“Passage,” by Carpenters

Richard and Karen Carpenter were, arguably, the most popular and influential North American pop music act of the early part of the 1970’s, placing a remarkable 15 top 40 singles in the first half of the decade and holding a ubiquitous presence in popular culture during that timeframe, with constant touring, television specials, guest appearances, and even shout-outs on The Brady Bunch! Seriously. The one-and-only Marsha Brady name-checked the Carpenters in the Davy Jones episode. Rock critics, on the other hand, while conceding raw talent and admitting fondness for Karen’s unmistakable vocals and Richard’s composing and arranging, universally hounded the duo throughout their meteoric success. And the reason? Carpenters were, simply put, not cool. After all, they were a nerdy brother-sister act from suburban Downey, California, and in the early-1970’s, Rolling Stone magazine cast them out of the “cool kids club.”

Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame-er, Linda Rondstadt, recently noted with dismay how Rolling Stone magazine widely determined “rock cred” and peddled a “cooler-than-thou” posture in the industry:

That was sort of the attitude of wanting to get with the hipper side. But I never bought into that. It was so competitive and all about looking down at other people and trying to trip them up and make them look bad…Rolling Stone magazine really encouraged that attitude. It was kind of Puritanism, and I never liked it.

Carpenters’ 1975 album, Horizon, a departure from their early 1970’s, trend-setting style, was thought to be the album that would finally bring credibility to the duo, the anticipation of which ironically placed them on the coveted cover of Rolling Stone in the summer of 1974. In the winter of 1974, the duo released the first single from that album, the bubbly, and, in hindsight, throwaway remake of the Marvelette’s 1961 #1 hit, “Please Mr. Postman,” which itself hit the #1 spot in January of 1975, setting the stage for the coming-of-age for the pop duo. The follow-up single, “Only Yesterday,” was released in March of that year, reaching an anticipated #4 in late May (and serving as the duo’s last top 10 single in the U.S.). And while the Horizon album was released the next month, due to label delays and possible over-confidence, the next single, “Solitaire,” wasn’t released until July and only reached #17. The Horizon album only reached #13 on the album charts, signaling the beginning of the long-term downward spiral of the duo that plagued the siblings for the remainder of Karen’s short life.

Richard and Karen rebounded by dutifully (if not mechanically), returning to the studio that winter to record their follow-up, the paint-by-numbers approach of an album, A Kind Of Hush. The title tune was a cover of Herman’s Hermits 1967 top five hit, and Carpenters’ version eked to #12 on the pop charts, further indicating a drop in the duo’s popularity, being the first lead single from a Carpenters album to fall short of the Top 5 since the group's debut, while the #33 chart peak of the A Kind of Hush album was their first Top 20 album shortfall also since their debut. The subsequent singles from that album, “I Need ToBe In Love,” and “Goofus,” both fell short of expectations in the summer of 1976, peaking at #25 and #56, respectively.

All of this set the stage for their next album, Passage, of which Richard recalls,

I was hardly surprised then, when I heard from (A&M label boss) Jerry Moss, relating his concern about relatively lackluster sales by A&M’s biggest worldwide record sellers…us.  As an owner’s eyes fall on the manager when a fine baseball team doesn’t perform as expected, so the eyes of the record company fall on the producer when a successful artist’s record sales falter. This, by the by, is the way it should be, so I was perfectly willing to let someone else take over my role; it would be a lot less work for me and, as previously mentioned (Carpenter was battling addiction to Quaaludes at the time), I was not 100% myself. The problem was, not one major producer would sign on; radio was not quite as friendly at that time to our type of sound and to be honest, my track record on the whole was a tough act to follow. Accordingly, I remained producer, but I did try to approach this new project from a different angle, hence my selection of songs for this album made Passage a bit of a departure from our previous recordings.

