On a melodic and harmonic level the Carpenter's music is very accomplished.
The music creates a certain mood for me and I can enjoy the pristine wistfulness.
However, after ten or twelve songs I typically feel an enervation at the lack of fore grounded rhythm, the lack of any rock physicality.
I could not subsist on a musical diet lacking in these qualities mentioned latterly.
So...
NOT CRAP
Waffles:
I get giddy after about 14 tracks.
Their version of "Da Doo Ron Ron" is only slightly less wimpy than Daniel O'Donnell's version.
Group: The Carpenters
42steve wrote:Q: Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?
A: You smell like a rotting carcass.
Regarding defense of the Carpenters' "songcraft" and the like, I am unmoved. This is probably because I don't believe songcraft exists as divorced from the totality of that which makes a song audible. It is a conceit that professional songwriters have adopted as a way of validating their profession.
Certain lyrics have good turns of phrase, sure, and certain musical passages have interest, but I believe it is impossible for a song by itself, divorced from execution, to be either good or bad.
Here's a little experiment you all can try (because I have already been exposed to many trials of it myself). Take a "good song" (one you have liked for what you perceive to be its songwriting), and have it played by a poor-to-average band, co-mingled with their other poor-to-average material. The "good song" is not noticeably better than the poor-to-average material, is it?
This is an experience one endures whenever bad bands play famous songs, and everyone concedes that the band must be bad, because they could not even execute a pre-ordained good song.
Certain songs ("Louie Louie" comes to mind) are done passably by almost anyone, but they are not actually good unless done by someone who invests quite a bit of himself in the song.
That's because the song by itself is meaningless.
So, do I like the Carpenters? No, not really. But there is a really sad quality to Karen Carpenter's singing that is evidence of the kind of personal investment I mentioned above. I think it is genuine music for her. It is evidence of a particular aesthetic and world view, and I can imagine really getting into it if I was sensitive to that particular frame of mind.
What's good about it, if anything is, is the relationship Karen Carpenter had to her music, and what she was trying to convey with this patently-bummed-out delivery of notionally cheery text.
Anybody else performing this music (god knows enough idiots try) is evidence that the formal structure of the music is utterly unimportant. There is a booming industry in Nashville based on this transparently phony notion that someone can go off and write a "good song." It is one of many things to ridicule about Nashville.
The opinions expressed in this post- that "songcraft" is an illusion invented by professional songwriters for job security/justification, that when a bad band plays a good song it doesn't sound any better than their bad songs- these opinons are very strange.
Last edited by Angus Jung on Mon Nov 27, 2006 3:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Group: The Carpenters
43steve wrote:What's good about it, if anything is, is the relationship Karen Carpenter had to her music, and what she was trying to convey with this patently-bummed-out delivery of notionally cheery text.
Anybody else performing this music (god knows enough idiots try) is evidence that the formal structure of the music is utterly unimportant. There is a booming industry in Nashville based on this transparently phony notion that someone can go off and write a "good song." It is one of many things to ridicule about Nashville.
Interesting -- some people talk about how music supposedly used to be... 'it wasn't so much the singer, it was the song!' -- Tin Pan Alley, etc. But I think you're right, that's not the whole story. The two are definitely linked. But, I think one can still appreciate compositional aspects of a song as part of the whole equation when evaluating someone's music. Especially when the singer is the one writing the songs. I also think that The Carpenters had both good 'craft' and emotional delivery... to an extent. I'm not the hugest Carpenters fan or anything -- they just have a few songs that can really get me if I'm in the right mood. If these songs were only two chords, I don't know if they'd have the same impact (regardless of the emotional weight Karen Carpenter's delivery may put forth).
Group: The Carpenters
44Angus Jung wrote:The opinions expressed in this post- that "songcraft" is an illusion invented by professional songwriters for job security/justification,
Not invented, but used. It was invented by the greater music industry, when the term referred only to sheet music publisihng.
that when a bad band plays a good song it doesn't sound any better than their bad songs- these opinons are very strange.
