A&M 3601
Producers: Richard & Karen Carpenter, Jack Daugherty
Track listing: We’ve Only Just Begun / Top of the World / Ticket to Ride / Superstar / Rainy Days and Mondays / Goodbye to Love / Yesterday Once More / It’s Going to Take Some Time / Sing For All We Know / Hurting Each Other / (They Long to Be) Close to You
January 5, 1974
1 week
By 1974, Richard and Karen Carpenter, a pair of musical siblings from Downey, California, had experienced a great deal of success. The duo, known simply as the Carpenters, had scored Number One hit singles with “(They Long to Be) Close to You” and “Top of the World,” while “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Rainy Days and Mondays,” “Superstar,” “Hurting Each Other,” and “Yesterday Once More” had all peaked at number two. On the album chart, however, the Carpenters couldn’t get past number two. Their second album, 1970’s Close to You, 1971’s self-titled effort, and 1973’s Now & Then all peaked one position shy of the summit. It wasn’t until A&M decided to collect the Carpenters’ greatest hits on one album that the duo was truly on top of the world, or at least on top or the album chart.
When A&M began compiling The Singles 1969-1973, Richard Carpenter was adamant about one thing. “I didn’t want to call it Greatest Hits, because most of those things are the act’s only hits. They’re not the greatest hits, they’re the only hits. Since we were doing quite well, I figured this would be Volume 1.” In hindsight, Richard Carpenter says he is convinced that the album, which sold more than four million copies in America alone, would have even been more successful had he gone with the Greatest Hits title and a photograph of the duo on the cover. “The whole thing was my idea,” he says. “The dark cover, with the logo, having it looking kind of understated. It almost looks like a damn tombstone.”
Yet the music on the album, featuring Richard’s sparkling arrangements and Karen’s unforgettable voice, more than made up for its bland cover art. The Singles 1969-1973 was certainly an accurate title, since it ranged from the duo’s first single, a slowed-down version of the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride,” which stalled at number 54, to “Top of the World,” the final single released by the group in 1973. “Karen was more of a ballad singer, so I slowed it down,” says Richard of the Beatles cover. “That remains one of my favorite Carpenter recordings.” For the Singles album, Karen re-recorded her vocal and drum tracks and guitars were added.
Often Richard knew when the duo had recorded a hit track long before its release. “‘Superstar/ ‘We’ve Only Just Begun,’ ‘Hurting Each Other,’ and ‘Sing,’ I thought were hits right off the bat, but I couldn’t say that about ‘Close to You’ or ‘Top of the World,”‘ he says.
The latter track was written by Richard and his longtime friend John Bettis, who was a member of the pre-Carpenters group Spectrum. “We thought it was a pleasant album cut,” Richard says. “But then the public let us know. The Japanese let us know by releasing it as a single in Japan, and country singer Lynn Anderson recorded it. Her version was almost the same as ours and it became a country hit that started to cross over to top 40. Finally, we saw the light.”
“Top of the World” hit Number One on the Hot 100 on December 1, 1973. Just over a month later, the Carpenters scored their first and only Number One album. “I remember Karen saying it’s about time that an album of ours went to Number One in Billboard,” says Richard.
Tragically, less than a decade later, on December 4, 1983, Karen Carpenter died from heart problems brought on by anorexia nervosa. She was 32.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of January 5, 1974
1. The Singles 1969-1973, Carpenters
2. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John
3. You Don’t Mess Around with Jim, Jim Croce
4. The Joker, Steve Miller Band
5. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Neil Diamond