Episode notes
The Album: The Carpenters’ A Song For You (1972)
dulcet (adjective) used to describe a sound that is soothing and soft, like the dulcet harmonies in a 70s pop song or the dulcet tones of a harp.
It seems like Karen Carpenter invented dulcet tones. Her velvet buttery vocals floated and soared on songs like “We’ve Only Just Begun”, “Top Of The World”, “Close To You”. Alongside her brother Richard, she created a signature sound built around layered arrangements and harmonies.
Our guest, Pop Rocket’s own Karen Tongson, sat with us on Heat Rocks to deep dive into the Carpenters seminal, Close To You, their second studio album released on August 19th, 1970. We talked about what made Karen Carpenter’s voice inimitable and extraordinary, how the Carpenters invented the power ballad, Karen’s enunciation and lower register, and listened to acapellas that made us all swoon.
Karen’s book “Why Karen Carpenter” makes its debut on June 1st and will cover all the ground we didn’t in this episode, sans music, but Heat Rocks recommends that you listen to music of The Carpenters in prep!
More on Karen Tongson
- Karen Tongson on Why Karen Carpenter Matters (UTexas Press)
- Preorder Karen’s book here
- Twitter | Instagram
More on A Song For You
- Karen Carpenter’s tragic story (The Guardian)
- Remembering Karen Carpenter, 30 Years Later” (NPR)
- Flashback: Karen Carpenter Takes Country Music to the White House (Rolling Stone)
Show Tracklisting (all songs from A Song For You unless indicated otherwise):
- Hurting Each Other
- Goodbye to Love
- The Carpenters: We’ve Only Just Begun
- Donny Hathaway: A Song For You
- A Song For You
- Piano Picker
- Crystal Lullaby
- I Won’t Last A Day Without You
- Diana Ross: I Won’t Last A Day Without You
- I Won’t Last A Day Without You
- Intermission
- The Carpenters: Rainy Days and Mondays (isolated vocals)
- Goodbye to Love
- Road Ode
- I Won’t Last A Day Without You
- Top of the World
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In this episode...
Guests
- Karen Tongson
About the show
Hosted by Oliver Wang and Morgan Rhodes, every episode of Heat Rocks invites a special guest to talk about a heat rock – a hot album, a scorching record. These are in-depth conversations about the albums that shape our lives.
Our guests include musicians, writers, and scholars and though we don’t exclusively focus on any one genre, expect to hear about albums from the worlds of soul, hip-hop, funk, jazz, Latin, and more.
New episodes every Thursday on Apple Podcasts or whatever you get your podcasts.
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