Track Listing

1. Brother, Brother
2. It's Going to Take Some Time
3. Sweet Seasons
4. Some Kind of Wonderful
5. Surely
6. Carry Your Load
7. Music
8. Song of Long Ago
9. Brighter
10. Growing Away from Me
11. Too Much Rain
12. Back to California

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #167542 in Music
• Released on: 1991-03-01
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Like Tapestry...A Classic.
Carole King's "Music" is not an overlooked masterpiece (it sold over four million copies upon its release), but certainly one which has been forgotten over the years. Perhaps too closely released on the heels of "Tapestry", "Music" has certainly been overshadowed by that previous trademark, landmark work.

With "Music", King experiments with some new sounds and styles, such as the R & B track "Brother, Brother" which opens the album with a sound reminiscent of the tune "What's Going On?" The title track is a truly uplifting jazz waltz with an incredible sax improvisation as a centerpiece.

The simplicity and honesty of "It's Going To Take Some Time" is stunning and certainly surpasses The Carpenter's more orchestrated version of the tune during the same year. Throughout "Music", she effectively utilizes a pair of strong female backup vocalists who strengthen King's own delivery of her material and who bring a richness and soulfulness to tunes such as "Growing Away From Me" and the Goffin/King standard "Some Kind of Wonderful."

If this album had received as much press and airplay through the years as "Tapestry" did, tunes like "Song of Long Ago" (with background vocals courtesy of James Taylor) and "Carry Your Load" would now be instant classics. As it is "Sweet Seasons" is the only top-10 single from the album and the only one most people would be likely to recall.

Over all, "Music" does not have the musical cohesiveness of her next two projects "Rhymes & Reasons" and "Fantasy", but song for song it certainly contains some of the best material she has ever recorded. Like Tapestry....a classic!

Carole King follows up "Tapestry" with a pretty good album
One of the problems with having the best selling record of all time at any given moment in the history of the musical universe is that you have to follow it up, which is what happened when Carole King put out "Music" at the end of 1971. Once you acknowledge that coming up with another "Tapestry" was going to be impossible, "Music" is actually one King's better albums. King, of course, was a veteran songwriter, who had forged a memorable partnership with Gerry Goffin (her eventual husband). Working in the Brill Building in the early 1960s they had written such hits as "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" for the Shirelles, "Take Good Care of My Baby" for Bobby Vee, and "The Locomotion" for Little Eva (who just happened to be their babysitter). Everybody from the Beatles to the Monkees to Aretha Franklin recorded songs written by King & Goffin. But after a decade of being just a songwriter, King proved with "Tapestry" she could sing her own songs just fine.

The biggest difference between "Tapestry" and "Music" was that with this next effort King was singing mostly new songs this time around, several of which were written with her new collaborator Toni Stern. The tradeoff ends up being that the melodies are a stronger but that the lyrics are not as sublime as what we heard on "Tapestry." A few of the songs, most notably the opening song "Brother, Brother" and "Carry Your Load," are much more political than what we had heard prior to this from the singer-songwriter. The great irony was that most of King's best songs always sound better performed by somebody else. "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin is the classic example, but on "Music" we have "It's Gonna Take Some Time," which was successfully covered by the Carpenters. Still, there is something to be said for hearing King sing the songs she wrote that were made famous by others, such as "Some King of Wonderful" which was recorded by the Drifters. My choice for best song on the album would be "Song of Long Ago," on which King's friend James Taylor shows up to sing backing vocals.

Most music fans can get bye with "Tapestry" and a Carole King hits collection in their music library, but for those who consider themselves King aficionados "Music" is her third best album with 1975's "Really Rosie" coming in second; guess what is in first place. Besides, "Music" also hit #1 on the Billboard albums chart, so what more can you really ask a follow-up to an all-time great album do? Plus, King is still around, showing up again on "Gilmore Girls" as Lane finds out the lady running the Stars Hollow music store was once part of a group that recorded an album. King should know something about that.

Music is Music!
Before my review, don't listen to the person who said "Growing Away From Me," is lousy, because it is NOT! She's just trying. Anyways, I love this album. It is beatiful. Esepecially, "Some Kind Of Wonderful," is well done. You should get this album because, it has great songs, and Carole King's voice comes through beautiful.I;d say the best songs are,"Some Kind Of Wonderful," "It's Going To Take Some Time," and, "Brother Brother." Buy this album, you probably won't regret it.