Forty-two years ago, the Carpenters scored their first No. 1 album with The Singles 1969-1973, a compilation album that collected the greatest hits by the musical siblings from Downey, Calif.
Richard and Karen Carpenter, collectively known as the Carpenters, had previously scored No. 1 hit singles with “(They Long to Be) Close to You” and “Top of the World,” while “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Rainy Days and Mondays,” “Superstar,” “Hurting Each Other,” and “Yesterday Once More” had all peaked at No. 2.
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On the album chart, however, the Carpenters couldn’t get past No. 2. Their second album, 1970’s Close to You, 1971’s self-titled effort, and 1973’s Now & Then all peaked one position shy of the summit. It wasn’t until A&M decided to collect the Carpenters’ greatest hits on one album that the duo was truly on top of the world, or at least on top of the album chart.
However, composer-keyboardist Richard Carpenter had mixed feelings about the album, which topped the Billboard album chart during the week of Jan. 5, 1974.
When A&M began compiling The Singles 1969-1973, he was adamant about one thing. “I didn’t want to call it Greatest Hits, because most of those things are the act’s only hits. They’re not the greatest hits, they’re the only hits. Since we were doing quite well, I figured this would be Volume 1,” he said to me in an interview for The Billboard Book of Number One Albums.
In hindsight, Richard Carpenter said he is convinced that the album, which has been certified seven-times platinum in America for sales of 7 million copies, would have even been more successful had he gone with the Greatest Hits title and a photograph of the duo on the cover. “The whole thing was my idea,” he said. “The dark cover, with the logo, having it looking kind of understated. It almost looks like a damn tombstone.” (In 2000, a Carpenters compilation was released with the title Gold: Greatest Hits, with a similar cover to The Singles 1969-1973 and an expanded track list.)
Richard Carpenter Could Often Pick the Hits
Often Richard knew when the duo had recorded a hit track long before its release. “‘Superstar/ ‘We’ve Only Just Begun,’ ‘Hurting Each Other,’ and ‘Sing,’ I thought were hits right off the bat, but I couldn’t say that about ‘Close to You’ or ‘Top of the World,’” he explained.
The latter track was written by Richard and his longtime friend John Bettis, who was a member of the pre-Carpenters group Spectrum. “We thought it was a pleasant album cut,” Richard added. “But then the public let us know. The Japanese let us know by releasing it as a single in Japan, and country singer Lynn Anderson recorded it. Her version was almost the same as ours and it became a country hit that started to cross over to top 40. Finally, we saw the light.”
'It's About Time'
“Top of the World” hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 on Dec. 1, 1973. Just over a month later, the Carpenters scored their first and only No. 1 album. “I remember Karen saying it’s about time that an album of ours went to No. 1 in Billboard,” Richard recalled.
Tragically, less than a decade later, on Dec. 4, 1983, Karen Carpenter died from heart problems brought on by anorexia nervosa. She was 32.
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