Carole King — Music

I belong to a lovely little Facebook group of mostly local music aficionados, who actually get together in person from time to time. (It’s kinda like back when we had a society.) We throw all kinds of things into the group to see what resonates with each other.

Carole King Music front cover
Carole King “Music” front cover – the cover photo by Jim McCrary is certainly reminiscent of his cover for “Tapestry;” perhaps they were from the same session.

Well one day one of the members posted that he was playing Carole King’s follow-up to Tapestry, “Music,” and that it was a very underrated record with some great songs.

This surprised me a bit, because I could not remember a Carole King record named “Music.” It surprised me a bit more when I found out it was released in the same year as “Tapestry,” at the end of 1971. It surprised me even more when I learned that it had gone to number 1 on the US album charts.

Shortly after that post, early in 2020, we were all at Siren Records together as part of one of our periodic multi-county record crawls, and I saw this lovely copy of “Music” and decided to grab it. And when I got it home to play it, I realized that I knew nearly every song on it. And yet, I still couldn’t remember that there was ever an album called “Music.” While I feel as if “Tapestry” was advertised and promoted for years and years, this one didn’t get the same amount of attention, (perhaps because only one single, “Sweet Seasons,” was released from it) despite being from pretty much the same moment in time, with pretty much the same graphics and presentation. In any event, a lovely album.

And yet another example of a ’70s record that I never owned in the ’70s but have decided I need to own, 50 years later. Good thing my life’s been long.

Carole King Music back cover
Carole King Music back cover – the dog finally makes the picture.
Carole King Music gatefold left
Carole King Music gatefold left
Carole King Music gatefold right
Carole King Music gatefold right

2 thoughts on “Carole King — Music

  1. I just bought this album and a second hand store. However, it did not include the full lyrics insert or melody notations. Is there somewhere I can purchase them?

    Thank you,

    Patty Palumbo – huge fan

    1. I think it would be challenging without buying an entire additional copy of the album – but if you want to go that route, the best avenue is probably through Discogs.com. You may even find a beat-up copy at a reasonable price where the inserts are in good condition.

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