If I Were a Carpenter (CD, 1994) and similar items

NO ARTWORK, COMES IN NEW CASE, CD ONLY..Producers include: Joe Chiccarelli, American Music Club, Page Porrazzo, Sonic Youth, Stephen Street. Engineers include: Tracy Chisolm, Noriya Maekawa, Wataru Sakamoto. The luxury of being a pop act in the 1990s is in retreading the paths of history until all seems new again. A perfect example is the Carpenters' tribute, IF I WERE A CARPENTER, which gives bands more likely to succeed on the college charts a chance to revel in their pop leanings, but still seem alternative. When Sonic Youth paid their respects to Karen Carpenter on GOO, the reverence side-stepped all urges to be tongue-in-cheek. Now a full Carpenters' tribute album shows that the Carpenters' success was not only on the Billboard charts, but in the hearts of closet pop fans everywhere. An unlikely gathering of current rockers pay homage to these seventies heroes. Sonic Youth's acoustic yet warped rendition of "Superstar" and Shonen Knife's manic "Top Of The World" stray the furthest from the originals, but still bring fond memories to anyone who listened to pop radio during the 70s. Not all self-indulgent and redundant, IF I WERE A CARPENTER plays like this generations's Show And Tell, with today's alternative stars showing off their childhood record collections with youthful glee.