25. Carole King, "Tapestry"

 

I'm almost sure my Mom had this album in the 70s, nestled comfortably between the original cast recording of The Pajama Game and Deutsche Grammophon's box set of Beethoven, and even if she didn't, she was certainly in the blast radius for this album, our second consecutive day of an album by a female auteur with a singular vision who produced a groundbreaking album.  But if yesterday's album was a formative document in punk and avant garde, today's is a formative document in easy listening.  I don't particularly love either of them.

There is close to a 100% chance you know multiple songs on this album, just from cultural osmosis.  I know I did.  You know "It's Too Late" and "I Feel the Earth Move," the latter song written around the time of the now largely forgotten 1971 San Fernando earthquake, a 6.5 temblor that struck on King's birthday, February 9, and caused significant damage.  King takes the metaphor and runs with it, equating her feelings for her love the equivalent of a seismic event.  

King was, of course, already an accomplished songwriter may times over when she recorded this album, her second.  With her first husband, Gerry Goffin, she had written some of the biggest hits of the 60s, like "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," made famous by the Shirelles, and which she includes on this album, changing the song from the big, brassy girl-group hit to a slow, quiet, contemplative ballad.  (She and Goffin also wrote "Pleasant Valley Sunday," one of the best pop songs of all time, "Some Kind of Wonderful," "Up on the Roof," and so many more.)  There's also her version of "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," a song she wrote that was made considerably more famous by another artist you might have heard of.  (It rhymes with Saretha Smanklin.)

There's also "You've Got a Friend," the treacly pledge of freindship that was made famous by her partner in bland dentistry, James Taylor.  The only real high point for me is "Smackwater Jack," a song that edges so close to actually rocking without daring to cross the border but which has a pleasant swing and - is that an electric guitar?  I could see someone like Little Feat really running with it and making it into a jam, but alas, no one cool has ever done something like that.

So look, King is obviously one of the greatest songwriters of all time but, frankly, her voice is not especially pleasing and this album is so painfully 70s easy listening and so, I don't know, square, that it's fine in the same way that Tab or "Hello, Larry" was fine, blandly acceptable but not really enjoyable.  Of course, it's sold something like 14 million copies.  Find one at a garage sale near you this weekend.

Is this album in my personal Top 100? No.