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Music Matters
Why Karen Carpenter Matters
In the '60s and '70s, America's music scene was marked by raucous excess, reflected in the tragic overdoses of young superstars such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. At the same time, the uplifting harmonies and sunny lyrics that propelled Karen Carpenter and her brother, Richard, to international fame belied a different sort of tragedy--the underconsumption that led to Karen's death at age thirty-two from the effects of an eating disorder.
In Why Karen Carpenter Matters, Karen Tongson (whose Filipino musician parents named her after the pop icon) interweaves the story of the singer's rise to fame with her own trans-Pacific journey between the Philippines--where imitations of American pop styles flourished--and Karen Carpenter's home ground of Southern California. Tongson reveals why the Carpenters' chart-topping, seemingly whitewashed musical fantasies of "normal love" can now have profound significance for her--as well as for other people of color, LGBT+ communities, and anyone outside the mainstream culture usually associated with Karen Carpenter's legacy. This hybrid of memoir and biography excavates the destructive perfectionism at the root of the Carpenters' sound, while finding the beauty in the singer's all too brief life.
In Why Karen Carpenter Matters, Karen Tongson (whose Filipino musician parents named her after the pop icon) interweaves the story of the singer's rise to fame with her own trans-Pacific journey between the Philippines--where imitations of American pop styles flourished--and Karen Carpenter's home ground of Southern California. Tongson reveals why the Carpenters' chart-topping, seemingly whitewashed musical fantasies of "normal love" can now have profound significance for her--as well as for other people of color, LGBT+ communities, and anyone outside the mainstream culture usually associated with Karen Carpenter's legacy. This hybrid of memoir and biography excavates the destructive perfectionism at the root of the Carpenters' sound, while finding the beauty in the singer's all too brief life.
138 pages, Paperback
First published May 20, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
June 7, 2019
A really cute friend of mine just got me into the Carpenters. I didn't grow up intentionally listening to the Carpenters; I just recently was put on to a couple of their songs and realize that I've been hearing their songs in passing for years and never really knew anything about them.
While looking around online for something to read last night, I came across this book and was just instantly attracted by the way that Karen Tongson proudly lined up her Filipina heritage in the beginning and how openly she spoke about how important the Carpenters were in her discovery of music in her home town of Manila. I love that she talked about how much of a badass Karen was to her as a young, brown queer woman. I love how she talked about the similarities in Karen Carpenter's voice and her mother's and the prevalence of The Carpenter's on radios, karaoke machines and jukeboxes in her area before she immigrated to the states. It was beautiful.
I really liked how even Tongson's speculation about certain things that Karen Carpenter was notoriously private about - her love life - was handled in this genuinely imaginative way that was kind of innocently romantic, hopeful and nostalgic for positivity in a life that was complex inside and out, to say the least. I appreciated Tongson's approach around cementing Karen Carpenter's legacy and icon status in this book.
I also didn't know that Karen Carpenter died at such a young age. Tragic, really.
All that being said and as far as music spliced with individual memoirs go; the most important thing about this book and what makes it a 5-star read is that you could feel Karen Tongson's fandom. It's amazing and unabashed. Her fandom burst off every page. Not everything about either woman's life was given away either, which I loved because some mystery is always good.
I find that in a lot of music memoirs, people just try so hard to jump into every aspect of a person's life. Karen Tongson avoids that pitfall by referencing other bios already done about the Carpenters (Richard and Karen) as a duo and is basically like - if you want more information about this particular element of their lives, I read this book, you can also go read this book... but here in my book, I'll tell you what I LOVE/FEEL about Karen. I love the interpretation aspect. I loved Tungson's passion. That's what's amazing about music too, you never always know who anyone is talking about in particular, you just know that they feel so much emotion towards something/someone and it's a marvelous feeling as a listener to even step inside that secondhand emotion. You get that here as a reader. You can feel how important Karen Carpenter is to Karen Tongson.
I love that Tongson traces The Carpenters' influence in her parents lives as well. I think it's something special when a particular artist or band has a history in a family lineage. It's cool. This book was short and easy to devour and you could palpably feel Karen Tongson's hype about Karen Carpenter shining through every page.
While looking around online for something to read last night, I came across this book and was just instantly attracted by the way that Karen Tongson proudly lined up her Filipina heritage in the beginning and how openly she spoke about how important the Carpenters were in her discovery of music in her home town of Manila. I love that she talked about how much of a badass Karen was to her as a young, brown queer woman. I love how she talked about the similarities in Karen Carpenter's voice and her mother's and the prevalence of The Carpenter's on radios, karaoke machines and jukeboxes in her area before she immigrated to the states. It was beautiful.
I really liked how even Tongson's speculation about certain things that Karen Carpenter was notoriously private about - her love life - was handled in this genuinely imaginative way that was kind of innocently romantic, hopeful and nostalgic for positivity in a life that was complex inside and out, to say the least. I appreciated Tongson's approach around cementing Karen Carpenter's legacy and icon status in this book.
I also didn't know that Karen Carpenter died at such a young age. Tragic, really.