“A bit of a departure” is putting it mildly. This album, to my ear, is a pull-out-all-the-stops, shotgun approach to record making and smacked of desperation and audience pandering. The duo, per Richard’s above recollection, was desperate for a MEGA hit record and made an album designed to appeal to everyone, and in doing so, made an album that appealed to relatively few at the time (but was not altogether unsuccessful, as singles “All You Get From Love Is A Love Song” and “Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft” both scraped the surface of the Top 40 in 1977 as well as the surprise Country Top 10 hit, “Sweet, Sweet Smile," the following Spring). 

I’ll discuss the Passage album, here, song by song:

B’Wana She No Home: This jazz-fusion opener, while featuring a fun, funky, stylistic vocal departure for Karen, was a cringe-worthy, privileged slice of oblivious racism, where the narrator barks at her paid, brown-skinned help, “Got to learn these words, and I know you will, or I'll send you right back to Guayaquil,” and “I want you to speak the English right; I want you to smile and be polite…” Ugh. Gawdawful. Of the hundreds of funky songs out there at that time, why’d they have to pick that one?

All You Get From Love Is A Love Song: More along the lines of what one might expect from a Carpenters track at that time and featuring Tom Scott on saxophone, this song was understandably pulled as the album’s first single, reaching the top 40 (#35) in the summer of 1977. This jazzy pop tune, while not one of their best-known singles, features a playful, pre-MTV music video and remains a fan favorite.

I Just Fall In Love Again: If released in May, 1978, this old-fashioned love song would have pre-dated Anne Murray’s #12 hit by one year and would have easily gone as high on the Billboard chart, if not higher. A&M Records decided not to release it as a single, because it was considered too long for Top 40 radio stations to play at the time (it was just over 4 minutes). Instead, it remained a forgotten album track. Fun fact: Carpenters also recorded another would-be hit, “Trying To Get The Feeling Again,” in 1975, during their Horizon recording sessions, but they shelved the track, not seeing its hit potential, only to have Barry Manilow’s version peak at #10 the following year.

On The Balcony Of The Casa Rosada / Don’t Cry For Me Argentina: It takes over three minutes to get to Karen’s remarkable, higher-register vocal on this orchestral tune from Evita, but Carpenter’s performance on this track is, by my ear, the definitive version of this well-known song, which has been covered by, officially, and as of 2015, everybody. I’m glad they recorded it.

Sweet, Sweet Smile: The third and final single release from Passage, this Juice Newton tune (“Queen Of Hearts,” “Break It To Me Gently,” “Love’s Been A Little Bit Hard On Me”) was intended for Newton, herself, to record, but first went to Carpenters when Newton's manager played the demo for Karen, who brought it to Richard, who noted, "I liked it immediately...now there's one that, to me, should have done better than it did…I think if someone else had done it at that time, it would have been a bigger hit." Not that the song was a complete flop, falling just short of the American Top 40 at #44 and giving the duo their sole Country hit, rising as high as #8 on the Country chart and as high as #7 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart.

Two Sides: Another country-flavored tune, this particular track was a bit of a departure for the duo, as the background vocals on the verses feature a Karen duet (as opposed to their stacked vocals), something the duo initially tried on their previous album, A Kind Of Hush, with album tracks and fan favorites, “You” and “I Have You.” I suspect this song might have been a hit on the Country charts in the winter of 1977 or the spring of 1978 had it been released as a single.

Man Smart, Woman Smarter: Originally a calypso tune harkening back to the 1930’s, the duo’s funky little head-scratcher of a recording whistles, wheezes, jerks, pops, and burps (Literally. There’s an audible burp in there; I’m not kidding.). And after many years of wondering, “why this song?” I think I’ve recently landed on what might have been going on: the duo, always weary of their saccharine image (which, in hindsight, turned-out to be fairly spot-on), started pushing back (hard) against the “goody four shoes,” “Pepsodent Twins” image on which the rock press overly focused on, especially as more and more Top 40 stations ignored their “unhip” love songs. It was the mid-Seventies, after all, and the specter of Disco was rising with New Wave close behind. The Clash and The Sex Pistols released their debut albums that year, Elvis died in August, and fly-by-night acts like The Captain & Tennille had stolen the Carpenters’ pop crown two years previous by performing similarly silly (“Muscrat Love”) and/or irreverent songs (“Love Will Keep Us Together”).

