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Karen Carpenter or Courtney Love?

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blondeatlast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-24-04 11:05 PM
Original message
Poll question: Karen Carpenter or Courtney Love?
Who would you prefer to hear, speaking or singing (assuming they both were/are alive--the jury's out on Courtney, I guess)?

Inspired by two other current threads.
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FARAFIELD Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-24-04 11:12 PM
Response to Original message
1. Karen Carpenter
She had a voice like an angel.
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1monster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-24-04 11:19 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. and an incredible voice range ...
She was very shy though. I had a music teacher who met both Karen and Richard Carpenter when they were on tour. She said Richard was very out going, but Karen hung back, spoke in monosyllables, and seemed very uncomfortable with meeting strangers.
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Faygo Kid Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-24-04 11:23 PM
Response to Original message
3. Karen Carpenter knew how to sing a song. Like Sinatra, Ella, Nat.
That to me is what I look for. Spare me the vocal range of Whitney, Michael Bolton, et al, who only use songs as vehicles to show off. Give me a singer who knows how to sing a song. Karen Carpenter's music was syrupy, but her performance always rang true as a bell.
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Rabrrrrrr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-24-04 11:25 PM
Response to Original message
4. Anyone who voted for Courtney should see a musicologist
who's trained in psychology.

Yeah, the Carpenters did sappy boring music representative of the brown faux-wood paneling so popular in the period in which they sang, but she was a real talent anyway.

Love is a nothing who would continue to be nothing if she never got involved with a suicidal faux-hero of "the music scene" who himself really wasn't all that important or creative except that he had the creative genius to kill himself at the height of his fame and thus lock in his place in rock history, which would be otherwise nothing were he still alive today.
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blondeatlast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-24-04 11:28 PM
Response to Reply #4
7. I take it you voted for Karen.
And I agree with your asessment wholeheartedly.
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Rabrrrrrr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-24-04 11:28 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. Aye, that I did
:-)
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absyntheNsugar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-24-04 11:56 PM
Response to Reply #4
10. Karen showed deep pain and suffering in her music
It's very subtle...but if you hear it its there....even in the sappy songs she almost mocks the happiness implied.

As Blondeatlast put it, she didn't buy it.
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Rabrrrrrr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 12:20 AM
Response to Reply #10
11. I don't deny that at all
But one still has to admit that it wasn't all that interesting from a musicological standpoint, even given the artistic capability and talent of the carpenter siblings.

listening to their music reminds me of the leisure suit wearing, faux-paneling installing, Mr. Boston-drinking people trying seem "cultured" and "hip" and "with it" and etc., but who were just, you know, boring.
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absyntheNsugar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 12:23 AM
Response to Reply #11
12. I dunno for me hearing her music
I think of a woman forced into the leisure suit wearing, faux-paneling installing, Mr. Boston-drinking people trying seem "cultured" and "hip" - and screaming to get out.

Think the daughter from Beetlejuice forced into polyester against her will...but with no idea it is against her will.
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Prisoner_Number_Six Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-24-04 11:26 PM
Response to Original message
5. I was so in love with Karen.
All that, and she could play them drums, too!
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holeinboatoutatsea Donating Member (417 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-24-04 11:28 PM
Response to Original message
6. Every shing a ling a ling
it's no contest.

Pure human emotion vs. drugged out rage?
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mvd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-24-04 11:49 PM
Response to Original message
9. I think both are great
Edited on Wed Mar-24-04 11:51 PM by mvd
I voted for Courtney because I find her material a little more interesting. I'm a proud Courtney fan, musically speaking.
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Enraged_Ape Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:18 AM
Response to Original message
13. Karen Carpenter had a once-in-a-generation--maybe a lifetime--voice
Regardless of what you think of her music--and yes, the Carpenters were about as square as plaid polyester pants--her voice was so clear and relaxed, and her pitch just so perfect. I could listen to that woman sing forever.

I venture to say that there are absolutely no popular female singers today who can begin to approach Karen's talent. None.
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absyntheNsugar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:58 AM
Response to Reply #13
19. Makes me wonder what Karen would be like 'unplugged'
Without the unecesarry overdubs and walls of sound....

Just Piano and Karen....
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Enraged_Ape Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 02:16 AM
Response to Reply #19
20. I had the very good fortune as a child of listening to her sing live...
at a rehearsal of our elementary school choir for "Sing a Song".

Believe me, with Karen Carpenter, what you heard is what you got. She truly had the voice of an angel.
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LagaLover Donating Member (500 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 09:58 AM
Response to Reply #13
22. Agree, she had the voice of an Angel...
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Katha Donating Member (287 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:27 AM
Response to Original message
14. It's only close
when we take Courtney Love circa Live Through This (one of the most fantastic albums of the '90s, in my opinion) and compare her to Karen. I think I'm going to give Karen the edge, though.
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mykpart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:30 AM
Response to Original message
15. Karen Carpenter has been compared to
Judy Garland for clarity of tone and style.
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rasputin1952 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:31 AM
Response to Original message
16. I have a thing for female vocalists...
(guess that leaves Courtney out).

I have also run the gamut with all of the different styles etc. I have come to the conclusion that if you can sing a ballad well, you are a vocalist. All of the screaming, yelling, talking that "vocalists" do now, is because they actually can't sing, so the just make noise.

Karen led a tragic life in the end, so sad.

There are others as well.

Charlotte Church comes to mind. Of course, there is always Streisand, she can break my heart.

O8)
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mvd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:56 AM
Response to Reply #16
18. I do think Karen's voice was as good
But Courtney's affects me just as much in a different way. :hi:
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Skittles Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 01:49 AM
Response to Original message
17. WTF?
Courtney is a talentless skank. Karen was one of best singers of all time, even earning the praise of John Lennon.
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TN al Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 09:41 AM
Response to Original message
21. Karen is clearly the better singer
but with courtney there is always the chance she might strip for you.
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Liberal Veteran Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 10:10 AM
Response to Original message
23. No comparison. It's like asking me if I would prefer..
To eat a 8 course meal prepared by the finest chefs in the world or eat some maggot infested shit found in the gutter in some third world country.

I have always thought Karen had one of the best, most honest, and pure voices EVER.
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Colin Ex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-25-04 10:14 AM
Response to Original message
24. ABC
Anybody but Courtney.

I don't even know who the other chick is, but I do know that I like her more than I like Courtney Love.

-C
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