All that being said and as far as music spliced with individual memoirs go; the most important thing about this book and what makes it a 5-star read is that you could feel Karen Tongson's fandom. It's amazing and unabashed. Her fandom burst off every page. Not everything about either woman's life was given away either, which I loved because some mystery is always good.
I find that in a lot of music memoirs, people just try so hard to jump into every aspect of a person's life. Karen Tongson avoids that pitfall by referencing other bios already done about the Carpenters (Richard and Karen) as a duo and is basically like - if you want more information about this particular element of their lives, I read this book, you can also go read this book... but here in my book, I'll tell you what I LOVE/FEEL about Karen. I love the interpretation aspect. I loved Tungson's passion. That's what's amazing about music too, you never always know who anyone is talking about in particular, you just know that they feel so much emotion towards something/someone and it's a marvelous feeling as a listener to even step inside that secondhand emotion. You get that here as a reader. You can feel how important Karen Carpenter is to Karen Tongson.
I love that Tongson traces The Carpenters' influence in her parents lives as well. I think it's something special when a particular artist or band has a history in a family lineage. It's cool. This book was short and easy to devour and you could palpably feel Karen Tongson's hype about Karen Carpenter shining through every page.
October 9, 2020
Nothing in the world I love more than a critical love letter to a pop culture icon!! The personal AND the political, baby! Karen Tongson makes you love Karen Carpenter so much, and, as someone who gets a lot of genuine enjoyment out of music dismissed as cornball (justice for Muskrat Love by Captain & Tennille!!!!), it means a lot to me to hear someone taking this music seriously and giving Karen C. the credit she deserves. :,)
June 7, 2019
From my review on 4Columns:
"A remarkable thing happened while I was working on this review. Diving into the Carpenters’ discography, I found myself—almost without knowing it, without agency or control, spontaneously, as if taken over by a benign but powerful force—singing. There’s something about Karen Carpenter’s voice: the crisp enunciation and warm, rounded vowels; the earnestly affected emoting, doubled, tripled, held in harmony; the audible smile and come-with-me nods. I can’t help it, I’m impelled, slipsliding through lyrics I don’t actually know but the songs are so songy, they lead me right through: we’ve only just begun, they entreat, to live. They need me, I think. Karen needs me.
In this way I’m contributing to her resuscitation, or to what Karen Tongson, in her new book Why Karen Carpenter Matters, describes as her “queer afterlives.” Since her tragic death, at age thirty-two, in 1983 from complications related to anorexia, Carpenter has been the subject of three documentaries and a cult film (Todd Haynes’s early, brilliant Superstar), at least two biographies, innumerable newspaper and magazine features. (And these are the Karen-specific artifacts, discounting the vast archive of material on the Carpenters, the band she formed with her brother Richard in 1969.) If the subject of Tongson’s idiosyncratic and very fun book is not that Karen Carpenter matters—a given of the title—but why, it’s also where, how, and above all to whom. Karen has lived on, Tongson argues, through an unlikely diaspora encompassing Filipinos and Filipino Americans, people of color, immigrants, queer and gender-nonconforming people, pretty much “everyone other than the white Nixon-era suburbanites she and her music are said to have represented.” "
Full review here: http://www.4columns.org/milks-m/why-k...
"A remarkable thing happened while I was working on this review. Diving into the Carpenters’ discography, I found myself—almost without knowing it, without agency or control, spontaneously, as if taken over by a benign but powerful force—singing. There’s something about Karen Carpenter’s voice: the crisp enunciation and warm, rounded vowels; the earnestly affected emoting, doubled, tripled, held in harmony; the audible smile and come-with-me nods. I can’t help it, I’m impelled, slipsliding through lyrics I don’t actually know but the songs are so songy, they lead me right through: we’ve only just begun, they entreat, to live. They need me, I think. Karen needs me.
In this way I’m contributing to her resuscitation, or to what Karen Tongson, in her new book Why Karen Carpenter Matters, describes as her “queer afterlives.” Since her tragic death, at age thirty-two, in 1983 from complications related to anorexia, Carpenter has been the subject of three documentaries and a cult film (Todd Haynes’s early, brilliant Superstar), at least two biographies, innumerable newspaper and magazine features. (And these are the Karen-specific artifacts, discounting the vast archive of material on the Carpenters, the band she formed with her brother Richard in 1969.) If the subject of Tongson’s idiosyncratic and very fun book is not that Karen Carpenter matters—a given of the title—but why, it’s also where, how, and above all to whom. Karen has lived on, Tongson argues, through an unlikely diaspora encompassing Filipinos and Filipino Americans, people of color, immigrants, queer and gender-nonconforming people, pretty much “everyone other than the white Nixon-era suburbanites she and her music are said to have represented.” "
Full review here: http://www.4columns.org/milks-m/why-k...
March 10, 2020
I liked some parts, I think tongson is pretty great as a writer, so the book was a pleasure in that sense, I think my problem is I am not really a fan of the carpenters, and this just did not make me like them much more.
April 29, 2019
Great mix of biography of Karen Carpenter, Autobiography of author Karen Tongson, and academic analysis of music and culture. I've never had a personal connection to the music of Karen Carpenter, but this was a compelling read anyways, as Tongson does an excellent job of explaining why Karen Carpenter is special to Long Beach, The Philippines, and the queer community. I certainly learned a lot.
