Superstardom, anorexia and Karen Carpenter's amazing purity

I hope you like the new blog look. That's a self-portrait I drew, then needed a place for it. So here it is. And he's saying "Uh, because I just like it?" which is pretty much my motto when it comes to loving music. This song is an amazing example.



Soon I'll get back to my CBCR3, indie, new-music vibe, but lately it's been all about the old favourites.

The Carpenters are this manufactured, disrespected pop group from the early '70s who signaled a return to a purer sound, away from loud (but not so hard) rock and into the leave+peace era. At least that's how my Mom describes them.

To me, they're this gem of inanity, the simpleton soul music only sung so sweetly. Karen and her brother Richard Carpenter were snatched up by record execs and, yes, manipulated into an image of, well, Christianity — a return to American Values that was so desperately sought by U.S. conservatives of the day. So much so that Nixon invited the pair to sing at the Whitehouse. I think Nixon played piano for them.

These days, I think it's fair to revisit the Carpenters and remove them from that "inauthentic" context. "Rainy Days and Mondays" is the song to experiment with. It shows what so many people loved about Karen: her dashing, blue vibrato that, in retrospect, speaks volumes about her tormented life. She of course suffered from anorexia and died after overdosing on laxatives.

So it goes.