OK today I would like to write about music.I know every one in this world love music and even some animal do.Music is wonderful and pleasant and there are so many kind of music present today.What I am writing now is on music call "melodic pop".When you mention melodic pop we had to go back a few years behind the past on the era we callt "the 70's".The era were I born and grew.When we talked about pop in the 70's only one came to my mind.The "Carpenters"! I believe today no one would ever knew whom they are.But I believe if you are in a same era with me or even older and expose to western music you will certainly remember "Carpenter".They melodies pop still rock to this day and I had plenty of their hits songs downloaded in my mp3 so I can listen when I driving.
Carpenter creates such a lovely song and "Top Of The World" is one of my big time favourite.I am writing this so we can re-visit again a glimpse of Karen and Richard Carpenter life.
Carpenters were an American vocal and instrumental duo, consisting of sister Karen and brother Richard Carpenter. The Carpenters were the #1 selling American music act of the 1970s.Though often referred to by the public as "The Carpenters", the duo's official name on authorized recordings and press materials is simply Carpenters, without the definite article.During a period in the 1970s when louder and wilder rock was in great demand, Richard and Karen produced a distinctively soft musical style that made them among the best-selling music artists of all time.
Carpenters' melodic pop produced a record-breaking run of hit recordings on the American Top 40 and Adult Contemporary charts, and they became leading sellers in the soft rock, easy listening and adult contemporary genres. Carpenters had three #1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and fifteen #1 hits on the Adult Contemporary Chart.In addition, they had twelve top 10 singles (including their #1 hits).To date,Carpenters' album and single sales total more than 100 million units.
During their 14-year career, the Carpenters recorded 11 albums, five of which contained top 10 singles (Close to You, Carpenters, A Song for You, Now & Then and Horizon), thirty-one singles, five television specials, and one short-lived television series. They toured in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium. Their recording career ended with Karen's death in 1983 from cardiac arrest following complications of anorexia nervosa. Extensive news coverage of the circumstances surrounding her death increased public awareness of the consequences of eating disorders.
One of the elements that made the music of the Carpenters distinctive was Karen's use of her low register. Though present in jazz and country music, there were few contralto singers in popular music at the time. However, Karen did have a wide vocal range that spanned about three octaves.Richard's voice was said to be very complementary to that of Karen's. Although Karen had great upper range to her voice, they never realized it until she recorded some albums like "Lovelines", so they mostly concentrated on her lower range (or her "basement", as Karen called it).
Although he played many keyboard instruments during the band's existence, including grand piano, harpsichord, Hammond organ and synthesizer, Richard is best known as an endorser of Wurlitzer's electric pianos, whose sound he described as "warm" and "beautiful". He would often double his acoustic piano parts with a Wurlitzer in the studio to thicken the sound, creating one of the 1970s' most distinctive keyboard sounds. From the mid-1970s Richard also used Fender Rhodes pianos, often having an acoustic grand as well as both Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos on stage for different songs.
Apart from being a singer, Karen was also an accomplished drummer, and often played the drums on their pre-1974 songs. According to Richard, she considered herself a "drummer who sang".
Karen was barely visible behind the drums during live performances. Although unwilling, she and Richard eventually reached a performance compromise: during the ballads she would sing standing and through the lesser known songs she would sit. As the years progressed, demand for Karen's vocals began to overshadow her drumming time, and gradually she played the drums less. By the A Kind of Hush album in 1976, Karen did not play the drums at all.
The Carpenters' arrangements, many done by Richard, are often praised. Most of the arrangements are classical in style, with many strings, and sometimes brass and woodwinds ("Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" used over 160 singers and musicians).Music critic Daniel Levitin called Richard Carpenter "one of the most gifted arrangers to emerge in popular music."
That's go into our memory lane on The Carpenters with their melodies song which is an evergreen hits till today.
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