Carole King is a liberated woman that liberated women seldom claim as a hero. Sure, she toiled throughout the '60s in New York's Brill Building, churning out hits for girl groups and teen idols like the Chiffons ("One Fine Day") and Bobby Vee ("Take Good Care of My Baby") — but her songs hardly prescribed revolution, instead presenting an idealized version of teen life, complete with sock hops, fervent kisses and tearful goodbyes. Her style matured in the late '60s; she mocked suburban complacency in the Monkees' "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and promoted racial and sexual empowerment with Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" — but these songs have been co-opted into a Big Chill boomer nostalgia narrative and feel tamer in hindsight. In 1971 she broke through as a singer with Tapestry, a megaselling album that (gulp) vaulted the soft-rock movement into the stratosphere and (yikes) made the world safer for James Taylor. Indie rockers jonesing for early '70s chicks can access genre-defying innovators like Karen Dalton and Vashti Bunyan. Who needs King's conventional unconventionality, when unconventional unconventionality is at our digital fingertips?

But The Essential Carole King suggests that the middle… read more »