Graded on a Curve:
Carpenters,
The Singles (1969-1973)

Twenty reasons why I love the Carpenters:

1. Richard Nixon called the Carpenters “Young America at its best,” but secretly they were commies.

2. It’s hard to pigeonhole the Carpenters’s “sound,” but I would place them in the category of “Connecticut Funk.”

3. The Carpenters’ “feel good” melodies are timeless, the arrangements sublime. There’s a reason they ruled the early seventies with an iron fist.

4. Ginger Baker’s drum solo on Cream’s”Toad” clocks in at 12 minutes. Karen Carpenter’s drum solo on “(They Long to Be) Close to you” clocks in at 12 hours.

5. Used to be you were uncool if you loved the Carpenters. Now you’re uncool if you hate them. You need a goddamn scorecard.

6. Richard Carpenter was known to ride a motorcycle on stage. Seriously.

7. I saw the Carpenters play live. I am a superior being.

8. Richard Carpenter once said, “Our music is accessible to everyone who knows the difference between a demitasse and seafood fork.”

9. Carpenters concerts wouldn’t have been the same without “Drums” and “Space.”

10. The Carpenters have lifted the spirits of millions of people across the globe. I’m one of them.

11. In 1971 Karen Carpenter shoved a drumstick into the eye of a guy named Vernon Bittle during a bar brawl in Eudora, Kansas. Bittle’s crime? He called Karen’s phrasing “wooden.”

12. When the Carpenters play the blues, you can literally see them sitting on the sagging porch of a sharecropper’s shack set amidst the cotton fields of elite Westchester County, New York.

13. The Carpenters’ famous concert medley included a “dirtied up” version of “Ass Down Twerk.”

14. “It’s kinda nice to be remembered by your peers and your fans, because you can achieve a lot of success and be a creep too.” —Karen Carpenter (Really!)

15. Never mind the Bollocks, here come the Carpenters!

16. The Carpenters’ set at Altamont was interrupted when Karen used a pool cue to beat a Hell’s Angel to death.

17. The Carpenters used their 1973 concert earnings to buy Bolivia.

18. “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” is the weirdest fucking song ever.

19. The Carpenters were so badass kids going to their concerts would lie to their parents, telling them they were going to see Black Sabbath instead.

20. My favorite Carpenters’ song is “Superstar.” What’s yours?

GRADED ON A CURVE:
A

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