But in Karen’s case it wasn’t really necessary. Singers like her are timeless and trendproof. All she and the producer, Phil Ramone, had to do was find 11 or 12 great songs, set them in her vocal breadbasket (low) and watch their back accounts fatten. Then again it wasn’t exactly a golden age for songwriting, so maybe they got the best of what was out there. And the album they made, as per the previous comment, was still good enough to come out and probably would have been a hit anyway; this was 1980, after all, a year that anything went on the charts.

Interesting that fifth grade was a touchstone year for you with Karen even if it was the year she died, because fifth grade was the year she came alive to me. I never cared much for “Close to You,” which hit the summer before, but with “We’ve Only Just Begun,” it was love at second sound.

Interesting what you say about the center line. When I listened to “A Little More Love” in my twenties for the first time in well over a decade, the jerky back-and-forth between those polarities was really obvious. She really did learn a lot between Totally Hot and Physical.

And completely fascinating about Karen Carpenter. I had no idea. Of course, it’s far from unheard-of for very talented people to be insecure about themselves, and at that moment it really must have seemed that Olivia-fying herself was the only way to go in the evolving market. Karen was an oddly recurring figure for kids my age, because she died when we were in fifth grade, and every year after that, when the health teacher talked about anorexia, she was the example. We were old enough to have heard the Carpenters’ music and seen them on television throughout childhood, so the idea that she was dead really made an impression.

Second, Yes, Karen and Olivia were very close. In fact their friendship was one of the few safe harbors for Karen during those last five difficult years of her life (1978-1983). Alas, it was also the time of Olivia’s post-”Grease” bounce and the Carpenters’ sharp decline, and Karen, who cared deeply about having hit records, decided she needed to look and sound more like her good friend. No offense to the marvelous Olivia, but that shows just addled Karen’s brain was at the time, as on her best day she could sing circles around Olivia. And so she made a well-intentioned but misconceived solo album, in which the slightly-tarted- and way-too-modulated-up Karen offered such trifles as “Remember When Loving Took All Night” (that one co-written by ONJ’s producer John Farrar). It’s a testament to Karen’s talent that even with mediocre material keyed way too high, she still made an album that wasn’t half-bad. But the record company apparently thought it wasn’t half-good, shelved it (it was eventually released in 1996) and, well, we know the rest. For a rare up moment in Karen’s life then, check out her cameo on Olivia’s 1980 “Hollywood Nights” TV special. She’s part of the rollicking “Heartache Tonight” finale, a strange brew that also includes Tina Turner, Cliff Richard, Toni Tennille, Peaches (sans Herb), Elton John and Andy Gibb. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4AmSa4xM6U.