The Carpenters - Singles 1969-1981 [Japanese Ed. SHM-CD] (2000)

Year: May 23, 2000 (CD Jun 20, 2012)
Label: Universal Music (Japan), UICY-25212
Style: Soft Rock, Pop, Vocal
Country: Downey, California, U.S.
Time: 71:41
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 435 Mb

The Carpenters were an American musical duo composed of siblings Karen and Richard Carpenter, known for their distinctive close harmonies and soft rock sound. They achieved remarkable commercial success in the 1970s, with their first single, "Close to You," reaching number one on the charts in 1970. Over their career, they amassed twenty Top 40 hits, including popular songs like "We've Only Just Begun," "Top of the World," and "Please Mr. Postman." Their music often featured compositions by prominent songwriters of the era, such as Carole King and Paul Williams.
The duo's clean image and mellow style contrasted with the more rebellious rock music of the time, yet they maintained a dedicated fan base. Their influence extended beyond music, with a television variety show, "Make Your Own Kind of Music," contributing to their popularity. Tragically, Karen Carpenter passed away in 1983 due to complications from anorexia, which she had struggled with for years. Despite this, the Carpenters' music continues to resonate, with many of their albums still selling well into the 21st century and a variety of compilation albums celebrating their legacy.
During their career, the Carpenters amassed twenty Top 40 hits; only one, “Touch Me When We’re Dancing,” charted outside of the 1970’s, in 1981. They started their career with immediate success as their first single, “Close to You,” hit number one in the summer of 1970, holding the top spot for four weeks and staying on the charts for fifteen. Only three months later, “We’ve Only Just Begun” held second place on the charts for four weeks. The group would have two more number-one hits: “Top of the World” in 1973 and “Please Mr. Postman” the following year. The success of the latter single, a 1961 hit for the Marvelettes and later for the Beatles, followed the success of the Carpenters’ 1973 album Now and Then, the second side of which consisted of a medley of sound-alike covers of early rock-and-roll hits, packaged in the form of an oldies radio show.
(full version: ebsco.com/research-starters/history/carpenters-music)

01. For All We Know (02:33)
02. I Believe You (03:55)
03. It’s Going To Take Some Time (02:59)
04. We’ve Only Just Begun (03:04)
05. Those Good Old Dreams (04:11)
06. Superstar (03:46)
07. Rainy Days And Mondays (03:34)
08. Goodbye To Love (03:56)
09. All You Get From Love Is A Love Song (03:46)
10. Top Of The World (02:58)
11. Only Yesterday (03:47)
12. Ticket To Ride (04:09)
13. Hurting Each Other (02:48)
14. Yesterday Once More (03:57)
15. Sing (03:18)
16. Touch Me When We're Dancing (03:19)
17. Please Mr. Postman (02:47)
18. I Need To Be In Love (03:49)
19. I Won't Last A Day Without You (04:29)
20. (They Long To Be) Close To You (03:41)
21. For All We Know (Reprise) (00:46)

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King Crimson - The ConstruKction Of Light (2000)

Year: 23 May 2000 (CD Sep 24, 2007)
Label: Discipline Global Mobile (Europe), DGM0514
Style: Progressive Rock, Avant-garde
Country: London, England
Time: 58:19
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 366 Mb

It is the first of two studio albums to feature the "double duo" line-up of Adrian Belew, Robert Fripp, Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto. It is the group's longest studio album and the only one not to chart in the United States.
In the late 1990s, drummer Bill Bruford and bassist Tony Levin left King Crimson, ending the "double trio" era documented on THRAK. For the first time in the group's history, Robert Fripp was the only Englishman in the lineup.
The Construkction of Light bears a sound similar to the "rock gamelan" 1980s incarnation of King Crimson, with Mastelotto primarily playing electronic drums and Belew, Gunn and Fripp often playing sophisticated, interlocking parts. However, the pace of these interlocking parts is often slower than it was in the 1980s, with Belew and Fripp often trading single notes back and forth in hocket.
The album also contains two sequels to instrumental pieces by 1970s incarnations of the band. "Larks' Tongues in Aspic – Part IV" continues the series of pieces started on Larks' Tongues in Aspic and continued on Three of a Perfect Pair. "FraKctured" began as a fifth entry in the "Larks" suite, but was renamed after being judged as more reminiscent of "Fracture" from Starless and Bible Black.
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Construkction_of_Light)