I suspect songs like “Man Smart, Woman Smarter” (and “Goofus,” and “B’Wana She No Home,” and “Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft”) were a strategic career move to show a less stodgy, more playful image. Bad call. And when it didn’t work (and after a stint in rehab for Richard and a shelved solo album from Karen), the siblings reverted back to formula on their follow-up album, 1981’s Made In America, and while it boasted their final top 20 hit, “Touch Me When We’re Dancing (#16), the album failed to find an audience, and subsequent singles only scraped the bottom of the Hot 100. Maybe the duo had run their hit-making cycle and (had Karen lived) were destined to spend the remainder of the 1980’s in no-hit, adult contemporary hell, only to reemerge in the 1990’s as an oldies act with a flukey hit single or two from a movie or an unexpected duet with Bryan Adams or Gloria Estafan. Who knows? Maybe they were onto something and could have had an unexpected and extended hit-making shelf life had they stuck with recording goofy songs like this one:

Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft (The Recognized Anthem Of World Contact Day): Released as the second single to Passage, Carpenters’ version of “Occupants” climbed to #32 and was first released by Canadian rock group, Klaatu. John Woloschuk, one of the song's writers, noted the idea for this track came from an actual event: in the early 1950’s, the "International Flying Saucer Bureau" sent a bulletin to all its members asking them to participate in "World Contact Day," where, at a certain date and time, members would collectively send out, telepathically, a message to nearby visitors in space. The message began with, "Calling occupants of interplanetary craft…"

And a groovy, silly, space-age song was born. The duo have often noted that their song was well underway well before the “space craze” of the later part of the 1970’s, recalling taking a break from recording the song to watch Star Wars the week it was released. I was 6 years old hearing this song when my sister played it for my siblings and me on her wood-grained stereo. Tony Peluso’s reprised, “All Hit Radi-ooooo!” DJ bit from the Now & Then album was hilarious to us at the time, especially the “aliens” monotone, robotic voices and the mimicked, “ba-by” that bled into the first few seconds of the song. It was a laugh riot. Who could ever think these two wacky kids from Downey were nerdy?

The framed artwork for this album hangs in my office today; it’s probably their best album cover (in a career of poorly-conceived album artwork). But beyond being the least-known Carpenters album of the 1970’s and their first album since their 1969 debut not to make the Top 40, what most intrigues me about Passage is not the calculated approach to getting a hit record, nor the daring-to-questionable song choices, but it’s brevity, at only eight songs. Were they so burned out and second-guessing by then that they couldn’t add two more songs to make ten? Probably. 

To wit, a tender, unreleased track from the Passage sessions, “You’re TheOne,” an exquisitely performed ballad (and a potential 1977 top 40 hit) that finally surfaced on the 1988 CBS made-for-TV Carpenters movie, reiterated the questionable artistic choices the duo was making at that time, further exposing the fact that, in 1977, all was not well in Carpentersville. With “You’re The One” being brushed aside, one has to wonder what other lost gems might remain in the vaults? The relative failure of this album led the duo limping through the sessions for their unexpectedly triumphant (and essential) Christmas album the following year, and after that, a career free-fall from which they never recovered. Nevertheless, the album holds some of the duo’s most imaginative performances, Karen was still in terrific voice, and Passage is, unquestionably, the most adventurous album the group ever recorded.

"Don McLean," by Don McLean

In 1971, Don McLean released the single, “American Pie.” This classic song brimmed with imagery of the United States in the 1950’s, as well as the sadness of Buddy Holly’s premature death and McLean’s pointed, rock-and-roll commentary about “the Jester,” Elvis Presley, stealing Holly’s rightful place in the Rock-and-Roll pantheon “in a coat he borrowed from James Dean and a voice that came from you and me…” Okay, okay, so that’s just my take, and feel free to form your own position, because McLean has deftly avoided interpreting the enigmatic pop tune through decades of probing interviews, most frequently describing the meaning of the song’s cryptic lyric as, “It means I’ll never have to work again.”