February 27, 2020
It's not often that works of such self-indulgent passion manage to get published, and throughout the course of this book, there are several things that Karen Tongson is clearly passionate about, not least of all Karen Carpenter herself.
Why Karen Carpenter Matters is far from an authoritative biography on Karen Carpenter, and Tongson will be the first to tell you that. Although her beautifully written descriptions of the musicality of the Carpenters puts music critics to shame, her chapters on the life of the subject are stuffed to the brim with scoured references, interviews, and third-party sources. Tongson lends credence to the expertise of those who followed the Carpenters in their heyday while expounding upon parallels between Karen Carpenter and herself. As such, the book feels a bit like a collegiate essay when she writes about Carpenter's life, but more like a meditation of the emotive power of Carpenter's music for all listeners when she opens up about her own life.
Tongson extrapolates from Carpenter a meaning that has universal application. For the communities Tongson speaks on behalf of (Filipinos, women, and queers), Karen Carpenter, as an icon, symbolized an aching for acceptance and an elusive value of "getting it right." It is tempting to marvel at the notion that as a queer woman determining her place in the universe, Tongson managed to find affinity with the straight-laced and perfectly presented Carpenter, with whom she would seem to share very little besides her namesake. But Tongson's argument for why Karen Carpenter matters shatters such a narrow perspective on connectives. Karen Carpenter matters because much like her voice, her life echoed the kind of longing that is germane to being human. This is something that anyone who has ever pined for more can relate with, be they Filipino, female, queer, all of the above, or none of the above.
Why Karen Carpenter Matters is far from an authoritative biography on Karen Carpenter, and Tongson will be the first to tell you that. Although her beautifully written descriptions of the musicality of the Carpenters puts music critics to shame, her chapters on the life of the subject are stuffed to the brim with scoured references, interviews, and third-party sources. Tongson lends credence to the expertise of those who followed the Carpenters in their heyday while expounding upon parallels between Karen Carpenter and herself. As such, the book feels a bit like a collegiate essay when she writes about Carpenter's life, but more like a meditation of the emotive power of Carpenter's music for all listeners when she opens up about her own life.
Tongson extrapolates from Carpenter a meaning that has universal application. For the communities Tongson speaks on behalf of (Filipinos, women, and queers), Karen Carpenter, as an icon, symbolized an aching for acceptance and an elusive value of "getting it right." It is tempting to marvel at the notion that as a queer woman determining her place in the universe, Tongson managed to find affinity with the straight-laced and perfectly presented Carpenter, with whom she would seem to share very little besides her namesake. But Tongson's argument for why Karen Carpenter matters shatters such a narrow perspective on connectives. Karen Carpenter matters because much like her voice, her life echoed the kind of longing that is germane to being human. This is something that anyone who has ever pined for more can relate with, be they Filipino, female, queer, all of the above, or none of the above.
October 15, 2019
I can only give this book two stars out of five. The author should have called it "Why KC Matters to Me." Other reviewers enjoyed reading about how KC matters to the author, but I did not. I don't think the author's heritage is relevant. I was hoping for a 3rd party objective book about why KC matters and her legacy. I knew something was going to be disagreeable when the author dismissed the only other member of the duo.
October 8, 2019
I know little to nothing about the topics covered by the author and was hoping for something quirky and entertaining. It was dull, strained, repetitive and self-indulgent instead. The book's saving grace is that it's mercifully short. Anyone interested in Karen Carpenter and her connection to the queer community (the author's word choice) and the further connection to the Filipino community will see this as catnip.
This book reads like a long college essay trying to demonstrate the author's clever abilities to connect disparate subjects. And the author could have been Commander McBragg.
Anyone interested in Karen Carpenter would already know anything presented in the book. If not, there are probably lots of documentaries or biographies that would do the trick. I'm satisfied to move on and not look back.
I nearly quit at 40% in hoping I could find a review that would express my disappointment. I was planning to like the review, maybe post a comment and move on. There was no such review so I decided to stay with it so I could say what I was hoping someone else already said.
The next book I read might be 5 star worthy simply by following this book.
This book reads like a long college essay trying to demonstrate the author's clever abilities to connect disparate subjects. And the author could have been Commander McBragg.
Anyone interested in Karen Carpenter would already know anything presented in the book. If not, there are probably lots of documentaries or biographies that would do the trick. I'm satisfied to move on and not look back.
I nearly quit at 40% in hoping I could find a review that would express my disappointment. I was planning to like the review, maybe post a comment and move on. There was no such review so I decided to stay with it so I could say what I was hoping someone else already said.
The next book I read might be 5 star worthy simply by following this book.
August 11, 2019
What impressed me the most about this book was the richness of the language. Even though there is brevity, a short read, the words are so well chosen that the experience of reading it was very expansive. At this point in my life I prefer reading about music more than listening to it. Tongson was able to make me enjoy music I was not listening to. There is a frankness and generosity to this book that was at once delightful, and comforting.
July 18, 2022
Although it reads a lot like a gender studies masters thesis, it’s still a very entertaining walk down Carpenters’ memory lane. It reveals a personal side of Karen and how her influence still exists today.
