Carpenters: Close to You [A&M]

Why you'll love it

This remastered 180g pressing brings back the album that made Karen and Richard Carpenter international stars. It topped the Canadian Albums Chart, reached No. 2 in the US and won them Grammys for Best New Artist and Best Contemporary Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus.

This edition

• Remastered
• 180g vinyl
• Stereo mix

About the album

Plenty of songs start life as adverts; very few end up as wedding standards. "We've Only Just Begun," written by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols, first turned up in a 1970 Crocker-Citizens Bank commercial about a couple starting their married life, and that August it became the duo's second gold single.

Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "(They Long to Be) Close to You" had passed through several singers' hands in the 60s before Richard arranged it and devoted it to Karen. It spent four weeks at No. 1 and gave them their first top 10 hit. Session great Hal Blaine is on drums, Richard's arrangements glow, and Karen's voice does the rest. "Love Is Surrender" came from a Christian musical the siblings knew as teenagers, "Maybe It's You" is a Richard original, and covers of "Help," "Baby It's You" and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" get the full Carpenters treatment.

Rolling Stone ranked it No. 175 on its list of the 500 greatest albums, and in the UK it spent 76 weeks in the top 50. It's the record we put on after a long Saturday, and nobody has ever asked us to turn it off, which in a record shop counts as a minor miracle.

Also at Kops: more Carpenters on vinyl · browse Pop

Tracklist

Listen

On A&M (cat# B0026336-01), a reissue of the 1970 album.