The Carpenters

Back when it was released in 1985, Yesterday Once More was one of the finer video accounts ever given of a rock act. Admittedly, the whole field of full-length video production was in its infancy -- the only competition in the genre were The Beach Boys: An American Band, and The Compleat Beatles -- but somehow, the appeal of this 12-song, 59-minute program is undiminished, despite the passage of 16 years. Originally put together as a memorial to Karen Carpenter, who had died in 1983, the program was little more than a selection of the duo's performance/promotional videos from 1969 through 1981, strung together, and not in release order, either. Those were so well done, however, that this structure was all that was needed to make its point. "Those Good Old Dreams," in particular, though it dates from well after their best years, is filled with family photos, and is so finely representative of who the Carpenters were, that it comes off as the centerpiece of the program, and it's only the second track. "Superstar" comes up next, showing Karen Carpenter as she was in 1971, in the prime of her youth, stretching out on a song that she wasn't entirely comfortable with, and making it her own. There are some beautiful and clever moments among the videos that show just how much fun the duo could have with their music -- "Ticket To Ride," their cover of the Beatles song, features the Carpenters and their backup musicians imitating and gently parodying the Beatles' own performance clip of the song from the movie Help! (right down to Joe Osborne playing a Hofner violin-shaped bass); and "Beechwood 4-5789" and "Please Mr. Postman," two of the most unexpected covers in the duo's output, which they somehow pull off beautifully despite the most whitebread-sound imaginable on either; "Beechwood 4-5789," in particular, plays to their strengths by having Karen Carpenter glide through its Happy Days-type setting, coincidentally looking eerily like Courteney Cox's Monica Geller from the TV series Friends, and working at her '50s-theme diner job. The whole program runs without commentary of any kind, which is just as well -- the music and images say everything that needs to be said. The DVD is mastered more cleanly than the two previous laserdisc editions, and the format is so sharp that one gets the sense of running right up against the upper limit of videotape's resolution on several of the clips. The sound is very clean, and in well-delineated stereo. The disc originated in Asia, and offers both Chinese and English subtitles that can be switched off, but the menu must be accessed manually. Additionally, viewers can sample excerpts of each of the songs and video clips on the program before starting. The $40 price-tag may be steep, but considering that MCA hasn't chosen to make Yesterday Once More available in the U.S. on DVD, and that the most recent laser edition dates from the late 1980s, it's a tempting choice for any Carpenters fans. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide