Donna Summer - Another Place And Time (1989)

Yes, the cover photo is disturbing and frightening, and yes, the Stock/Aiken/Watermen songwriting and production is fairly generic for that time, but none of that matters because after almost a decade of misfires, Donna Summer was back where she belonged: singing dance music. The Linn drum and dated synth sounds get old by the end of the disc, but this is easily Summer's best album of the '80s - slick stuff that should get you out of your chair and moving within a matter of seconds (unless you're driving - let's be careful out there).

S/A/W wrote and produced some of the tastiest Eurobeat dance hits of the late '80s; I usually associate them with Rick Astley, but they worked with a fairly large stable of of artists. While I'm sure they imagined that artists were interchangeable within their hit factory, Donna can emote inane lyrics like nobody's business and that's what makes this album work for me.

This album, along with many of Donna's offerings, have been out of print for many years. However, super deluxe reissues will be available for your holiday shopping this year:

(The 7 disc CD collection box set is available for pre-order at amazon.co.uk, but at £60.99, I think I'll be waiting on that one).

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #53
• Billboard R&B: #71

Tracks: My fave on this one is the #7 pop hit This Time I Know It's For Real. Also good are I Don't Wanna Get Hurt, Sentimental, and If It Makes You Feel Good. The title track and the single Breakaway both fall flat to this guy.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:
The Donna Summer Anthology (1993)
Bad Girls (1979)

Donna Summer - Bad Girls (1979)

Note: the CD I listened to was an early CD pressing, not the 2 CD deluxe edition released in 2003, unfortunately.

This morning, I woke up in the mood for some disco, went to the shelves, and was about to select a compilation I had recently purchased. Then I noticed Martin over at Martin's View posted that today is the 35th anniversary of the release of this chart topping album. It was like a sign sent from that big mirror ball in the sky. The aforementioned disco compilation was re-shelved, a restocking fee was charged, and I found my copy of Bad Girls.

To call this thing a concept album about prostitution might be a stretch, but let's go there anyway. It's easier to call it a concept album about sex. I was twelve when this released so both sex and prostitution were things we didn't discuss at our house (remember I was a preacher's kid). That made this forbidden music which made it that much more attractive to me, naturally.

Critic William Ruhlmann of allmusic.com puts it best when he calls this album "the artistic and commercial peak of [Summer's] career and, arguably, of disco itself." I also get a chuckle out of this from Robert Christgau: "You tend to suspect anyone who releases three double-LPs in eighteen months of delusions of Chicago, but Donna is here to stay and this is her best album." Multi-platinum sales, Grammy award and multiple nominations, #1 album, #1 singles, yada yada yada...

Update: In its 2020 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Rolling Stone ranked Bad Girls at #283.

"Ma’am, who is this Queen of Disco?" (SNL, 4/15/2000)

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #1 (6 weeks between June 16 - Aug 4, 1979)
• Billboard R&B: #1 (3 weeks)
• CashBox: #1 (5 nonconsecutive weeks)
• Rolling Stone: #2

Tracks:

Title	Hot 100	Disco	R&B	AC
Hot Stuff	1	1	3
Bad Girls	1	1	1
Dim All The Lights	2	54	13	44
Sunset People	46	1
Walk Away	36		35

Of the 15 tracks here, only 4 were also included on the Summer compilation in my collection, The Donna Summer Anthology. Bad Girls was originally released as a 2 LP set; what was the first LP (tracks 1-8) is a great stand-alone album that sees disco moving to a slightly harder sound - Giorgio Moroder sure knew what he was doing. Tracks are carefully segued with no breaks just like a good DJ would mix it, so there's no need to skip any of those tracks. In addition to the three hits (Bad Girls, Hot Stuff, Dim All The Lights), I'm particularly fond of Journey to The Center Of Your Heart and the funky chorus of One Night In A Lifetime. We're not as lucky with side three (tracks 9-12) which bogs down with ballads. Not that Summer can't pull off a good ballad, but that's not why I buy her music. Side four (tracks 13-15) gets us back with a return to the more synth-oriented sound that harkens back to I Feel Love. The album ends with the wonderful but overlooked Sunset People.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None. I didn't own this album when it was released. I mistakenly thought there wasn't much need to own it since I could hear the hit songs on the radio (bad pun intended).

Previously revisited for the blog:
The Donna Summer Anthology (1993)

Donna Summer - The Donna Summer Anthology (1993)

Admitting to liking Donna Summer seems like something I should be doing at a 12-step meeting. Even though it can be embarrassing, I've often confessed my love for disco music on this blog. Donna Summer is the "Queen of Disco" so when I found a copy of this double disc set for $3, I knew I couldn't pass it up. The only downside to buying this CD used is that the booklet wasn't included so I don't have any liner notes. I'd better love disco music because here we have 2 1/2 hours of music.

