“Superstar” — Carpenters

I’m not usually keen on those “beyond the grave” collaborations, where some recordings by a deceased artist are paired with some performers who are still with us to “introduce the song to a new generation”…or “get some additional life out the record company’s back catalogue”, depending on your level of cynicism…

These collaborations can sometimes feel a bit creepy, to my ears, so I don’t go out my way to listen to them as a rule.

For that reason, I didn’t have terribly high expectations when I noticed a video of the Carpenters with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra while mindlessly browsing through YouTube the other day.

However I’m a big Karen Carpenter fan, so I took a risk and clicked “play”.

I’m glad I did.

The track was the Carpenters’ song “Superstar” and this updated version appears, alongside updated versions of many of the Carpenter’s best-known hits, on an album which only came out just before Christmas last year.

It’s the culmination of a long-term project by Karen’s brother, Richard, to update the Carpenters’ classic songs by taking the original vocal tracks and sympathetically updating them. In essence, he’s re-producing the tracks as if Karen had laid down her vocals just last week.

And I have to say Richard Carpenter does a tremendous job.

Of course, he started with some of the best material imaginable, in the shape of Karen Carpenter’s voice.