Fair enough. But as you likely know, “American Pie” was ubiquitous on radio in the early 1970’s, it rocketed to number one on the Billboard charts, remaining there for 4 weeks, and it continues to be a radio staple to this day, garnering new generations of fans every year, who are drawn-in by its rock-and-roll imagery and infectious, sing-a-long chorus. In fact, the song is so revered that it’s used to close down bars at the University of Illinois, has been parodied by the wonderful Weird Al Yankovic, and was even given an electronica treatment by Madonna in 2000 (which I didn’t hate). And besides the follow-up single, the majestic, “Vincent,” a tribute to artist Vincent Van Gogh that reached #12 the following fall and McLean's “comeback” hits from a decade later, the remake of Roy Orbison’s “Crying,” #5, in 1980, and “Castles In The Air,” #12, in 1981, that’s pretty much everything pop fans know of Don McLean.

And this is the problem, since the scattered hits tell only a part of the story, and American Pie isn’t even McLean’s best album. That distinction goes to his third LP, the self-titled, Don McLean: a portrait of the artist in the wake of massive commercial success and wide critical acclaim. Backstory: when McLean recorded the American Pie LP, he was still a relatively unknown singer/songwriter, whose first album, Tapestry, failed to make a dent on the charts (even though it contained two future hits, the original version of the aforementioned, “Castles In The Air,” and the song that Perry Como turned into a hit three years after, the 1973 #29 single, “And I Love You So”). When Don McLean recorded his eponymous third album, however, the eyes of the world were watching. So how does one follow a monstrous one-two punch, like the American Pie album?

For McLean, it included writing an album about the spinning, crushing, whirlwind-lifestyle, “stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song.” He introduced the album with the challenging leadoff single, “Dreidel,” (#21 in 1973). The song, while a fitting description of his life in that past year, was a left-turn choice, in terms of selecting a song representative of the album. But maybe that was the point. In fact, half of the introspective Don McClean album finds the artist seeking solace from the typhoon of concerts, interviews, and television appearances that followed the behemoth success of American Pie. Themes reflect in like manner: the emptiness of show business (“Bronco Bill’s Lament,” “The Pride Parade”), love’s mutability (“Falling Through Time,” “Oh My, What A Shame”), a few tender love songs (“If We Try,” “Birthday Song”), and even a novelty remake of a 1920’s ditty (“On The Amazon”). My favorite song on the album, however, has always been “Narcissisma,” with it’s playful, silly lyrics (to wit, “…She’s got no...cryers, no pliers, no liars and no sleeves, and she will always tell you everything that she believes, she's got no belly button too, no high heeled shoe…”) and especially the sassy backing vocals by the West Forty-Forth Street Rhythm and Noise Choir.

What the album, McLean, didn’t do, however, was recreate the American Pie experience, which would have been the most fiscally-responsible choice as well as what the record-buying public expected. Instead, McLean opted to release an album that was true to his personal and artistic journey. Great art. Poor marketing potential. In fact, had McLean been released in 2011, we might have seen a few well-placed, high profile celebrity breakdowns leading up to its release. I can envision McLean visiting a Hollywood salon to borrow clippers for a self-shaved Mohawk before running off, barefoot, into a public men’s room, a public intoxication arrest or, better-yet, an “embarrassing” twitter scandal. These incidents would have beautifully set the stage for the themes included in this album, and perhaps the public would better appreciate it. But as it was, the album quietly limped its way up to #23 and only remained in the Top 40 for a paltry 7 weeks. But I guess I’m lucky. Not everybody has an older brother (hey, Jeff), who purchased the album in the late-1970’s and played it endlessly on the families' wood-grained, 3-speed stereo. For the rest of you, this sensitive, imaginative album must be discovered on your own.

