I doubt she would be as big of a success today. There’s actually less money in the music business today that back in the 70’s. Only a very few top artists are making big bucks today. Plus, I don’t see the Carpenters having any hits with their genre of music. Can you imagine Karen Carpenter singing the simplistic and over produced crap that passes as popular music today? Try listening to the Spotify or iTunes Top 50. There’s great production and audio engineering, but the music is uninteresting, barely a key change. Add to that the use of autotune. Karen Carpenter had perfect pitch and a tremendous range. Her voice would be under utilized and under appreciated today. Just my two cents.
Agreed, her talent would not fit in today’s world. Actually much of the good stuff from the mid 50’s to mid 70’s wouldn’t fit at all.
“There’s actually less money in the music business today that back in the 70’s.”
In 2021 dollars Carpenter’s net worth (1981) was between 15 and 30 million. Taylor Swift’s net worth in 2021 was over 400 million.
There’s plenty of money in music these days - and it leads to other fields and more money.
My definition of success, is bringing her voice to the world or just a few thousand. Then of course raising children and being able to sing to them and be happy.
Yes, making a lot of money is numero Uno for most and you can’t do that as easily unless you fit the noise of the time.