Offered for sale is a copy of the limited edition half speed mastered Canadian audiophile pressing of The Singles 1969-1973 by the Carpenters.
About this copy: This copy of The Singles 1969-1973 is a 1980 Canadian pressing on the A&M label.
While the release is technically a Canadian issue, the disc was pressed in Japan by JVC using the same proprietary “Supervinyl” compound that they used to press records for Mobile Fidelity.
The cover is VG++ with slight ring wear. There is a bend in the upper left hand corner.
The disc is M- with a couple of very faint sleeve scuffs on side one. There are no spindle marks on the labels; the record has likely been played just once or twice. Clean disc!
A nice copy of a great sounding record and one of the harder titles to find in the A&M Audiophile series.
Background: Released in 1973, The Singles:1969-1973 was the first compilation album by the Carpenters.
The album reached #1 on the U.S., UK and Canadian charts.
Allmusic.com gave The Singles:1969-1973 a 4 star review:
There’s a certain inherent sadness listening to this concise 12-song collection of the Carpenters’ early hits, especially as it opens with “We’ve Only Just Begun,” with its hopeful, dreamy lyrics — for it was never supposed to be definitive, just the first of at least two such collections. But changes in the public’s taste and a slackening (though never a disappearance) of hits for the duo, and Karen Carpenter’s death in 1983, made this the first and only real mass choice for a Carpenters collection. Ten of the duo’s dozen Top Ten hits are present, from “Close to You” to “Top of the World,” with their gorgeous and original slow ballad interpretation of “Ticket to Ride” and their cover of Carole King’s “It’s Going to Take Some Time” thrown in to offer a slightly wider perspective.
While Mobile Fidelity was getting most of the attention in the United States with their high-quality, half-speed mastered audiophile pressings, A&M Records in Canada was doing something similar in the early 1980s.
In fact, A&M’s pressings were half-speed mastered just as Mobile Fidelity’s were and the records were pressed in Japan by JVC using their proprietary “Super Vinyl” that no one has ever been able to duplicate.
While Mobile Fidelity released titles from artists on a variety of labels, A&M released titles only by their own artists, and the titles were released only in Canada (though they were widely exported to the U.S.)
While these A&M Audiophile titles are somewhat scarce, there are several titles in the series that represent what are, to date, the only audiophile pressings of those titles. One of those is the Carpenters The Singles 1969-1973, which includes ten of the group’s 12 Top Ten hits and which sounds terrific.
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| Country of origin: | Canada |
| Size: | 12″ |
| Record Label: | A&M |
| Catalog Number: |
SPJ-3601 |
| Year of Release: | 1980 |
| Format: | Stereo |
| Share: |       |