**Oh, and quick, but relevant post script: McLean doesn’t ever get credit for his tremendous singing ability when, in fact, he’s a remarkable singer with tremendous vocal dexterity. And in the age of Britney / Glee / Kanye vocoder-abuse, I appreciate that so much more…

Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1, by George Michael

Does “pop music” have a place on “must hear” album lists? As my gentle readers know, I often argue that it does, and George Michael’s work is a big part of the reason why rock critics today take pop music seriously, and his 1991 album, Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1, is "Exhibit A." While still teens in the UK, Michael and his musical partner, Andrew Ridgeley, formed the duo, “Wham!,” which helped set the template for early-80’s pop music, complete with the squeaky-clean, camera-ready smiles and neon-colored clothing that exuberantly exclaimed, “Choose Life!” Laugh-out-loud hilarious, it was, if unintentionally so, and nobody who wasn’t a teenage girl even admitted to liking these two dorks. I mean, seriously.

But, in fact, more than just teenaged girls picked up cassette copies of Wham!’s 1984, #1 album, Make It Big, which sold truck loads and contained now-classic pop nuggets like, “Everything She Wants,” (#1) “Careless Whisper,” (#1) “Freedom,” (# 3) and the #1 song that gave birth to the boy-bands that ruled radio in the late-80’s and 90’s, “Wake Me Up, Before You Go-Go.” What was unexpected about these supposedly light, “disposable,” pop songs, however, was the deft, skillful songwriting and the sheer weight of the sinister subject matter: it was cheating girlfriends, cheating boyfriends, divorcing couples, lies, and lying-liars who held court in Michael’s jaundiced, musical world. Kinda sordid for a pop musician who appealed to millions of screaming teens, idn’t it?

In fact, Michael has made a career of writing pop hits about lurid, kinky subject matter, to wit, look up the lyrics to any of the following, bubbly Wham/Michael songs: “Credit Card Baby,” “The Edge Of Heaven,” “I Want Your Sex,” “Monkey,” “Father Figure,” “Fastlove,” and “Freek!” to name but a few. But the synthesized, pop sheen of Michael’s songs always obscured the vile, underworld he so often described, going completely unnoticed by the public, the fans, and the critics alike, ensuring that Wham! and George Michael were categorized as merely trifle, routinely pummeled in critical circles at the time, with one Rolling Stone critic dismissing Michael’s R&B-style vocals as, “prissy.” And the young musician was taking notes. Michael decided that being the alpha pop male of the moment wasn’t quite enough for him; he wanted all that AND to be taken seriously as an artiste. What he didn’t realize is, critics would have eventually come around to his brand of snap, crackle, and pop ear candy. The proof is in the pudding, as Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas, and Kanye West reap the benefit of Michael’s party-pop, path finding. Note: yes, I said, Kanye West, who is much more of a piece with Michael than, say, Lil’ Wayne – admit it; you agree.

So, fast-forward to three years later; it’s 1987, and Michael, relinquishing all Wham-like, poster-friendly posing, grows a scruffy beard, puts on a leather jacket, buys a motor cycle (does he even drive it?), and releases the album that catapults him to 80’s, pop-god status, sharing rare air with the likes of Prince, Madonna, and Michael Jackson with the 20 million-selling album, Faith. With that album, Michael created the male, pop star blueprint still in place today (you’re welcome, Justins Timberlake and Beiber). And for most, Faith was Michael’s career zenith, but I disagree. While Faith was melodic, creative, oftentimes creepy, and overall, great fun, and while it certainly displayed an artist discovering the full potential of his voice and feet, his next album, Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1, finds him at the height of his powers, seamlessly blending musical ideas, styles, and motifs, while at times just showing off, and deservedly so.

The album opens with the first single, the plodding, over-wrought, pretty good, but worst-song-on-the-album, “Praying For Time.” The mundane video featured the song’s lyrics in bulky, white letters over a black screen. Oooh, he’s so solemn, singing about politics and stuff…ho-hum. While the single went to #1, largely due to fan excitement for a new George Michael song, album sales stalled, overall, selling a comparatively paltry 8 million, and Michael started to bicker with his record label, due to his refusing the proven advertising strategy of actually appearing in his videos.

