Editor’s note: Arachnophonia is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.

Today’s installment of Arachnophonia is by student worker Cole (class of 2021) and features a hybrid biography/memoir about the life and legacy of 1970s pop star Karen Carpenter. Thanks, Cole!

Why Karen Carpenter Matters by Karen Tongson

“Why Karen Carpenter Matters” book cover
(image: University of Texas Press)

2019 marks fifty years since the release of the Carpenters’ debut album Ticket to Ride (1969; originally released as Offering). Over a fourteen-year career, the Downey, California based brother-sister duo of Karen and Richard released ten albums and were best known for their runaway hits “(They Long to Be) Close to You” (1970), “We’ve Only Just Begun” (1970), and “Top of The World” (1973). Richard handled much of the writing and all of the arranging of their songs, blending easy listening, adult contemporary, and classical stylings together, despite the popularity of hard rock at the time. Richard crafted their songs to bolster the uniquely low and rich voice of his sister. The Carpenters’ signature sound was characterized by the use of multi-tracking to back Karen’s voice with itself to provide harmonies, a technique known as overdubbing. Indeed, it was Karen who was eventually forced out from behind her drum set to become the reluctant star of the group.

The story of the Carpenters is ultimately one of tragedy. As their fame grew, so did the demands of a near-constant touring schedule. This, coupled with increased scrutiny from the media, is speculated to be the cause of Karen’s development of anorexia nervosa. Around the same time, Richard developed an addiction to Quaaludes, a sleeping pill. Although Richard cured his addiction through rehab, little was known about eating disorders at the time that any treatment Karen underwent was dubious at best. She died from complications from anorexia in 1983 at the age of thirty-two.

The Carpenters, 1974
By A&M Records – Billboard Magazine, page 2, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75866990

In the decades since Karen’s death, the Carpenters’ catalog has been critically re-evaluated several times over, amassing further acclaim alongside greater examination into the Carpenters’ personal lives and a paradigmatic shift in understanding of anorexia nervosa. One such re-evaluation comes in the form of Karen Tongson’s Why Karen Carpenter Matters, released earlier this year. Part-biography, part-autobiography, and part-musicography, it charts not only the life of Karen Carpenter, but Karen Tongson (the author — named for Carpenter) and her lifelong relationship to the music of the Carpenters. A Filipino-American immigrant, Tongson draws inspiration from her own life to examine why the music of the Carpenters endures for people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and anyone else who has craved the “white normalcy” that middle class suburbanites Richard and Karen seemed to embody. Tongson emphasizes Karen’s well-documented tomboyishness as a form of queer identity, and highlights how Karen, like so many minorities, obsessed over achieving a “white picket fence lifestyle” as a form of validation. Tongson’s writing put to words an understanding I first suspected while watching Fresh Off The Boat with my Japanese-American mother: though their children may only want to escape it, for many immigrants, white suburbia is the dream.

If it wasn’t already obvious, I’m a fan of the Carpenters. Their arrangements were superb and Karen was a generational talent. But even for those who find their music ‘too soft and too white,’ I recommend this book. At 138 pages, Why Karen Carpenter Matters is a brief and pleasant read that challenges some of the predominant assumptions we hold about why we love the music we love.

The Carpenters’ fifth studio album, Now & Then (1973) is also available for check out from the Parsons Music Library.