Christmas Portrait
| Christmas Portrait | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Carpenters | ||||
| Released | October 13, 1978 | |||
| Recorded | 1974 - 1978 | |||
| Genre | Holiday | |||
| Length | 49:08 | |||
| Label | A&M | |||
| Producer | Richard Carpenter/Associate Producer – Karen Carpenter | |||
| Carpenters chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide |  |
Christmas Portrait is the first Christmas album recorded by Carpenters (and the only one issued during Karen Carpenter's lifetime), originally released on October 13, 1978 (A&M 4726).
The album includes a revised version of the group's signature Christmas song, "Merry Christmas Darling". It also includes one of two versions of "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" (a slower version, recorded in 1974, as well as other unused songs recorded during this album's sessions, were issued on the Carpenters' later Christmas album, An Old-Fashioned Christmas).
The original album cover by Robert Tanenbaum is modeled on Norman Rockwell's 1960 painting, "Triple Self-Portrait", done as a cover for The Saturday Evening Post.
The CD version of Christmas Portrait, issued in 1984, is a compendium of selected tracks from the Carpenters' two Christmas albums into one 74-minute program, with tracks from each interspersed in the running order; "Ave Maria" was remixed at this time in order to include a choral track that went missing in 1978 and was later found. (A CD of the original LP content was briefly issued exclusively in West Germany around the same time.) In 1996 (1998 in the US), a two-CD set titled Christmas Collection was issued internationally, containing Christmas Portrait and An Old-Fashioned Christmas together in their original respective track lists. Richard Carpenter remixed most of the album tracks for Christmas Portrait due to deteriorated masters.
On April 16, 1998, Christmas Portrait was certified Platinum by the RIAA for shipment of one million copies in the United States since its 1978 release.
In December 2011, Christmas Portrait re-entered the Billboard 200 album sales chart at No. 150 and eventually achieved a new chart peak position of No. 126. In December 2012 and then in December 2013, the album again re-entered the Billboard 200 album sales chart and attained a new chart peak position of No. 114. In 2015, it reached a new peak position of No. 93 on the Billboard 200.
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