A compromise was reached with the promotion clip for the second single from the album, the funky, feisty, “Freedom 90,” which featured a series of supermodels in steam-filled rooms, mouthing the words to Michael’s song, while paraphernalia from his poster boy-era burned in the background. While the video was a welcome relief from its abysmal predecessor and the single fared well (#8), it proved to be the only other single that made a significant dent on the pop charts: the only other that hit the upper half of the charts, “Waiting For That Day,” featured an inspired blending of the Rolling Stone’s classic, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” but barely reached the top 30 (#27).

And that’s too bad for pop fans, who, by skipping, Listen, Vol. 1, missed out on what stands as some of Michaels best musical moments, ever. “Something To Save,” one of the failed singles from the album, holds as one of Michael very best songs. Rare for a George Michael song, the themes of “Something To Save” revolve around open, honest communication and reciprocal love and compassion. Similarly, “Heal The Pain,” written in an up-tempo, slide-and-shuffle style, reminiscent of Paul McCarntney (and later re-recorded as a duet with him in 2008), imbues kindness and optimism into a three-minute pop song, again, unusual "light" for his dark genius. The slow-burning waltz, “Cowboys And Angels,” finds Michael back in familiar, sinister lyrical territory, and exquisitely so, while the should-have-been single, “Soul Free,” innovates with use of R&B, drum loop samples over a can’t-get-out-of-your-head chorus and some of Michael’s finest R&B crooning.

After Listen, Vol. 1 quietly and undeservedly faded into the sunset, an extended legal battle ensued between Michael and his record label, Sony/Epic, with the artist blaming the company for less-than-expected sales, claiming they failed to properly promote the album, and the company countering that poor sales were due to Michael’s own resistance to appear in his videos. The battle eventually killed the possibility of Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 2, which was rumored to be more dance-oriented, un-socially conscious pop, and to have included his 1992 hit, “Too Funky,” (#10) as well as three other songs, which eventually appeared in conjunction with the AIDS benefit album, Red, Hot, & Dance, that same year, “Do You Really Want To Know,” “Happy,” and “Crazyman Dance,” the B-side to the aforementioned single.

And then six years of silence followed, a time period extended, no doubt, by the death of his longtime companion. Michael’s next studio album, the funereal, Older, was released in 1996 to a pop environment steeped in his brand of R&B-pop (i.e., Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby,” R. Kelly’s, “Down Low,” etc.), priming the album to be the biggest seller of the year, but instead, it quietly tip-toed onto the scene in the spring of that year, reaching a disappointing #6 on the U.S. album charts and boasting only two top-ten hits, “Jesus To A Child,” (#7) and “Fastlove,” (#8). The only other subsequent studio album to date, the aptly-titled, Patience, came eight years later, and while it offered glimmers of his immense gifts with the single, “Amazing,” it proved to be, overall, a disappointing affair.

And speaking of “affairs,” after the disappointing performance of Listen, Vol. 1, Michael’s hit-streak primarily included a series of very public, very embarrassing incidents involving sex, drugs, binge drinking, etc. In fact, it seemed as if he embodied the lyrics to many of his depraved, disco hits from two decades before. Worst of all, his immense talent and expertly-crafted pop music, which he so aptly sang, “…is the one good thing that I’ve got,” took a back seat to these bad-boy antics, leaving himself and his fans confounded or having moved-on in the wake of his clichéd, celebrity excesses. But as demonstrated by another wayward pop genius, Brian Wilson, who released his masterful, long-awaited, magnum-opus album, Smile, in 2004, over 30 years after it was shelved, sometimes the end result can be well-worth the wait. And I’m guessing I’m not alone in thinking George Michael’s got another great album in him. Call it “blind,” but I’m still holding out faith (ugh, sorry) for another extraordinary George Michael album.