- These sides are doing everything right — big, full-bodied, spacious and present with a solid bottom end
- “The Carpenters’ radio-friendly soft rock virtually defined the genre in the early 1970s, and this album — their third full-length — was the group’s ace card… Carpenters is a classic of early-’70s pop.” – All Music
- If you’re a fan of Richard and Karen Carpenter, this title is clearly one of their most hit-filled and best sounding
- The complete list of titles from 1971 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.
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- Very hard to find in this kind of audiophile playing condition — we must look at ten for every one we buy
- Here is the Classic A&M Sound we love – big, rich and Tubey Magical, yet still clean and clear, with the singers present and very, very real
- “We’ve Only Just Begun” and “Close to You” are two of the better tracks here; perhaps you’re familiar with them?
- 4 stars: “Close to You is a surprisingly strong album, and not just for those hits. Richard Carpenter’s originals “Maybe It’s You” and “Crescent Noon” are superb showcases for Karen Carpenter’s developing talent, the latter a superbly atmospheric, hauntingly beautiful art song of the kind that Judy Collins was doing well at the time, and gorgeously arranged.”
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- An outstanding original A&M pressing, with both sides earning excellent Double Plus (A++) sonic grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
- This LP is full of the Midrange Magic that has the Carpenters sounding rich, smooth, sweet and breathy – in other words, in ANALOG, so they sound every bit as good as you remember them
- 4 1/2 stars: “The duo’s best album, and the place to start beyond the hits compilations… a seemingly unified concept album written and recorded during a frantic period of concert activity, and brimming with lovely musical ideas even more lovingly executed, laced with good humor, and enough hits of its own to have established any artist’s career on its own. And even in between the hits, the album was built on material that could have made a whole career for anyone.”
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- Insanely good sound and the first copy to ever hit the site; Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish!
- “The Carpenters, with their finger on the pulse of the changing pop fashions as always, were one of the first acts to identify the new appetite for fond reminiscence of times gone by, and brilliantly combined the past and the present with their fifth album, Now & Then…”
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