175) Close to You : Rolling Stone

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Karen Carpenter sang and drummed; her brother Richard arranged their lushly melodic music. Both contributed to their thoroughly wholesome image. "It's like we're Pat Boone, only a little cleaner," Richard lamented to Rolling Stone in 1974. "As if all we do all day is drink milk, eat apple pie and take showers. I don't even like milk." Close to You, their second album, has two of their best ballads: "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and "We've Only Just Begun." In the early Seventies, the Carpenters epitomized the mainstream, but now their influence is audible in cooler, slightly less-clean indie bands: the Cardigans, Stereolab and "chamber pop" acts such as Belle and Sebastian.

Total album sales: 2 million

Peak chart position: 2

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