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Loading... Why Karen Carpenter Mattersby Karen Tongson
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This book is good. It will be very helpful for my thesis, specifically Tongson's exquisite analysis of the implicit queerness of Karen Carpenter's life and voice. I wish this book were longer, I wish Tongson wrote a definitive biography that outshone the ones she references written by men, books I have no desire to read. I love a lot of this book, but some of it bored me. I look forward to reading more of Tongson's work, however, and appreciate this book as a queer person who looks to the past, to the "women of a certain age" sub-genre that gets a chuckle from some of my family members of earlier generations, to seek solace for loneliness and confusion about my trans identity. Three stars but a secure place in my heart; a stimulating nugget in my brain. ( ) no reviews | add a review
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In the '60s and '70s, America's music scene was marked by raucous excess, reflected in the tragic overdoses of young superstars such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. At the same time, the uplifting harmonies and sunny lyrics that propelled Karen Carpenter and her brother, Richard, to international fame belied a different sort of tragedyâ??the underconsumption that led to Karen's death at age thirty-two from the effects of an eating disorder. In Why Karen Carpenter Matters, Karen Tongson (whose Filipino musician parents named her after the pop icon) interweaves the story of the singerâ??s rise to fame with her own trans-Pacific journey between the Philippinesâ??where imitations of American pop styles flourishedâ??and Karen Carpenterâ??s home ground of Southern California. Tongson reveals why the Carpenters' chart-topping, seemingly whitewashed musical fantasies of "normal love" can now have profound significance for herâ??as well as for other people of color, LGBT+ communities, and anyone outside the mainstream culture usually associated with Karen Carpenterâ??s legacy. This hybrid of memoir and biography excavates the destructive perfectionism at the root of the Carpentersâ?? sound, while finding the beauty in the singer's No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)782.42164092The arts Music Vocal music Secular Forms of vocal music Secular songs General principles and musical forms Song genres Western popular songsLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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