Carpenters - Interpretations

The Carpenters - Gold: Greatest Hits It's a measure of the ongoing popularity of Karen and Richard Carpenter that the 2002 release of this video collection in DVD format comes nearly 20 years after Karen's death. The duo's heyday mostly preceded the MTV age, so this 15-song, 55-minute anthology is a bit of a visual ...	Close to You - Remembering the Carpenters When Karen Carpenter died on February 4, 1983 at the age of 32, more than one generation mourned. Karen and her brother, Richard, had achieved monumental success as purveyors of soft-rock soulfulness, aided by their wholesome, wistful looks. After all, these were the hard-rocking...	As Time Goes By	This Is Your Life 70's Music Icons - Richand & Karen Carpenter and Shirley Jones Richard and Karen Carpenter - Brother and sister pop duo. They were the best-selling American vocalists of the 1970s with hits like We've Only Just Begun and Close To You.Shirley Jones - The Partridge Family's singing mom is also a Broadway star and an Oscar(R) winner. Guests i...	Carpenters Gold: 35th Anniversary Edition
Horizon	Now & Then	Close to You: Remembering ...	Yesterday Once More: Memories of the Carpenters and Their Music With "Close To You," "We've Only Just Begun," "Rainy Days and Mondays," "Yesterday Once More," "Top of the World" and a string of other hits, the Carpenters were responsible for some of the most popular music of the 1970s. Karen Carpenter's warm and distinctive vocals and Ri...	Close to You When the Carpenters found themselves with a sudden radio hit ("Close to You"), their record company put the pressure on them to come up with a whole album. The album's glue is, of course, the unabashedly sentimental and corny title track and the subsequent chart topper, "We've On...

A trifle for the truly dedicated
Even if, like me, you have an appreciation of the Carpenters that goes beyond their camp appeal, this selection of performances from various TV specials functions only as camp. The hits are familiar and the performances so robotically professional that there's not much to do but gape at the awful 70s sets and Karen's brutally unflattering outfits. There are only a few songs, and the whole thing goes by in a flash. Probably not worth owning unless you're a Carpenters completist.

CARPENTERS VIDEO INTERPRETATIONS
First issued as a music CD, this DVD is a collection of videos set to the music from the CD. It is an excellent travel through time of Carpenters music and their different looks through a decade. There are performance clips from guest spots on variety shows as well as from their own specials. The thing you come away with is the realization that Karen Carpenter had an effortlessly beautiful voice made all the more evident when you compare her perfect phrasing compared to today's multi-octave shrieking 'singers.' Buy this collection if you have not yet.

Admittedly a mixed bag
Even for a seventies child like me who had this music on the radio while I was finishing breakfast and heading for school on many a morning, this DVD leaves something to be desired. One reviewer is correct in noting that the great songbird Karen Carpenter looks unsure of herself in most of these clips and that makes it somewhat difficult to watch. Plus, the DVD is way too short. They may have been better off with the excellent live Carpenters' performances from the Ed Sullivan show in 1970 included. On the other hand, there's of course the beautiful music, which disarms much criticism. This also captures the spirit of many musical variety shows of the early 70s. This also includes the almost forgotten "Bless the Beasts and the Children" which turns to gold as almost anything the Carpenters' touched. Even a bizarre tune like "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft," in the tradition of bizarre attempts at message songs of the era, sounds like sheer beauty and bliss out of Karen Carpenter's mouth. (The intro with the spooked-out radio DJ is a nice touch). Watch this and "It's yesterday Once More" (oops! That song isn't included here...oh well).

Brilliant, a bit twee, painful to watch, too short!
[...] This DVD is a version of the video of the same title, which was longer by a couple of songs and about 7 minutes. Karen's singing is brilliant as usual and she again demonstrates that she could sing anything put in front of her by her brother, a master in arrangements and production - who could play piano with the absolute best. They were supported by an excellent band of musicians and the sum amounted to a truly fantastic sound. The Carpenters are my all-time favourites and should have been there for the whole musical journey. However, Karen's untimely death from complications caused by anorexia nervosa which, it seems, resulted in her suffering heart failure, meant that the journey ended all too prematurely. Karen is the main focus of attention on any Carpenters recording. Here is no different; but the videos stem from the 1970s when the Carpenters, for me, suffered from awkwardness and self-consciousness in front of the camera so, on occasions, the lip-synching doesn't always seem to work and Karen's facial and head movements seem affected and contrived. Strangely, some of the earlier videos look better, probably because she is behind a drum kit or has a microphone in her hand, Also, and the point about some of it being painful to watch, the later videos show Karen looking terribly thin and, particularly, on the penultimate video ("When I Fall In Love"), she reminds me of Nancy Reagan, with gaunt looks and a hair style which is very uncomplimentary - she looks more like 80 than 30! Having said that, the only other things wrong with this are that there are no extras on this DVD and it is all over in only 37 minutes, which seems to be a desperate waste of disk space. Onto the good things - it's got all the ingredients that Carpenters fans would expect, but "Reason To Believe" and "Bless The Beasts And The Children" are lovely surprise inclusions and the video of "Calling Occupants...." is better than the version seen on other collections of their videos (except Tony Peluso's DJ piece at the start, which is the same clip). So should you buy it? Your choice, but you might find other collections of songs which are better. For die-hard Carpenters fans, yes, go and buy it.

Excellent
This DVD is great! Some nice hits, and also some lesser known songs. Wow!