It's Carpenters, by the way. Not "the" Carpenters. Just Carpenters. And yes, they thought about it. A LOT. Let's honor their choice. Carpenters. Maybe your 'fraidy cat band needs a definite article to pave the way for their moniker, but not Carpenters. Their name stands free, unqualified. It's that strong.

Carpenters.

KAREN Carpenter. Can you believe her voice? I have been fascinated with her lately. She's always held a certain gravity at Henson Studios, where I've recorded my last three albums. Carpenters recorded lots of their biggest stuff at Henson, and in fact (this is true) she is reported to haunt studio A. Or is it C? Which ever one, there is an enormous crystal stone mounted on the wall, which was placed there in order to placate her spirit, which was reportedly disrupting a lot of the audio equipment. There are numerous ghost stories at Henson.

But what's scary is how INSANELY GORGEOUS Karen Carpenter's voice. God. I wanna be buried in that sound. If I had met her when she was alive, I would have ravenously consumed shrink-pills, becoming miniature, allowing me to crawl inside her throat whenever she sang Close To You.

Her voice is AMAZING. It is just so f*#!ing pristine, mellifluous. It's flawless. What is also stunning is that Carprenters became HUGE at a time when Jimi Hendrix and dozens like him were turning the World into their rock 'n roll play ground. Nothing could seem more antithetical to "Hey Joe" than "Rainy Days and Mondays" must have been, but there you have it. And what you may not know is that Carpenters were HUGE. How big? It has been calculated Carpenters sold over 100 MILLION UNITS around the World. One hundred million. Let's put that in context.

Carpenters are about 25-50 MILLION units beyond acts like:

The Brittany Spears
The Van Halen
Osmonds
The Metallica
The Bob Seger
The Alanis Morisette
The Nirvana
The Pearl Jam
The Tom Petty

I'm drinking more water lately. I'm pretty sure I've been slightly dehydrated for years. Watch the color of your urine, people. Watch it.