I participate in a lot of online discussions about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I know that it is of little interest to some of you, but I like doing it.
Even if the entire concept seems to have gone off the rails, I find that sharing opinions about who is and is not worthy opens my eyes to artists I have not truly considered before. At times, that results in a newfound appreciation for a band I had long undervalued.
Most of the time, it does not. It simply confirms my dearly held opinion.
And then, once in a blue moon, these discussions actually make me happy when I discover that I am not alone in what I thought was an unpopular opinion. Such is the case – at least to a certain degree – with the Carpenters.
Should the Carpenters be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?
The Carpenters are kind of like a 1970s musical version of The Big Bang Theory. Both were monster successes. Both were reviled by the cool kids as signaling the end of a glorious tradition – rock & roll and the studio sitcom.
And I’m not sure a single snippet of dialogue captures the Carpenter conundrum better than something uttered by BBT’s Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) in season 5’s “The Hawking Excitation.” Speaking to his “friend,” the engineer Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), Sheldon tells him…
“I have never said you are not good at what you do. It’s just that what you do is not worth doing.”
This is the backhanded compliment world of Karen and Richard Carpenter.
So the question today is simple: should the brother and sister act be inducted into the RRHOF? I have seen a lot of support for them recently, and I am very happy about it. But does that mean they should be in? I promise to answer that soon. First, understand where I am coming from.
Growing up in the 1970s, I hated the Carpenters. I don’t know of any teenage boy back then who liked them. If they did, they certainly didn’t own up to it.
Fifty years later, I would rather listen to the Carpenters – well, some of the Carpenters – than most of the bands I liked back then. It's probably simply because I’ve changed as I’ve grown old. But I should note that I have tickets in the next few months to Bikini Kill and the Bobby Lees, so I don’t think I have changed all that much.
Here’s the case for induction. In the first half of the 1970s, the Carpenters had 13 Top Ten singles in the USA, three of which went to Number One. On the Adult Contemporary chart (then known as “Easy Listening”), they had 15 Number Ones. 15! That’s second only to Elton John all-time.
On the other side of the ledger … well, plenty of people don’t really like those songs. And they certainly don’t consider them rock & roll.
Richard Carpenter, older brother, piano player, arranger, and composer, did not feel that way. He thought of himself as a rock & roller, albeit with eclectic tastes that appreciated the baroque and the classical. He thought he was jazzing up older music and making it new. In a way, he was. There were modern flourishes in plenty of the Carpenters’ hits.
Still, compared to Three Dog Night, the band the Carpenters’ first Number One hit “(They Long to Be) Close to You” displaced from the top spot in the summer of 1970, they were not really rock. And Three Dog Night wasn’t exactly hard rock either.
Against that success, detractors will argue that the duo never had a great album. They were much more inclined to follow the pattern established in the 1950s of just sticking a few hits onto an LP, surrounded by a lot of inferior filler. There’s a good reason why their only Number One album was a singles compilation released in 1973. (They did have three original albums hit Number Two.)
In that sense, the Carpenters were throwbacks, and not in a good way. Coherent albums, whether deemed “concept” or not, had become fairly commonplace by the time Richard and Karen came along.
I’m not that big a fan of the duo’s three Number One hits – “Close to You,” “Top of the World,” and “Please Mr. Postman.” The first two are OK. The last is embarrassing.
But there are other hits in their discography that rank among the most beautiful pop songs ever put to vinyl. “Rainy Days and Mondays” is absolutely sublime. “Yesterday Once More” is lovely nostalgia. “Superstar” proved that they could do a cover that surpassed a strong original.
It is on those songs that the first part of the Sheldon Cooper line comes into play. They were very good at what they did. They found songs by top-flight writers like Paul Williams and Roger Nichols, Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett, among others, and employed the best session players in L.A. – Hal Blaine, Joe Osborn, Buddy Emmons, etc.
And of course, there was Karen. The songs and the backing musicians were the scaffolding. Karen’s voice was the star. It was arguably the greatest voice in the history of American soft rock … or easy listening … or adult contemporary.
Call it what you will. When Karen sang, that voice demanded attention. She did not possess the power of Janis or Whitney. She never showed the rhythmic chops of Dionne. But the tone and emotional resonance – the intimacy – has never been surpassed.
So, should the Carpenters be in the RRHOF? My answer is no. As big a fan as I have become, I think their brand of music is too far afield of my conception of rock & roll. This is an ongoing debate, made possible by the fact that the RRHOF never really offers explanations of its standards. That is, if there are any standards at all.
Voters vote their feelings – at least that’s how it seems to the general public. My feelings are that “Rainy Days and Mondays” should be on the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry and in the Grammys' Hall of Fame. (The Carpenters do have two songs in the Grammys' Hall of Fame – they just aren't the right two.)
But I’m saying no to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Perhaps if and when they change the name to Pop Music Hall of Fame, I’ll get on board. For now, I’ll just revel in the beauty of Karen Carpenter’s voice – her non-RRHOF voice.
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