Donna Summer - Crayons

[Sylph]

Well, it leaked... Were you waiting for it? What did you think about it?

[JackPeyton]

i think people need to start coming up with better album names...

hard candy? mc2=whateverthehellthatis? crayons?

w.t.f.!?

[Sylph]

I'm in disbelief how awful these names are... Absolutely horrific.

[Chris B]

I can't listen to the entire album, I get bored halfway through. It seems overproduced and without focus. I loved the single "I Got Your Love" that she released a few years ago. It was a smooth, mature, but modern track that fit her perfectly. Most of the new album seems too young for her. I do enjoy Stamp, but overall it's not standing out for me.

[EricMontreal22]

I'm nuts for Donna so I'm really biased but it's really grown on me. The theme of showing different facets of her personality (ie a box of crayons) fit, her vocals are still better than many divas half her age... Funny though at first I was way more into Cyndi's new great dance album but Cryaons is wearing better on me as the weeks go by... Donna did co write every song.

my main gripe. The Circuit City Bonus ediiton and international editions end on a killer 8 minute dance track It's Only Love which is a highlight for me. It's criminal that not every version ends with this essential track.

Anyway it looks like it will debut at number 17 this week which isn't bad considering she hasn't reached that high with an album since 1983...

Here's the Electronic Press Kit on the album which, fitting for the small boutique label she's on, is VERY cheap and the "performance/lip synch" footage is ridiculous but it's still worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN8_woL6lFA (Embedding is disabled)

And here was a great profile on her done on this past Sunday's CBS Sunday Morning. This Friday on NBC's morning show she'll be performing 4 songs as part of their Summer Concert Series and is on Letterman this Monday.

And finally the great popculture site Popmatters has both an awesome interview with Donna and her producers (there's a great piece on how Gad collaborated with her on 2 of the best songs, Fame and Science of Love) and a killer retrospective of her career going from album to album (it's easy to forget how amazingly groundbreaking her 70s disco albums, sometimes two double LPs a year, were in concept and execution) from successes to flop interspersed with quotes from celebrities on her.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/arti...o-donna-summer/ and http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/arti...h-donna-summer/

[Sylph]

OT: Eric, we have to talk about Danny Troob and Anne Dudley.

[Sylph]

I couldn't find the Gad thing about Science of Love... 

[EricMontreal22]

Nor could I lol... Anyway I had saved it to a file so here it is--it was actually from an Italian fan site:

Pretty good little interview with one of her producers Toby Gad (yes of Fergie fame) on a fansite:

Toby Gad, one of today's most successful and gifted music makers, has produced three tracks for Donna's new album. And though he's busy and constantly in demand, he was kind enough to share his thoughts on CRAYONS with all the friends of Donna Summer Time. Great music doesn't lie: he's a great guy.

Sebastiano: Toby, I understand you were a Donna fan long before you met her. What did you think when you knew you were going to work with her?

Toby: I was thrilled... I always loved her hits like SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE MONEY, LOVE TO LOVE YOU BABY, etc. It was an honor and a great challenge at the same time.

S: Some reviewers are complaining that Donna sounds like a different singer almost on each song of CRAYONS. I just don't get this. The album's incredible variety is a choice, not an accident...

T: She co-wrote each song and I would see the music more as a medium to carry the lyric. The lyric is consistently Donna and thus the diversity of her record feels homogenous to me, considering how much she has to say about life and her experiences.

S: What do you think you've learned from working with such a living legend? And what do you think she may have learned from you?

T: We had a great time together. I was surprised that she is one of the few who can capture the essence of a vocal in the very first take. I guess that's what you had to do to be good 20 years ago. These days there are few artists who can deliver such a dead-on first-take performance. That's a challenge as a producer. You gotta capture every little piece she sings because it may be the best one.

Not sure what she learned from me, but I can definitely say we've made friends and I'm sure I'll see her again. Well perhaps she learned through me how times have changed, since I'm one of the trailblazer producers who travel with a mac book pro and logic and do records in beach houses and hotel rooms rather than conventional studios. You can check out some film clips on my site in the section "behind the scenes" which document how I work on laptops. Also in three of my videoblogs you can see Donna in NYC and in Miami with me.

S: Donna stated that if the album makes the listeners feel better, then she's done a good job. As CRAYONS has such a distinctive "feel good" quality about it, I would say she's done a great job...

T: Absolutely!