Please listen to Winger's cover of "Purple Haze" for clarification on this point.
steve albini
Electrical Audio
sa at electrical dot com
Quicumque quattuor feles possidet insanus est.
Electrical Audio
sa at electrical dot com
Quicumque quattuor feles possidet insanus est.
Group: The Carpenters
45Angus Jung wrote:The opinions expressed in this post- that "songcraft" is an illusion invented by professional songwriters for job security/justification,
steve wrote:Not invented, but used. It was invented by the greater music industry, when the term referred only to sheet music publisihng.
A songwriter writes a song. Hoagy Carmichael, for instance, wrote "Stardust." This is a song that a great number of (completely deluded, of course) people believe is a "good song." And the industry wrongly made this hack a rich man via sheet music sales, etc. I think this is the claim you are making. I also think it is a strange claim.
Willie Nelson recorded a version of "Stardust." He also recorded a version of "To All The Girls I Loved Before," with Julio Iglesias. Judging from his recorded performances, he had about the same level of discernible personal connection with both songs.
I guess this means that, according to you, the songs are of equally negligable aesthetic value. I personally do not believe this to be the case. I personally believe that anyone who does must have shit for ears.
Angus Jung wrote:that when a bad band plays a good song it doesn't sound any better than their bad songs- these opinons are very strange.
steve wrote:Please listen to Winger's cover of "Purple Haze" for clarification on this point.
"Purple Haze" is a totally average rock song, from the standpoint of songcraft (fuck the quotation marks around this word). The melody and chord progression of "Purple Haze" is not particularly interesting. The lyrics are trite boy/girl stuff with dated 'psychedelic' Bromo-Seltzer added.
"Purple Haze" is a song that can only be made "audible," to use your strange word choice, by a great performance. I don't believe this to be the case for all songs.
Group: The Carpenters
46My point is that Hoagie Carmichael's finest song, "Georgia on My Mind," performed by an ordinary-to-bad artist would not be a discernably "better" listening experience than, say, some other shit.
Unimaginative crap, however, or even random nonsense made up on the spot, if imbued with personality and intent, can be mind-blowingly good. It can be good even in the hands of people incapable of any other greatness. Witness the two-chord majesty of "Roadrunner" by the affected, pretend-retard Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.
Is that a "good song?" Who cares. The song is a small part of the equation.
Shania Twain has the "best" songs hunted down for her like rabbits. She has a capable voice and professional backing musicians. Surely her records must be incredible. Yet, they blow.
Unimaginative crap, however, or even random nonsense made up on the spot, if imbued with personality and intent, can be mind-blowingly good. It can be good even in the hands of people incapable of any other greatness. Witness the two-chord majesty of "Roadrunner" by the affected, pretend-retard Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.
Is that a "good song?" Who cares. The song is a small part of the equation.
Shania Twain has the "best" songs hunted down for her like rabbits. She has a capable voice and professional backing musicians. Surely her records must be incredible. Yet, they blow.
steve albini
Electrical Audio
sa at electrical dot com
Quicumque quattuor feles possidet insanus est.
Electrical Audio
sa at electrical dot com
Quicumque quattuor feles possidet insanus est.
Group: The Carpenters
47steve wrote:My point is that Hoagie Carmichael's finest song, "Georgia on My Mind," performed by an ordinary-to-bad artist would not be a discernably "better" listening experience than, say, some other shit.
Unimaginative crap, however, or even random nonsense made up on the spot, if imbued with personality and intent, can be mind-blowingly good. It can be good even in the hands of people incapable of any other greatness. Witness the two-chord majesty of "Roadrunner" by the affected, pretend-retard Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.
Is that a "good song?" Who cares. The song is a small part of the equation.
Shania Twain has the "best" songs hunted down for her like rabbits. She has a capable voice and professional backing musicians. Surely her records must be incredible. Yet, they blow.
