Product Review
Carole King's solo output tends to get divided into Tapestry and everything else. That's unfair. Before she made the earth move as a singer, she was one of the great pop songwriters of the '60s. And though her '70s work sometimes drifted into facile jazz chords and pretentious lyrics, she didn't fall off the face of the earth after 1971. Greatest Hits samples four better-known songs from Tapestry and arranges them intelligently amid eight worthwhile songs from the rest of her solo career, notably the lilting Marvin Gaye homage "Brother Brother." The arrangements have the lingering scent of incense about them, but her Brill Building-bred sense of tune stays with her. --Douglas Wolk