appalling remastering

There is little purpose for me to try to define the musical content of this album, as a fan of the Carpenters since age 5 (and probably before), I am satisfied by the inclusion of all their hits in 1 album.



HOWEVER, the actual sound quality of this CD is a different story. The remastering is a complete disaster, and I am surprised that a famous engineer like Bernie Grundman and/or Rich Carpenter can put their names on this.



The sounds are completely unbalanced. The vocals which should be the main emphasis are thin and scratchy with excessive echo, and are completely dominated by the muddy instrumentals. Don't try to listen this CD with headphones or good speakers. I am puzzled by some percussion bits which seem to be added to the originals (as pointed out by other reviewers).



Also I disagree with the excuse that LPs cannot be faithfully represented on CDs. Recent remasters of Bob Marley's albums are simply spectacular, in spite of the fact that they were probably recorded with inferior equipment to begin with compared to the Carpenters.



This CD really damages my memories of the Carpenters; I think Karen deserves better.



EDIT- It seems that the prior iteration of this album Singles 1969-1973 (now out of print) may have better acoustics though less songs. Just received my copy. Beautiful original versions with full range of karen's vocals and the original instruments. Simply beautiful, get that one instead.

If you want the originals get the LPs or the SACD versions!

Richard seems to have kept remixing the CD versions to try to compensate for the appalling sound quality limitations inherent in the CD format. The new SACD format discs contain five times the data density of CDs and this translates into 500 times greater resolution than 16 bit CDs offer. Its is technically impossible to reproduce the original mixes on a CD, but it is possible to do so on SACD or its arguably less innovative rival DVD Audio. Other than that, if you want the originals, then buy the originals on vinyl LP: they are vastly better than the CDs and indeed they are still as good as SACD, the best digital format available, although don't expect to do them justice by playing them on a $50 dollar turntable of the kind included in a bargain Japanese Hi-Fi stack - a decent turntable costs about $200 e.g the Project Debut. And you can still buy brand new turntables costing up to around £30,000. Vinyl records have remained popular with audiophiles.



I'd like to challenge critism of the Carpenters' song entitled 'Sing', having read comments that it is a sappy, semi-novelty tune of no particular merit. I believe, on the contrary, that it is a magnificent anthem to the innocence of childhood and that only an ignoramus could fail to appreciate that. The song is a joy to listen to, especially when, as in my case, it dates from your own childhood days. It is a cheerful uplifting song, with as ever a hint of sorrow, owing to the subtly discordent, enharmonic overtones - bell-like rather than flutey - apparently present in Karen's remarkable voice, overtones that evoke intense emotion and tension, and which project a sense of transcendent consciousness and 'presence'. The song is moreover, exquisitely crafted, in part because the children's choir featured, owes much of its remarkable beauty to the fact that one of the 'children' was no less than Karen Carpenter herself, doing a deft impersonation of a child's vocal, presumably to enhance the timbral integration with her own lead.



The SACD version of this disc will be available on Jan 5th 2005. A DVD Audio version will also be released. I strongly recommend music lovers to buy an SACD player or a DVD Universal player with SACD and DVD Audio capability. Most SACDs will play on standard CD players in standard CD mode but inn order to hear the high resolution SACD mode you will need a dedicated SACD or universal DVD Audio/SACD player.



Paul

Too Many Redone songs!

How many times is Richard Carpenter going to muck with the original masters to "spruce" these songs up? I wanted the original version of the songs on this CD, not poor redos! From a collector's standpoint this is a waste of money because songs like "It's Going To Take Some Time", "Goodbye to Love", "Superstar", and "Yesterday Once More" were redone and can be found on other numerous Carpenters collections. "It's Going To Take Some Time" here has a "staccato" choppy sound to me, and a different piano to boot. "Goodbye to Love" is also redone using different instruments, and "Yesterday Once More" suffers from the same. The CD should be titled "The Singles 1969-1981 Redone". True some songs are original or at least seem like it, such as "For All We Know" with a reprise at the end, "Bless The Beasts and The Children", and a few others. But really, if we're going to get "the singles", why can't we have the original single version of "Top Of The World" without the twangy steel guitars? My 45 doesn't sound that way! Message to Richard Carpenter: Go back to the original masters, if you even know which ones they are, give us those original versions, and then please, please stay out of the recording studio.