Not intended as a biography but nevertheless is a thought-provoking examination of the tragic loss of this musical legend due to a self-inflicted under-dose (anorexia) vs. the overdoses of so many other rock legends.
Karen Tongson, the author, talks honestly about how she views Karen Carpenter not only as her namesake, but as her queer hero who she unapologetically admired, even though it wasn’t cool to do so. As a queer POC, Tongson speaks of her inexplicable relatability for the litany of Karen’s songs about unrequited longing for “a love that dare not speak its name.” To her, Karen Carpenter represents permission and the audacity to be different, uncool, or to sound out of place.
Similarly, I think even many straight people can all relate to our closeted love of The Carpenters-who among us In the class of 1984 didn’t at least once have to squelch their desire to blast Close To You in the dorm? Raise your glass to Karen! Here’s to being corny! 🌽
Not intended as a biography but nevertheless is a thought-provoking examination of the tragic loss of this musical legend due to a self-inflicted under-dose (anorexia) vs. the overdoses of so many other rock legends.
Karen Tongson, the author, talks honestly about how she views Karen Carpenter not only as her namesake, but as her queer hero who she unapologetically admired, even though it wasn’t cool to do so. As a queer POC, Tongson speaks of her inexplicable relatability for the litany of Karen’s songs about unrequited longing for “a love that dare not speak its name.” To her, Karen Carpenter represents permission and the audacity to be different, uncool, or to sound out of place.
Similarly, I think even many straight people can all relate to our closeted love of The Carpenters-who among us In the class of 1984 didn’t at least once have to squelch their desire to blast Close To You in the dorm? Raise your glass to Karen! Here’s to being corny! 🌽
January 10, 2021
This book is good. It will be very helpful for my thesis, specifically Tongson's exquisite analysis of the implicit queerness of Karen Carpenter's life and voice. I wish this book were longer, I wish Tongson wrote a definitive biography that outshone the ones she references written by men, books I have no desire to read. I love a lot of this book, but some of it bored me. I look forward to reading more of Tongson's work, however, and appreciate this book as a queer person who looks to the past, to the "women of a certain age" sub-genre that gets a chuckle from some of my family members of earlier generations, to seek solace for loneliness and confusion about my trans identity. Three stars but a secure place in my heart; a stimulating nugget in my brain.
October 10, 2019
very short and sweet bio of Karen Carpenter and Karen Tongson, everyone's favorite Dyke About Town. She looks at Karen through a queer theory lens but it's accessible enough and very fun to queer one of the most straight (at least in prevailing cultural perception) singers. I felt very endeared to both Karens! Tomboys and lead sisters forever :')
March 9, 2020
Really sort of a 3.5-ish, because I'm not sure exactly who the audience for this book is, but I enjoyed reading it anyway. The book isn't really about why Karen Carpenter matters, but why she matters to the author, so it's a combination of personal memoir and critical appreciation and just straight up fandom. I myself am not a Carpenters fan, though I'm fascinated by and a fan of Karen's voice, so I don't have the quibbles of a reader who might be looking for more deep-cut Carpenters intel--you won't get that from this book. But if you want a meditation on how the whitest of white bread singers provided a constant to a brown, queer, immigrant, gender non-conforming kid transplanted from the Philippines to the CA suburbs in the 80s, well, this is 100% your book. "Karen was my funhouse mirror of whiteness and promises, of an American perfection that seemed unattainable, with its sparkling suburban domiciles, political innocence, and hetero scripts of prosperous futures; of a thinness I would never once be able to achieve, and that Karen too could never construe as enough."
April 30, 2020
This appreciation of the famously white-bread music act from a self-identified "brown, queer Filipino-American" brought me so much joy. I grew up making fun of the duo, which my parents played constantly, but in the 90s artists like Todd Haynes and Sonic Youth helped me reclaim The Carpenters and their music for myself. But Tongson has boosted my appreciation to a whole new level.
This book sends you down wonderful YouTube wormholes and presents some fascinating arguments about the Carpenters' place in pop culture (they are still HUGE in the Philippines, for one thing). And Tongson gracefully weaves in her own family and personal history in a manner that is consistently fruitful.
Nostalgia is sweet but intellectually dull. Someone who can make you revisit the past with a whole new point of view has a real gift. Thanks, Karen, for bringing me Karen all over again.
This book sends you down wonderful YouTube wormholes and presents some fascinating arguments about the Carpenters' place in pop culture (they are still HUGE in the Philippines, for one thing). And Tongson gracefully weaves in her own family and personal history in a manner that is consistently fruitful.
Nostalgia is sweet but intellectually dull. Someone who can make you revisit the past with a whole new point of view has a real gift. Thanks, Karen, for bringing me Karen all over again.
January 3, 2025
OMGG…I hated this book so much! I didn’t realize I could hate a book on KC so bad. What I thought was going to be a study of the short and long term history of the Carpenters music on society and the industry was ANYTHING but that. What I got was an autobiography of the author (don’t care) mixed in with KC’s bio. Then, it was done in this hyper staccato(y) voice that made me want to beat my head against the wall for the 3 hours of listening time.