When Summer and producer Giorgio Moroder teamed up in the mid -'70s, they locked on to a formula that they wouldn't vary from for the next 6 years. Once disco was over, they had a hard time carrying on, but there are at least 2 tunes from the mid and late '80s that I recognize. As big as Summer was here in the US, she was even bigger in Europe. Those people must just love to dance. These tunes bring back some great late '70s memories and I enjoy the relentless disco beat, but now when I listen to them, I'm distracted by Summer's voice which was never really that strong. She has some pitch problems and needs more breath support in her upper register. But what do I know? She's the music superstar and I'm not.

Hey, did you know there was such a thing as the Dance Music Hall of Fame? Well, there was for a short time in the 2000's. Of course, our girl Donna was an inductee.

Tracks: Of the 34 tracks here, I only recognize about half of them. The others I don't have any need for because I'm not really looking to discover new Donna Summer music, I just wanted to hear the old tunes. However, there is a 1975 cover of Barry Manilow's Could It Be Magic that I hadn't heard before and it makes me chuckle to hear that as a disco tune.

All the big disco hits are here and I love 'em all: Love To Love You Baby, I Feel Love (see below), Last Dance, Hot Stuff, Bad Girls, Dim All The Lights, No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) with Barbra Streisand, and On The Radio. Summer's last top 10 hit, from 1989, This Time I Know It's For Real, is here as well. By that time, she had left Moroder and was working with the Stock Aitken & Waterman team, better known for their work with Rick Astley.

I may be going out on a limb here, but I Feel Love should be considered a groundbreaking song. With none of the typical disco strings and high-hat cymbal, the backing tracks are all electronic. Pretty gutsy for 1977, but the song paved the way for techno dance music in the '80s and beyond. People may argue that Kraftwerk was the real pioneer in electronic music and there's certainly some truth to that, but Kraftwerk didn't get the radio airplay this song did.

Minor hits that I had forgotten about until now: Love's Unkind (which shamelessly pulls its verse melody from Summertime Blues), I Love You, MacArthur Park (which contains some of the most unlikely metaphors in pop music history), Heaven Knows, Sunset People,and The Wanderer.

What is going on here? Disc 2 could be best described as schizophrenic. After starting with two disco hits, we get some boring ballads including a puzzling rendition of Evita's Don't Cry For Me Argentina which tries (and fails) to be a soaring power ballad. There's also forays into guitar rock (Cold Love), pseudo-world music (State of Independence and Unconditional Love), new wave pop (She Works Hard For The Money), and Quincy Jones R&B (Love Is In Control). Makes my head spin.

CD 1
Song	Year	Hot 100	Dance	R&B
Love To Love You Baby	1975	2	1	3
Could It Be Magic	1976	52	3	21
Try Me, I Know We Can Make It	1976	80	1	35
Spring Affair	1976	58	1	24
Love's Unkind	1977	-	1	-
I Feel Love	1977	6	1	9
Once Upon A Time	1977	-	1	-
Rumour Has It	1978	53	1	21
I Love You	1977	37	1	28
Last Dance	1978	3	1	5
MacArthur Park	1978	1	1	8
Heaven Knows	1978	4	1	10
Hot Stuff	1979	1	1	3
Bad Girls	1979	1	1	1
Dim All The Lights	1979	2	1	13
Sunset People	1980	-	-	-

CD 2
Song	Year	Hot 100	Dance	R&B
Enough Is Enough (No More Tears)	1979	1	1	20
On The Radio	1979	5	8	9
The Wanderer	1980	3	8	13
Cold Love	1980	33	8	-
I'm A Rainbow	81/96	-	-	-
Don't Cry For Me Argentina	81/96	-	-	-
Love Is In Control	1982	10	3	4
State Of Independence	1982	41	-	31
She Works Hard For The Money	1983	3	3	1
Unconditional Love	1983	43	-	9
There Goes My Baby	1984	21	-	20
Supernatural Love	1984	79	39	51
All Systems Go	1988	-	-	-
This Time I Know It's For Real	1989	7	5	-
I Don't Wanna Get Hurt	1989	-	-	-
When Love Cries	1991	77	-	18
Friends Unknown	1991	-	-	-
Carry On	1992	-	-	-

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: When the song Hot Stuff was popular in 1979, I remember TV personality Steve Allen appearing on a variety show where he did a dramatic reading of that song's lyrics. Pretty funny. Speaking of Hot Stuff, my high school marching band played a horrible arrangement of that song during my freshman year. Admittedly, most marching band arrangements of pop music are bad, but this arrangement was truly horrible.

In 8th grade (1979-80 for me), we learned how to disco dance in PE class. I always danced with a girl named Tiffany and, I must say, we were awesome disco dancers (for 13 year olds).