Music Album Review – The Carpenters – Passage

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A lovely album from 1977, containing some classic Carpenters tracks and a few lesser known tracks deserving of wider attention. The album is dominated by their sublime cover of Klaatu’s Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft, which by sheer chance came out just before Spielberg’s original movie cut of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind which has a similar theme of intergalactic first contact. All You Get From Love Is A Love Song is bittersweet, but there is much humour in this presentation, especially in the quirky DJ monologue that opens Calling Occupants, and the cheeky feminist anthem, Man Smart, Woman Smarter. There is a lovely cover of Don’t Cry For Me Argentina sung by Karen, but it is preceded by the album’s one mis-step, a presentation of another song from Evita, On The Balcony Of The Casa Rosada, which features neither Karen Or Richard on its vocals and though a perfectly passable take on the musical, it feels as if it has strayed in from another album entirely. This is the only Carpenters non-compilation studio recordings album not to feature a vocal solo performance by Richard Carpenter, which is a shame as he is a good singer in his own right. Youtube – The Carpenters - Don’t Cry For Me Argentina Arthur Chappell