What is a Studio Album?

[Rick Henry]

Recently I was perusing a few of the Carpenters/Karen Carpenter web sites on the internet and one thing I noticed is the incorrect listings in some of their discographies. Myself being a stickler for accuracy wanted to share an education on what the different types of albums are and why they are categorized that way.

Let’s start with the music industry. In the industry when an album is released it is categorized for several purposes. It’s main reasons for categorization are for promotion and publicity. There are more than 40 categories… maybe even more than a hundred by now.

In categorization I don’t mean the style of music such as “pop” or “rock”. In this topic we’re speaking of the type of release it is, such as “comedy”, “greatest hits”, “film soundtrack”, “spoken language” and so forth.

For the sake of this conversation we’ll stick only with the categories which apply to Carpenters. These categories are as follows…

Studio Album
Compilation
Greatest Hits
Live
Christmas
Box Set


Carpenters released ten studio albums from 1969 to 1981. A studio album is an album recorded and released as a entity. All the songs were recording during that album’s recording sessions and all songs were chosen And finalized as a package.
The studio albums include:
Offering (Ticket To Ride)
Close To You
Carpenters
A Song For You
Now And Then
Horizon
A Kind Of Hush
Passage
Christmas Portrait (this album also falls in the Christmas category)
Made In America


Now this is where the confusion comes in…
Carpenters have released four compilations. You ask what is a compilation? A compilation is not a Greatest Hits package. A compilation is somewhat a hodge podge of songs from different sources and different time periods. Such as a collection of songs from live performances, TV specials, outtakes from previous albums and so forth. A compilation is not a Studio Album, although many people confuse compilations for studio albums. Generally compilations are released after a key member of a band passes away or during inactive periods of a band.
The Carpenters’ four compilations are:
Voice Of The Heart
An Old Fashioned Christmas (this one also falls into the Christmas category)* more on this below
Lovelines
As Time Goes By

* Some confuse “An Old Fashioned Christmas” for a studio album… but it is a compilation as it includes all outtakes from the “Christmas Portrait” recording sessions… outstanding as they are these songs were not intended for release as an album.

A Greatest Hits album is not a compilation. A Greatest Hits album is a collection of songs which were hits on the charts or songs that have been popular for the given artist. Such as “This masquerade” was not on the charts… but has been a very popular song for the Carpenters hence it’s considered a hit.
Carpenters have way too many Greatest Hits releases to name them all… but a few of the more popular are…
The Singles 1969-1973
Yesterday Once More
Love Songs
Gold: 35th Anniversary Edition


Here’s an interesting on… although Karen’s solo album was released more than 15 years after it’s intended release date it is still considered a Studio Album. This is because this album was recorded as an entire unit during the Karen Carpenter solo New York recording sessions.

I will come back with more… including a bit on Live Albums, etc…

We’ll also touch on those confusing albums such as “Carpenters Perform Carpenter”… is this a Greatest Hits or a Compilation?

[Ming]

Thank you for sharing, Rick. I find that here in Hong Kong, people often mix up compilation and Greatest Hits album too. Many Greatest Hits albums are called compilation when they are promoted.

Ming

[smoothie2]

good line of thoughts....

[ps11932]

Thanks for this information- among all the many benefits here, a good bit of education is often given by all the knowledgeable people here.

[Rick Henry]

Thank you O.E., Kathy and Ming...

I do plan on coming back and sharing more on this topic. I watn to get into live albums a bit and also Christmas albums since we are in the season. At this moment in time I'm pretty busy so I right now I'm choosing two or three threads each time I log in and give my input then move on to my next project. So, I will come back to this one in about a week or so.