The Essential Collection: 1965–1997 is a box-set compilation album from The Carpenters that, with the exception of a few track changes, is essentially the same as the 1991 From the Top set. Coming in at four discs and 73 songs, this album is one of the biggest of all Carpenters compilation sets. The songs from this box set are everything from the Richard Carpenter Trio recordings from 1965 to their biggest hits in the early 1970s to the last song ever recorded by the Carpenters, "Now".