Disco de Carpenters: “Voice of the Heart”

I've owned this album in some form or another for almost twenty years. I remember the day my mom bought it for me I put it on the stereo, listened to it once and put it away. It wasn't until later in the 80s that I pulled the album out and fell in love with it. I'm not sure why I didn't really want to listen the first time, perhaps (like many other fans did) I had a hard time listening to her music for the longest time after Karen Carpenter passed away.

Time can allow you to reassess your first thoughts on something. In my early days as a Carpenters fan, I thought they musically walked on water. EVERY song by the Carpenters was a good song and anyone who disagreed didn't know any better. I feel silly about that now! Even great artists make clunkers or songs that instantly become dated (think "Prime Time Love") The only thing that can't be denied, though, is that Karen Carpenter's voice could make the blandest of songs still sound lovely.

I remember Richard Carpenter saying once that he and Karen should have done more standards like "I Get Along Without You Very Well." He was absolutely right because Karen had a classy voice that deserved better than fluffy pop. On VOICE OF THE HEART there are some absolutely gorgeous songs that any recording artist would be proud of:

"Now" (poignant and touching because we heard it quite often after her death, but also memorable because it is such a sincere love song and it just about breaks your heart with its yearning)

"Make Believe It's Your First Time" (another love song full of honesty..It's vulnerability perfectly captures that moment of wanting to be with just one person forever)

"Two Lives" (this is possibly my favorite Carpenters song of all time. It is an incredible portrait of how hard it is to let go of a love that ends badly and I think it's one of the few times Karen sang with an intense, intense passion!)

"Look to Your Dreams" (this is a simple song that could have been from a Disney film, but it is wonderful in its phrasing and tone. I love the way Karen sings: "To say I'm old-fashioned would be quite semantically true/But make-believe passion has fallen from fashion's milieu.")

"At the End of a Song" (I just like this track because it is so true and once again Karen sounds like she knows what she's singing about.)

Even the "silly" songs on here ("Prime Time Love" and "Sailing on the Tide") have their moments, especially the latter, which is quite infectious. Karen sounds different here (very wise and slightly jaded--which is great!) particularly when she sings: "No more calls begging my time/No more walls for me to climb."

I think one reason I've grown to love this album so much is that it (along with HORIZON and PASSAGE) prove that the Carpenters (and Karen in particular) didn't just rehash their stuff all the time as so many critics said they did. VOICE OF THE HEART (and even the very poppy MADE IN AMERICA) is still sometimes hard to listen to because it shows you where the Carpenters could have gone if they had regained their momentum and tragedy hadn't struck.

I agree with a reviewer below, that this is just a compilation of previously unreleased tracks. Richard Carpenter and A&M Records never should have hailed "Voice of the Heart" as the final Carpenters album, considering this fact. I also agree with so many others as this being regarded as the "funeral" album. I was a fan of The Carpenters and this posthumous release only served as a reminder of the great loss everyone was feeling at the time. However, there are many lovely recordings such as "Ordinary Fool," "At the End of a Song" and "Now." "You're Enough" is the only song I bag on, in which the intro always reminds me of a bunch of circus clowns and elephants for some reason. I love "Sailing On the Tide" which is the only upbeat song on the whole album. I could have done without the "fogie" chorus singers on some of the album's best tracks. This is The Carpenters and if you were a fan, you should add this to your collection. But be prepared to get very, very sad.

Her final tracks are here...Now, Your Enough, At the End of the Song...beautiful. Now is a masterpiece. Karen sings each word, each phrase as if it holds a special meaning to her. It was the last track she ever recorded, making it that much more meaningful to us.

I've owned this CD for years and always listened to it in bits & pieces, dribs and drabs. But yesterday I was listening to my newly purchased copy of "Now & Then" followed by my favorite Carpenters album "Made In America" when I thought I should give this a fair listen straight through and I'm really glad I did. I love it as a cohesive whole.

I've read the reviews where many consider these songs "outtakes", which may be a bit true, but back when these songs were recorded outtakes were not always a bad thing...it mostly meant you didn't have enough room on the vinyl for the number of tracks recorded without sacrificing sound quality OR they were too close, thematically, to other tracks on the album to include them or they simply didn't fit the theme of the current project after all...so they were reserved for future release.

I think together these 10 tracks make for a very cohesive and beautiful album. What is a bit surprising about this album, to me, is just how deep it's sense of poignancy and levels of maturity and sophistication.

"Now" was wisely chosen as the first single as it's everything I think one would want and expect from a Carpenter's song and appropriate in tone for the circumstance it was released. "Two Lives" is my favorite track on the album mostly because it doesn't sound like anything The Carpenters recorded before and the melody has a couple of surprising twists.

I absolutely adore "Make Believe It's Your First Time" (both the version here and the one on Karen's outstanding solo project). I also like "Look To Your Dreams" but can see why it didn't make it onto the "Made In America" project...it's too close in tone to "Because We Are In Love (The Wedding Song)" from the "Made In America" project.

I'm so glad I gave it a listen all the way thru...I'll be playing it a lot more now along with my aforementioned fave "Made In America".

This album was released a few months after Karen Carpenters death and it's a beautiful piece of work....This was the album they were working on at the time of her death....My favorite track on the album is "Now"...it was Karen's last song she ever recorded...and it was one of the best....Another highlight is Make Believe It's Your First Time is a tear drop song...Another song is "Your Baby Doesn't Love You Anymore" which is a great song and the 2nd single from this album....