September 18, 2022
Insanely provocative read. As a life-long fan of the Carpenters, hearing this unique perspective absolutely gave me insight into other demographics this band might have influenced/inspired. The idea of whitewashed music in the age of the Carpenters paving the way for thoughts on one’s own identity in the LGBTQ+ community was a very interesting book!
September 10, 2019
A very sweet tribute that reminds us how important art is to the world, even the work we don’t take seriously - that maybe was never even meant to be taken entirely seriously.
March 16, 2020
Excellent! A surprising and compelling mix of memoir, biography, and musical criticism.
February 3, 2020
Now I have to get out my Carpenters CDs and listen to their unique sound. Have always loved their music.
March 2, 2023
A great chance for a Carpenters fan to geek out. But also an interesting perspective on 'normality', whiteness, queerness and the stranger realms of fandom.
July 20, 2019
I know it's not even related, but this would have been the best entry in the 33 1/3 book series.
July 6, 2019
Read this concurrently with Hanif Abdurraqib's Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest. Both are released through the University of Texas Press, which seems to be publishing some interesting music criticism and ethnography. Both nicely work as odes to music idols and illustrate how music is so personally formative and shapes as well as acts a product of the larger cultural landscape. Tongson's work is great fascinating examination of the nuances of identity and actually peaked my interest in The Carpenters.
October 24, 2023
I think I heard Tongson on a podcast or a Sirius show a while back. Probably a podcast. Anyway, this is a very short book, really an article stretched out to its limits. Interesting to see how she correlates Karen's tragic life with queerness and the large number of queer fans she has, a little harder to parse how important the author says Karen is in the Philippines music scene - since I don't know it, I can't vouch for the veracity. I'll take it on faith.
I think the only good hypothesis I stopped for was the comparison of Karen and Cass Elliott. We all know (or maybe just people my age) the joke that went around when Karen died, and I'll not repeat it because it makes me so angry. The similarity of their voices despite slight differences (Cass's belting, Karen's mastery of the microphone) is all about the power of an alto, at least to these ears.
Bottom line: Karen matters because she lived and graced us all with her unparalleled talent. She deserved so much more than what she got.
I think the only good hypothesis I stopped for was the comparison of Karen and Cass Elliott. We all know (or maybe just people my age) the joke that went around when Karen died, and I'll not repeat it because it makes me so angry. The similarity of their voices despite slight differences (Cass's belting, Karen's mastery of the microphone) is all about the power of an alto, at least to these ears.
Bottom line: Karen matters because she lived and graced us all with her unparalleled talent. She deserved so much more than what she got.
January 30, 2023
This is a much broader look at Karen’s legacy than “that voice.” Indeed, it is why Karen Carpenter matters and not just why her voice mattered. She has become something of a queer icon not just because she was a drumming tomboy but because of her challenges in navigating a world where she didn’t quite seem to fit — or at least she didn’t think so.
I appreciate that the author doesn’t let Richard off the hook (he had the audacity to accuse her of stealing the Carpenters sound in her solo work, to which Olivia Newton-John said, “she IS the Carpenters sound!) I am not judging him for being a drug addict but I am judging him for being a controlling ass. Maybe if they had found fame a couple of decades later rather than the early 70s, Karen would have grown tired of his bullshit and told him to cool it.
It’s a quick read with much food for thought if you are a fan of her work and the genre — soft rock — that she helped to launch.
I appreciate that the author doesn’t let Richard off the hook (he had the audacity to accuse her of stealing the Carpenters sound in her solo work, to which Olivia Newton-John said, “she IS the Carpenters sound!) I am not judging him for being a drug addict but I am judging him for being a controlling ass. Maybe if they had found fame a couple of decades later rather than the early 70s, Karen would have grown tired of his bullshit and told him to cool it.
It’s a quick read with much food for thought if you are a fan of her work and the genre — soft rock — that she helped to launch.
October 16, 2019
Writing about things you like is never easy, and apparently even less so when you're trying to work in the effect they've had on your national and sexual identities and your personal family history. The book touches on a lot of really interesting points (the popularity of The Carpenters in the Philippines! the construction of personal queer fictions related to celebrities! how all of this stuff shaped the author herself!) but it never fully explores or connects any of them. It can't decide whether it's a personal essay about identity informed by Karen Carpenter or a quasi-academic text, but it did introduce me to Karen's solo album, so I can't really complain!
October 29, 2019
The Carpenters: that ultra-smooth, brother sister duo who were so big in the 1970’s, making melodic music that even your Grandma could enjoy. (Grandma didn’t really “get” the Beatles after they grew mustaches for Sgt. Pepper.) But these two toothy, clean-cut kids from Downey, California who wore nice clothes? (Well, Richard’s hair was a little long, but you know, that was the fashion these days…) Grandma went over for their smooth harmonies in a big way. And that Karen was just so adorable!
Some forty years after the Carpenters had their heyday on the pop music charts, does Karen Carpenter, in fact, matter? Professor Karen Tongson thinks so. Her 2019 book Why Karen Carpenter Matters is part of the University of Texas Press’ “Music Matters” series. Tongson comes from a completely different cultural background from Richard and Karen Carpenter, but their music has been a touchstone for her throughout her life. To begin with, Tongson was named after Karen Carpenter. Because of that, I think it would be hard not to have a serious connection to their music.
