For an easy listening album, this is surprisingly difficult to listen to, but not for the reasons you might expect. It opens with the syrupy-sweet ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’ which weirdly enough was written as an advertising jingle for a real estate company to sell mortgages to newly weds. Things pick up a bit after a while with Karen Carpenter’s gorgeous vocals being perfectly suited to the three Burt Bacharach songs on this album, and a haunting cover of Help by the Beatles.
Reading the back story to this album revealed a tragedy waiting to happen. Karen was an extraordinarily talented drummer (just search for clips of her playing on YouTube) but her pushy parents and somewhat controlling older brother Richard forced her into the spotlight as lead vocalist, singing sappy songs instead of the upbeat numbers she preferred. Karen managed to play drums on a couple of tracks on this album, and it’s interesting to hear the jazzy, progressive sound on the final track ‘Another Song’ as maybe the style that she preferred.
Karen Carpenter was only 20 when this album was recorded, and her struggles with anorexia and the demands of being in the public eye are well documented. She recorded a solo album, fronting the $400,000 costs, and was devastated when the studio (and her brother) refused to release it. She also suffered in an unhappy marriage to a much older man and passed away from a heart attack aged only 32.
In retrospect, her recording of Help seems painfully prescient. Rest in peace Karen.
https://album.link/gb/i/1423766994
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