ChudFusk wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 5:37 am I've loved "Superstar" ever since Tommy Boy.

I karaoked "Superstar" at a gay sports bar and didn't get noticed. It was one of the most depressing live performances I've ever committed.

"Close To You" is a classic thanks to The Muppets.

"Curl up by the fireside and listen to the non-threatening music of this showman"

Love 'em.

Purely deeply sad as fuck music.

They were certainly trying to do something bigger and more broadly appealing than that, but man it's just stone cold bummertown the whole way. Couldn't help it.

We've Only Just Begun is prototypical--it's all tricked up to be a wedding song, and the fact that it worked blows my mind.
The very end gives away the whole game.
It's not a song sung by someone who is going to make it--and it sounded that way at the time...that's not some retroactive analysis post-Karen's death or whatever.

Every element of their shit is melancholy somehow. The tambourine is melancholy. It's like their entire catalog is terminally ill.

Peak Wurlitzer

I like Superstar like everyone else with a pulse who isn’t visibly angered by it. The OG Carpenters version is much better than Sonic Youth’s but that’s no knock against Thurston and co.

I want also want to see that banned movie - not sure if it’s an option but I really haven’t tried very hard.

Do you think anyone archived the hate mail they received for the guitar solo in Goodbye to Love? That would make a great book, I'll wager, full of 'your mother knits socks in hell' censored fury.

eephus wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 11:19 am
They were certainly trying to do something bigger and more broadly appealing than that, but man it's just stone cold bummertown the whole way. Couldn't help it.

One of the only songs I know by them is 'Merry Christmas Darling', and it almost makes me cry, it just sounds sad. I don't know enough of their music to cast a vote.

My parents were fans and saw them in concert once.

You know you're about to embark on an epic night of celestial love-making once your partner drops this slow jam.

Not Crap. Love that brown compilation LP.

I always attributed the neither-sad-nor-happy weird, melancholy vibe to Bacharach's songs, but I guess he didn't write as many of those as I thought.

Impossible to go to work on an a rainy Monday morning without singing Carpenters.

Not a fan, but KC’s story was so tragic that I can’t vote crap. Same goes for Mama Cass.

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 12:21 pm I want also want to see that banned movie - not sure if it’s an option but I really haven’t tried very hard.

Saw it decades ago on a bootlegged tape that some video store in Wicker Park stocked. (Or maybe it was a different video store? Can’t remember.) I wonder if would seem film school-y now. Liked it quite a bit at the time, though.

Wood Goblin wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 3:38 pm Not a fan, but KC’s story was so tragic that I can’t vote crap. Same goes for Mama Cass.

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 12:21 pm I want also want to see that banned movie - not sure if it’s an option but I really haven’t tried very hard.

Saw it decades ago on a bootlegged tape that some video store in Wicker Park stocked. (Or maybe it was a different video store? Can’t remember.) I wonder if would seem film school-y now. Liked it quite a bit at the time, though.

Youtubes, knock yourself out....