Tongson’s cultural critique of the Carpenters’ music sets the duo in a cultural context. Tongson was born in 1973 in the Philippines, a country that still reveres the Carpenters. Tongson’s parents were both musicians, and her mother, a singer, prided herself on sounding a good deal like Karen Carpenter.
Tongson has a fascinating detail about a Filipino karaoke machine that mistranslated the line “white lace and promises” in “We’ve Only Just Begun” as “whiteness and promises.” (p.5) And that would seem to be exactly what the Carpenters offer their audience: the promise of whiteness, of strip malls and suburbs, the kind of fantasy that the group seemed to be selling on the cover of their 1973 album Now and Then. Although the Ferrari Daytona that Richard is driving is very flashy, and probably outside the means of a great deal of the Carpenters’ audience. Better to aspire to say, a Chevy Monte Carlo with a landau top.
When Tongson’s family moved to Southern California in the mid-1980’s, she was filled with fantasies of fitting in perfectly in her new suburban neighborhood. She wanted to fit in. But even Karen and Richard Carpenter had trouble fitting into a perfect life. Karen and Richard’s personal lives were more turbulent than their smoothly polished harmonies. Richard went to rehab in early 1979 for an addiction to Quaaludes. Karen sought treatment for the anorexia nervosa that eventually led to her death from a heart attack in 1983. The fantasy of a perfect life remained just that: a fantasy.
Growing up in the 1980’s and 1990’s I don’t really recall hearing the Carpenters’ music very much. The oldies radio station, KOOL108, didn’t seem to ever play them. The radio station I listened to the most in high school, the retro cool KLBB, played Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, and other “easy listening” oldies. KLBB would sometimes play “(They Long to Be) Close to You” and “We’ve Only Just Begun,” and that was about as recent as KLBB got. When I was trying to track down Frank Sinatra’s then out-of-print 1957 album Close to You, I always had to tell music stores clerks, “No, not the Carpenters’ album.” I knew that the Carpenters were brother and sister, and that Karen had died young, but that was the extent of my knowledge.
Listening to the Carpenters now, I’m struck by Karen’s beautiful, emotive voice, Richard’s arranging talents, and their fantastic harmonies. Karen and Richard’s voices blended so well, but it was clear early on that Karen was an outstanding lead singer. This eventually pushed her out from behind the drum kit to take center stage, a move that she seems to have been ambivalent about. Rock critic Lester Bangs didn’t care for the Carpenters—surprise, surprise!—and he criticized their live show, saying that Karen “just doesn’t give you much to look at,” since she was playing the drums and singing. (p.18) I think Bangs’ criticism misses the mark, but he makes a point, intentional or not, about how the Carpenters’ staging was subverting rock music stereotypes. The two lead singers are behind the piano/keyboard and the drums. Those are both instruments that you can’t move around very much. You can be animated as you play them, but you generally have to remain in the same place while you play them. This is very different from pretty much every other rock band, where the main members are either lead singers who aren’t playing an instrument—Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, Jim Morrison, Roger Daltrey—or lead singers who are playing guitars. The Carpenters’ simply looked different from pretty much every other band in the early 1970’s. Eventually, they acquiesced to the norm and stuck Karen out front. Side note: I wonder if Karen playing the drums made it cooler/more acceptable for women to play the drums during the 1970’s?
The Carpenters were always looking backwards. Their single “Yesterday Once More” is a perfect example. In 1973, it referred to the “oldies but goodies” that influenced Richard and Karen Carpenter to become musicians in the first place. Now, in 2019, the song is also a tribute to the Carpenters themselves. “Every woah-a-oh still shines,” Karen sings. And it does still shine, because her voice is still beautiful and powerful and full of emotion that she stirs in us. All these years later, Karen Carpenter still matters.
Some forty years after the Carpenters had their heyday on the pop music charts, does Karen Carpenter, in fact, matter? Professor Karen Tongson thinks so. Her 2019 book Why Karen Carpenter Matters is part of the University of Texas Press’ “Music Matters” series. Tongson comes from a completely different cultural background from Richard and Karen Carpenter, but their music has been a touchstone for her throughout her life. To begin with, Tongson was named after Karen Carpenter. Because of that, I think it would be hard not to have a serious connection to their music.
Tongson’s cultural critique of the Carpenters’ music sets the duo in a cultural context. Tongson was born in 1973 in the Philippines, a country that still reveres the Carpenters. Tongson’s parents were both musicians, and her mother, a singer, prided herself on sounding a good deal like Karen Carpenter.
Tongson has a fascinating detail about a Filipino karaoke machine that mistranslated the line “white lace and promises” in “We’ve Only Just Begun” as “whiteness and promises.” (p.5) And that would seem to be exactly what the Carpenters offer their audience: the promise of whiteness, of strip malls and suburbs, the kind of fantasy that the group seemed to be selling on the cover of their 1973 album Now and Then. Although the Ferrari Daytona that Richard is driving is very flashy, and probably outside the means of a great deal of the Carpenters’ audience. Better to aspire to say, a Chevy Monte Carlo with a landau top.