I dunno, Steve. I have heard bad bands that come up with a song in their setlist that grabs me, and then I find out it's a cover....(that's how I found out about the Saints, years ago). With your Shania Twain example..they're not hunting down the 'best' songs. They're hunting down the songs which will contain the biggest pablum for the biggest amount of people. This has never been the best artistry. Bach in his later life (when he was writing his best stuff) was overshadowed by his son, who wrote cheesy little maudlin pieces for Frederick the Great.
I will concede your point, slightly, because of the category 'bad songs made good'. But I will always excuse more for the song (bad production, over production, crappy singing, wretched musicanship) than I will for the performer. Maybe it's not black and white Platonic ideals, but I believe there is a quality that makes some songs intrinsically rise above others...doesn't the endless interpretation of centuries old classical music prove my point?
Group: The Carpenters
48Does this dismissal of the actual information of which the performance is a performance of extend to classical music? One can listen to, for instance, a rote and uninspired pass through a Bartok string quartet, and come away saying, "Those four guys there turned in a rote and uninspired reading of that piece of music, but it's still a good piece of music." You can read that it's a good piece of music on the page and "hear" just how fabulous it will sound being played by imaginative and emotionally invested executants. The duff rendition from one set of unengaged journeymen in no way corrupts the source material.
A bad cook can louse up a fine recipe. It's still a good recipe; in the hands of a competent cook, the same instructions about when to add what increment of which substance under what conditions could produce a pleasing result. In the hands of an exceptional chef, maybe something remarkable. You need those hands, fresh ingredients, and the proper tools, before it's a satisfying eating experience, but nothing anyone can do in following those instructions can change the value of the recipe as a set of instructions, which, followed properly, will produce a pleasing result.
So it is, I think, with "Victoria." There are many bad versions of it, and several good, but nothing can change its intrinsic worth as a definitive marriage of words and music. It rules. Always will.
A bad cook can louse up a fine recipe. It's still a good recipe; in the hands of a competent cook, the same instructions about when to add what increment of which substance under what conditions could produce a pleasing result. In the hands of an exceptional chef, maybe something remarkable. You need those hands, fresh ingredients, and the proper tools, before it's a satisfying eating experience, but nothing anyone can do in following those instructions can change the value of the recipe as a set of instructions, which, followed properly, will produce a pleasing result.
So it is, I think, with "Victoria." There are many bad versions of it, and several good, but nothing can change its intrinsic worth as a definitive marriage of words and music. It rules. Always will.
utterly impossible as are all these events they are probably as like those which may have taken place as any others which may have took person at all are ever likely to be
Group: The Carpenters
49"It's the singer, not the song, that makes the music move along"
Food analogies cannot apply properly to music.
Food analogies cannot apply properly to music.
Group: The Carpenters
50steve wrote:Unimaginative crap, however, or even random nonsense made up on the spot, if imbued with personality and intent, can be mind-blowingly good. It can be good even in the hands of people incapable of any other greatness. Witness the two-chord majesty of "Roadrunner" by the affected, pretend-retard Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.
This is certainly true.
On a personal level, I am more interested in hearing (and making) "random nonsense, imbued with personality and intent" than I am with hearing a good performance of a great song like "Georgia On My Mind."
I maintain that, as long as its lyrics and melody are adhered to, "Georgia On My Mind" was built to withstand whatever anybody could do to it. If a bad songwriter and performer included "Georgia On My Mind" in a set alongside his bad songs, "Georgia On My Mind" would easily stand out.
I also maintain that the Carpenters are pretty interesting. Some of the songs they wrote were very well-crafted. Karen Carpenter probably believed in them.
I don't think she was trying, as T. Midgett so perceptively put it, to make "We've Only Just Begun" into a song that conveys a "barely concealed terror" of an intimate relationship. But she did.
In this case, her performance of these good, well-crafted songs is where the art/interest lies. For me anyway.