Carpenters

This topic just suddenly came into my mind yesterday, when I was looking for instant noodles in NTUC Fairprice. I suddenly heard a melody there that reminded me of something deeply buried in my memories. It took me quite a few minutes to recall the song, and finally I remembered the name, Superstar from the Carpenters.

Just like most people do, the first thing knew about this band is the song. That was…almost 8 years ago, when I was only 10 or 11? I can’t really remember. Actually I didn’t know the name of this band at time, all I knew was I like this song, I like the rhythm and that’s all.

The second time I came across their music was about 5 years after that, when I was in my senior high school Grade 5. I mistakenly went into one of my friends’ blog and there I found were quite a few songs written by a Carpenters. I still had no idea about this band until I saw Yesterday Once More in the playing list. After that I managed to download several of their collections and that’s when I really got to know this bad.

Two members of this band were actually siblings, Karen Carpenter and her elder brother Richard Carpenter. What they produced was referred to as Soft Rock, which is a stream of Rock’n’Roll music, but quite different from other hard rock music we know. Such a different style of music, which is the perfect one to express emotions, together with Karen’s beautiful low voice helped them hit the Billboard in the early 1970s easily. They released about 8 albums in that decade won 3 Grammy awards. At the end of 1970s, they still remained to be in platinum statues.

Yet, Karen had some problems in her health during that time, and she sought therapy for eating disorder. Later she was sent into hospital to treat her anorexia and gained 30 pounds. Even so, she was still skinny.

In 1983, one morning, Karen was found her lying unresponsive on the floor. Even though sent to hospital as fast as her families could, she was declared dead, reason being heart attack and anorexia.

After her funeral, On October 12, 1983, the Carpenters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a few yards from the Kodak Theater.

It still seems unbelievable to me today that Karen died of anorexia and too much diet. I am not really a crazy fan of them, but I do like their songs a lot. The death of a talented musician is always a loss to the whole music world.