When Tongson’s family moved to Southern California in the mid-1980’s, she was filled with fantasies of fitting in perfectly in her new suburban neighborhood. She wanted to fit in. But even Karen and Richard Carpenter had trouble fitting into a perfect life. Karen and Richard’s personal lives were more turbulent than their smoothly polished harmonies. Richard went to rehab in early 1979 for an addiction to Quaaludes. Karen sought treatment for the anorexia nervosa that eventually led to her death from a heart attack in 1983. The fantasy of a perfect life remained just that: a fantasy.
Growing up in the 1980’s and 1990’s I don’t really recall hearing the Carpenters’ music very much. The oldies radio station, KOOL108, didn’t seem to ever play them. The radio station I listened to the most in high school, the retro cool KLBB, played Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, and other “easy listening” oldies. KLBB would sometimes play “(They Long to Be) Close to You” and “We’ve Only Just Begun,” and that was about as recent as KLBB got. When I was trying to track down Frank Sinatra’s then out-of-print 1957 album Close to You, I always had to tell music stores clerks, “No, not the Carpenters’ album.” I knew that the Carpenters were brother and sister, and that Karen had died young, but that was the extent of my knowledge.
Listening to the Carpenters now, I’m struck by Karen’s beautiful, emotive voice, Richard’s arranging talents, and their fantastic harmonies. Karen and Richard’s voices blended so well, but it was clear early on that Karen was an outstanding lead singer. This eventually pushed her out from behind the drum kit to take center stage, a move that she seems to have been ambivalent about. Rock critic Lester Bangs didn’t care for the Carpenters—surprise, surprise!—and he criticized their live show, saying that Karen “just doesn’t give you much to look at,” since she was playing the drums and singing. (p.18) I think Bangs’ criticism misses the mark, but he makes a point, intentional or not, about how the Carpenters’ staging was subverting rock music stereotypes. The two lead singers are behind the piano/keyboard and the drums. Those are both instruments that you can’t move around very much. You can be animated as you play them, but you generally have to remain in the same place while you play them. This is very different from pretty much every other rock band, where the main members are either lead singers who aren’t playing an instrument—Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, Jim Morrison, Roger Daltrey—or lead singers who are playing guitars. The Carpenters’ simply looked different from pretty much every other band in the early 1970’s. Eventually, they acquiesced to the norm and stuck Karen out front. Side note: I wonder if Karen playing the drums made it cooler/more acceptable for women to play the drums during the 1970’s?
The Carpenters were always looking backwards. Their single “Yesterday Once More” is a perfect example. In 1973, it referred to the “oldies but goodies” that influenced Richard and Karen Carpenter to become musicians in the first place. Now, in 2019, the song is also a tribute to the Carpenters themselves. “Every woah-a-oh still shines,” Karen sings. And it does still shine, because her voice is still beautiful and powerful and full of emotion that she stirs in us. All these years later, Karen Carpenter still matters.
May 29, 2019
I was so looking forward to reading this book and it did not disappoint! Tongson is a talented writer and cogent pop culture critic. I loved loved loved her observations and how she made connections to KC’s story and her own life experiences. It was well done. I enjoyed learning more about the Filipino music scene of Tongson’s youth as well. The ending made me longing for a second volume!
June 21, 2019
An informative, moving reflection on Karen Carpenter's legacy. I reviewed Why Karen Carpenter Matters for The Current.
October 7, 2020
The author of Why Karen Carpenter Matters is Dr. Karen Tongson. Dr. Tongson is a queer studies and cultural critic. She has written three major works: Why Karen Carpenter Matters, Migrant Musicians: Filipino Entertainers and the Work of Music Making, and Queer Suburban Imaginaries. She is currently employed by the University of Southern California where she is a professor of English and Gender Studies.
As Dr. Tongson mentioned many times in the book, she is named after Karen Carpenter, so she feels a duty to tell Karen’s story and to explain why Karen Carpenter matters not only to her, but to the Filipino population as well as the queer community. Why Karen Carpenter Matters merges the history of Karen Carpenter and Richard Carpenter’s rise to fame while also incorporating Karen Tongson’s memoir and how Karen Carpenter had a large effect on Tongson’s culture, society, and influence.
Tongson opens the text by providing an extensive history of Karen Carpenter while also introducing thee arguments she’s going to make such as why Karen Carpenter was a blessing and a burden to her, why Karen matters to people of color, queer people, and immigrants.
Some over arching themes throughout this text are queer theory and self-analysis. Dr. Tongson self identifies as gay or queer. She states that the queer community makes Karen an icon by saying, “it appeared to be fashioned entirely from fantasy and projection” (Page 93). Dr. Tongson doesn’t list one specific reason why Karen Carpenter is an influence in the gay community, rather kind of belittles the fact that she is a queer icon by stating that it was an “imaginary fantasy.” Later she goes on to say that fantasies are formed from facts, shared intelligence, and the experience of living which ultimately led to Karen Carpenter being a queer icon.