01. ProzaKc Blues (05:28)
02. The ConstruKction of Light (05:49)
03. The ConstruKction of Light (02:50)
04. Into the Frying Pan (06:54)
05. FraKctured (09:06)
06. The World's My Oyster Soup Kitchen Floor Wax Museum (06:24)
07. Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part IV (03:41)
08. Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part IV (02:50)
09. Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part IV (02:36)
10. Coda: I Have a Dream (04:51)
11. Heaven and Earth (07:46)

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Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Best Of The 70's (2000)

Year: 2000 (CD 2000)
Label: Disky Communications (Netherlands), SI 990322
Style: Classic Rock, Glam Rock, Progressive Rock
Country: London, England
Time: 72:37
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 506 Mb

Singer-songwriter, while not quite managing to elbow David Bowie aside, produced well-crafted hits topped by Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me).
Steve Harley was many things, but a man held back by modesty was not among them.
In his first big music press interview – before the appearance of Cockney Rebel’s debut album, when all they had released was a solitary single that featured a 40-piece orchestra, which had failed to make the UK charts – he proclaimed his band “a musical force that others will follow” and pitted himself squarely against the biggest names in British pop. Cockney Rebel, he suggested, would kick David Bowie “up the arse”: “he’ll say ‘I’ve got to step on it to stay at the top’.”
When it arrived, Cockney Rebel’s debut album featured a song called Mirror Freak that loudly announced he was going to supplant Marc Bolan – “too cute to be a big rock star” – in the public’s affections: “We can feel a change is on the way … a new man he appears to be winning … you’re the same old thing we’ve always known.”
Harley was given to dismissing any band that had a lead guitarist, a musician noticeably absent from Cockney Rebel’s line-up and on another occasion, he claimed the band were so good that divine intervention had to be involved: “I feel like God’s touched me and said ‘here’s a mission and someone’s gotta do it’.”
This was big talk that perhaps told you something about Harley’s background as a journalist: he may have only worked for local papers, but he knew what made for lively copy. The thing was, that for a moment at least, Harley appeared to have the goods to back up his more extravagant pronouncements.
Cockney Rebel’s first two albums, The Human Menagerie and The Psychomodo, arrived alongside the first signs that glam rock was waning, or at least that its most artful practitioners were moving on – Bowie had killed off Ziggy Stardust, Bolan had announced the genre “dead” and “embarrassing” – and suggested the arrival of a fresh take.
Whatever you made of Harley’s thoughts on electric guitars, their relative, if not complete, absence from Cockney Rebel’s sound gave them a clear point of difference. Driven instead by electric piano and Jean-Paul Crocker’s electric violin, you could definitely make out the influence of Bowie and the kind of 50s rock’n’roll that was a touchstone throughout glam, but their sound also drew on psychedelia, Brecht and Weill cabaret, folk (Harley had done time in Britain’s folk clubs and as an acoustic guitar-toting busker) and, occasionally, classical music.
His voice was a mannered sneer that occasionally sounded a little like The Kinks’ Ray Davies and occasionally seemed to presage the arrival of punk – it was certainly the perfect fit for his lyrics, which were both thick with lurid imagery – “hooked on absinthe and daffodils/telling tales of white gardenia” – and big on withering disdain.
(full version: theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/17/steve-harley-1970s-cockney-rebel-whose-talent-was-almost-as-big-as-his-ego)

01. Make Me Smile - Come Up And See Me (04:03)
02. Love - Compared With You (04:23)
03. Judy Teen (03:43)
04. Mr. Raffles - Man, It Was Mean (04:36)
05. Mr. Soft (03:22)
06. Sebastian (06:58)
07. That's My Life In Your Hands (03:51)
08. Here Comes The Sun (02:59)
09. All Men Are Hungry (04:49)
10. Roll The Dice (03:28)
11. The Best Years Of Our Lives (05:47)
12. Star For A Week - Dino (04:39)
13. Rain In Venice (04:53)
14. The Last Time I Saw You (05:40)
15. Psychomodo (04:06)
16. Irresistable - Remix (05:12)

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