Table of Contents

The 20th of February 1974

Official U.K. Albums Chart results from Sunday the 17th to Saturday the 23rd of February 1974

Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 16th of February

Results counted from Sunday the 17th,

and published on Wednesday the 20th of February 1974.

Carpenters

The Singles 1969-1973

At No.1, on the “The Top 50 U.K. Albums Chart”, the week of my 2nd Birthday, are the Carpenters with The Singles 1969-1973.

A labour of love…

…conquers the whole of the UK album chart, on the week I complete two years around the sun. An album which to many represents and encapsulates a huge part of the 1970’s, not just in the music, but also the look.

For those, like me, who remember the 1970’s, the main colour I would have to say, that would define that era, and also a lot of the next decade as well, would be brown (I mean, when was the last time you would have seen a brown car?!); and I would think decor, which included a lot of wooden wall paneling, sided that way to hide the fact that, even if everything wasn’t meant to have been that colour in the first place (for instance, a white ceiling), it would end up becoming that shade eventually. Because let’s face it, back then, there weren’t that many households where none of the adult occupants smoked, and having the colour brown would hide that fact effectively enough.

My house had most probably been no different prior to when I’d been born. However, around this time in my first couple of years, there was some serious DIY going on, or it was about to be, and when it eventually did take place, including when my parents chose to buy those wonderful white modern polystyrene tiles to hide what had been before on the ceiling (not a fire-hazard in the slightest), my mother (who’d used to smoke up until the end of the sixties, when she quit) decided that from now on, no-one smoked in the house, which meant my dad was relegated to his shed down at the bottom of the garden to smoke his Hamlet cigars (I can almost hear Bach’s “Air On A G-String” emanating out of that shed at the bottom of that garden as I write this).

Anyway, I’ve digressed enough.

As for this album’s music,..

…well this would become the soundtrack to the rest of the decade for a lot of people. It was just that good.

I was unfortunately still really unaware of them at such a young age. My parents (mainly my mum) didn’t have any of their records in the family collection at this point in time. If memory serves me correctly, my Auntie Maureen (Mum’s younger sister) did have this on cassette, and would have undoubtedly listened to it in the kitchen for years after.

This collection wasn’t just your standard foray into greatest hits territory either. In fact, the brother of this iconic duo, Richard, made absolutely sure it wouldn’t be labelled as such. He’d witnessed how so many artists, even at this juncture in the modern music history, were literally fobbing off their followers when only having had a few genuine hits, and had then put out such LP’s with the rest being filler tracks. His album was of a far more superior quality than those.

Even if you had the originals,..

…whether they be the singles themselves or the albums from which they came, you were not buying the same thing twice. A lot of these songs had been painstakingly recreated, re-imagined, and re-recorded, so that you, the listener, would be given a whole new experience, as if you were listening to them for the first time all over again. The production of this album is designed to take you on a journey of reminiscences, like turning the pages of a photo album with only the best of the best memories which make you smile the most.

And what a journey it had been so far.

For me personally, while returning to each chart so far during the weeks of my birthdays, I’ve already met the Carpenters twice already, both times in the album charts. The first time was on the actual day of my birth, the second, this very year further back in this very chart.

Carpenters – No.17 in the UK Albums Chart on My Birth Day

Carpenters – No.40 in the UK Albums Chart on My 2nd Birthday

In just those two short years,..

…their sound, technicality, confidence, plus so much more, had matured to such a degree, and I feel it’s especially evident in Karen‘s voice; and what a voice. Karen and Richard’s voices together? Absolutely pure magic.

From the moment the needle drops,..

…on side one, you’re greeted to a small introductory medley of just a selection of their hits before, the album begins proper, but by that moment, you’re already fully embraced into its magic, taken along on their magical journey, and by the time it approaches its close on “Goodbye To Love”, as that drum break anticipates the heart-hitting power of their combined vocals, the strings which sweep you along with it, and the absolute electric energy of that perfect fuzz-guitar solo, it’s completely grabbed you, and there’s no going back. There is just the other side to play, and to dive into that magic once more.

There is absolutely no doubt why this album hit No.1. The UK had brought them into their homes years before. The songwriting and musically technical genius of Richard, Karen’s natural rhythm and reassuring ease of her voice, makes this album well deserved to have topped the charts; and I’m honoured it did so for this week of my birthday.

The album…

…had first entered the chart exactly a month before, on the 20th of January, at No.20, but by the following week had climbed all over everything else, and had sat assuredly at the top of the chart; and since then, hasn’t budged an inch in the past four weeks.

From here,..

…it will give way to the LP biting at its heels at the current No.2 position this week (see the previous post below), but only relenting for one week, before reclaiming the top once again, and staying there solidly throughout most of the spring. When it does slip a little, it only goes back one place, and waits there patiently for the opportunity to claim it once again, which it does once again, at the end of June.

After that dominating spell, it will give up a handful of positions, but never getting close to leaving the Top 10. That is until the autumn has set well in, and winter begins to approach once again, but the further drops are incredibly brief at this stage, a week here and there, and by the close of the year, it’s easily found a comfortable place back in the upper echelons once more.

This album is, at this point, going absolutely nowhere. So we’ll both wait until I catch up with it at my next birthday, where it will have become a little closer to being respected as iconic.