To honor “Superstar” on Kim Gordon’s birthday is almost too pat. Bringing her crystalline contralto to co-writer Leon Russell’s absurd scenario, Karen Carpenter comes close to illuminating it. “Rainy Days and Mondays” is the only other Kim ‘n’ Richard 45 rpm I’ll stan for. In 1971 they ruled an easy listening chart that by the looks of this thing sought to avoid Nixon, campus unrest, and Black acts who weren’t the 5th Dimension. Hence the attraction of tunes like Bread’s “If,” which in its effects and mellowness sounded about three years ahead of its time even if I can’t accept its mushiness. More power to listeners who can — it’s better than Lobo or, gad, Andy Williams and Engelbert Humperdink’s nostrums.
Over the years I’ve warmed to “You’ve Got a Friend.” James Taylor isn’t Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway, but his warmth and guitar picking must’ve been a balm for the same Nixon voters I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Even his friend Carole King didn’t frame her regret with bitterness. I understand the sentiment undergirding Mac Davis’ “Watching Scotty Grow,” a lament by the unendurable Bobby Goldsboro I can hear sung by a dad confused about what the counterculture had done to his son.
The Hague
Bobby Goldsboro – Watching Scotty Grow
Andy Williams – (Where Do I Begin?) Love Story
Engelbert Humperdinck – When There’s No You
Meh
Lobo – Me and You and a Dog Named Boo
Bread – If
Cat Stevens – Peace Train
Joan Baez – The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Bread – Baby I’m-A Want You
Sonny and Cher – All I Ever Need Is You
Sound, Solid
James Taylor – You’ve Got a Friend
The Carpenters – For All We Know
Chicago – Beginners
The 5th Dimension – Never My Love
Good to Great
Carole King – It’s Too Late
Gordon Lightfoot – If You Could Read My Mind
The 5th Dimension – One Less Bell To Answer
The Carpenters – Superstar
Olivia Newton-John – If Not for You
The Carpenters – Rainy Days and Mondays
Humanizing The Vacuum 
The 5th Dimension’s showtuny tendencies have always held me at arm’s lenght, and there’s probably better songs than that the one in the list. I think you pointed out “The Girl’s Song” as their best single (even if I prefer the Jackie De Shannon take) but “One Less Bell to Answer” has something that I haven’t heard in the others; Marylin McCoo’s extraordinary delivery. It makes the other members take the back seat, for once, and it’s the closest they got to The Association’s sound they’ve always been unfavorably compared to. Besides, Jimmy Webb’s song is trying to reach Burt Bacharach’s crazy chord changes but this is the genuine article.
If you were on Facebook you’d read John Darnielle’s proselytizing on 5th Dimension’s greatness since 2020. He has conquered me.
Oh it’s supercool when other musicians open your eyes to something you initially don’t pay much attention to. I want to find out what he has said of them, now.