Through self-analysis Dr. Tongson compares her struggles to that of Karen Carpenter. Dr. Tongson had an idea that suburbia was supposed to allow the opportunity to find harmony with oneself. However, she pairs this with stories of how Richard and Karen wanted to achieve their dreams in the suburbs because that’s where the opportunity would furnish itself. Dr. Tongson goes on to mention that Richard became the priority in the family while Karen became the priority in the public eye. Ultimately, Karen was not achieving her own dreams, rather Richard’s dreams became her own. Neither Karen nor Dr. Tongson found the solace in suburban life that they had imagined.
This is an important contribution to the field of media studies because not only does it provide a history of the musical artist, Karen Carpenter, but it also has themes entrenched in queer studies, gender studies, and is living proof that memoir can be beneficial in the field of media studies. If I was doing a piece in media studies, I would not necessarily pick memoir or think of a memoir as being an effective study, however, Dr. Tongson effectively used her own stories of her life to contribute to media studies in a very deeply personal way.
As Dr. Tongson mentioned many times in the book, she is named after Karen Carpenter, so she feels a duty to tell Karen’s story and to explain why Karen Carpenter matters not only to her, but to the Filipino population as well as the queer community. Why Karen Carpenter Matters merges the history of Karen Carpenter and Richard Carpenter’s rise to fame while also incorporating Karen Tongson’s memoir and how Karen Carpenter had a large effect on Tongson’s culture, society, and influence.
Tongson opens the text by providing an extensive history of Karen Carpenter while also introducing thee arguments she’s going to make such as why Karen Carpenter was a blessing and a burden to her, why Karen matters to people of color, queer people, and immigrants.
Some over arching themes throughout this text are queer theory and self-analysis. Dr. Tongson self identifies as gay or queer. She states that the queer community makes Karen an icon by saying, “it appeared to be fashioned entirely from fantasy and projection” (Page 93). Dr. Tongson doesn’t list one specific reason why Karen Carpenter is an influence in the gay community, rather kind of belittles the fact that she is a queer icon by stating that it was an “imaginary fantasy.” Later she goes on to say that fantasies are formed from facts, shared intelligence, and the experience of living which ultimately led to Karen Carpenter being a queer icon.
Through self-analysis Dr. Tongson compares her struggles to that of Karen Carpenter. Dr. Tongson had an idea that suburbia was supposed to allow the opportunity to find harmony with oneself. However, she pairs this with stories of how Richard and Karen wanted to achieve their dreams in the suburbs because that’s where the opportunity would furnish itself. Dr. Tongson goes on to mention that Richard became the priority in the family while Karen became the priority in the public eye. Ultimately, Karen was not achieving her own dreams, rather Richard’s dreams became her own. Neither Karen nor Dr. Tongson found the solace in suburban life that they had imagined.
This is an important contribution to the field of media studies because not only does it provide a history of the musical artist, Karen Carpenter, but it also has themes entrenched in queer studies, gender studies, and is living proof that memoir can be beneficial in the field of media studies. If I was doing a piece in media studies, I would not necessarily pick memoir or think of a memoir as being an effective study, however, Dr. Tongson effectively used her own stories of her life to contribute to media studies in a very deeply personal way.
November 22, 2021
As a queer Filipina who has inherited my mother's love for the Carpenters, this book was a hit for me! Karen Tongson seamlessly melds memoir with musical analysis in this richly academic yet deeply personal work. The Carpenters were a bit of an acquired taste for me, every time my mom blasted their music, especially "Rainy Days And Mondays" when I was a kid, I'd wonder why we were listening to a voice I identified only as "that sad lady." But Karen Carpenter's melancholic vocals have come to captivate me as warmly as they do every fan, past and present, both those who tend to gravitate towards soft-rock and those whose affinity for the oxymoronic genre may come as a surprise to others. In a pleasant case of things coming full-circle, my mom actually got around to reading this book before me - I'd picked up at a bookstore one day and oddly left it on my TBR shelf for quite some time, where it caught her eye on a visit. She can certainly attest to Why Karen Carpenter Matters being exquisitely well written; though she struggles with the cognitive effects of her neurodivergence, she found it quite digestible. I finally brought this little book with me on a flight this weekend and nearly read it all in one sitting, enjoying my mother's annotations all along - once again the Carpenters being passed down from her to me. Tongson's writing perfectly articulates the pleasantly suspicious feelings I've had for some time that there's something beautifully unique about the impact of the Carpenters on communities of color and queer folks. On the surface their sound is quite White Americana, but their songs carried by Karen's emotive voice are universally relatable. These are serenades capable of being interpreted to be telling the story of any individual listener's experiences - experiences with romantic love, with the absolute *yearning* love is so often characterized by, and with melancholy and nostalgia, among other complex, deeply felt emotions. Of course, I as an individual listener strongly related to Tongson's associations of the Carpenters with her intersectional identity as a Filipino, gender non-conforming WLW; however I believe that her skills at conveying informative details, namely the personal history of Karen Carpenter, make this work enjoyable for any reader regardless of identity. Karen Tongson's writing speaks to the reader, rather than at them; just as Karen Carpenter speaks to me through time and space, comforting me even when I feel like "there's no getting over that rainbow, when my smallest dreams won't come true." Karen Carpenter, I Won't Last A Day Without You.
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