compilation album full of songs I already have? Well, it’s not just any compilation album– the second disc consists entirely of karaoke tracks made from the original freaking masters. In other words, these are no pale imitation karaoke tracks like you usually get. These are the original recordings, only sans Karen’s lead vocal. I have been looking for this for ages and I’m glad to finally get my hands on it, even if it did cost me.
Here’s an example of what the songs will sound like:
I don’t have much of an outlet anymore, but I grew up singing. I still love to sing, even though I’m no Karen Carpenter (I wish). So I wanted to have these tracks around just to sing along to.
These instrumental versions have been released on CD before, only to go out of print after a short time. Needless to say, I wanted to snap up this re-issue while it’s still available. Who knows; this might turn out to be an investment purchase if it eventually goes out of print too. 😛
2 responses to “I Am Officially Obsessed.”
DJ D
May 31st, 2010 at 09:04
Over the past few years I’ve become more and more of a Carpenters fan. I don’t know how I managed to go so long without appreciating them. In a list of my Top 5 Favorite Songs Of All Time that I did on Facebook a while ago, I listed Superstar. My god, that’s an amazing song. Have you heard the cover by Sonic Youth? Definitely one of the best covers of anything I’ve ever heard.
Annette
June 7th, 2010 at 12:48
Superstar is excellent. I love how it sounds like she’s really feeling the song, you know? I haven’t heard the Sonic Youth cover– thanks for reminding me. I’ll have to go look for it.
I guess for a long time there was a huge stigma attached to being a Carpenters fan. They had that squeaky-clean apple-pie kind of image going on (which both Richard and Karen said they hated). Even music critics used to say their music was sappy and saccharine, which I don’t think is true at all until toward the end of their career– by that time, it really had started to get sort of over-produced. But even then, it’s still better than most of the crap on the airwaves today.