Now the songs you worked on: FAME (THE GAME):

S: Listening to this song made me think: "the Superstar of Rock & Roll is back!". The vocals and the arrangement are adventurous, electrifying; the words seem to be coming straight from Donna's soul and maybe from some past wounds too.

T: She told me many details about how Fame affected her life and I helped put that into the lyric of the song. The song went fast. She had started the hook to a different track and I loved the idea, so I wrote the verses in 2 hours and recorded her on it. 2 weeks later the label called me from the mastering room and said, we can't use the track, can you write new music to it. So I had half a day to produce a new track to it and sent it straight to the mastering studio.

S: What about RUN WITH IT? Was that the "other track" Donna had started the hook to, or is it a completely different song?

T: It's a different song, not sure if Donna wants to release it at a later time.

SAND ON MY FEET:

S: Donna sounds so sweet and relaxed on this one...

T: I spent four days at her amazing beach house and one day we were just looking out the window at the ocean, I jammed on the guitar and she sang whatever she saw and felt about the beach and about the love to her wonderful husband. Then she got hungry and went to the kitchen to cook. I followed her with the guitar in the kitchen and said, "Donna, I know you're hungry but we need to finish this song idea...", so we continued writing the song while she was cooking for us. Even when some of her friends came over for dinner, I was still working on the song and interrupting the dinner. A week later I met her at the Hit Factory in Miami and we gave the song a few final touches.

SCIENCE OF LOVE:

T: It's the first song we wrote. I had a track idea and we jammed to it. The verses came first. It's about what love can do to you, how it can also defy gravity and do crazy things that don't make sense at first glance.

S: Will SCIENCE OF LOVE be released as a single? I hope so.

T: Up to the label.

S: Are there any songs on CRAYONS you would have loved to produce?

T: I think the other producers did a great job.

S: The unavoidable question: do you have a favourite color?

T: Blue.

S: Thank you so much, Toby, for your kindness, your time and for making Donna's comeback even more special.

T: My pleasure.

[TC]

Thanks for all the comments, I'll probably buy it despite what my partner says. Apparently it is not selling well. I'm a little young for it and I believe you are younger than I am, Eric (I was born in 68). She hooked me with "I Feel Love"; possibly the first song I ever really danced to (*home alone in my underpants*)

Hard to believe that "Love to love you baby" was banned in a few European countries back in the day.

My partner, husband, has some real issues with her alleged "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" comments but I'm not sure I believe it ever happened.

[EricMontreal22]

It basically didn't rever happen. I'm just gonna copy what I posted in another forum cuz I get tired of repeatedly trying to stick up for DOnna Summer's "homophobia" (especially when gay icons like Shirley Bassey, Gloria Gaynor and Cher have been directly quoted saying far worse things than Donna's alleged comment that she even sued for slander over--yet gays don't remember that--and don't get me wrong I love Cher, and I know she now regrets what she said but why are some gays still so pissed over rumours abotu Donna Summer but so forgiven elsewise?...)

Ugh I hate how this always eventually comes up STILL when Donna's doing something (though this album DID just come in at number 17 on the Billboard charts, higher than predicted which isn't bad--she has two majro chat shows--Today Show + a mini concert Friday and Letterman Monday--too so maybe it'll do well this week too)

yeah I was born in 1980 but I think Donna has the best voice, still in the bizz and her albums from 1975-1980 are just sunning creative dance records--every dance/pop diva owes those recordings a huge layer of dept--nto just for the hits but for great album tracks too (I actually got into her as a teen cuz I read somewhere how Madonna was inspired by her success and decided to investigate and was hooked).

(Oh and if you liked I Feel Love try to get the bonus edition fo Crayons edning with It's Only Love a killer 7 minute trance dance track that owes a lot to if but is stupidly only on some editions)

Anyway, sorry for this, TC. If your hubby bring sit up again I'd ask where he heard the "gossip' for sure as it's almost become an urban myth and tell him to make up his own mind. Here's what I posted to a music forum when it came up:

"NOTHING homopobic was ever said to the press, recorded, or anywhere else and it's always been hearsay--so much that it's almost an urban legend. It IS true that at her most evangelical (which Donna no longer is--her church is very inclusive and gay friendly) she did say "I will pray for you" and some people thought she meant pray for all gays. What happened was someone with a very sick (with AIDS) boyfriend came to the show and asked Donna to pray for his health so she did. OOOOH how homophobic.

What makes me mad is there have been "gay icons" who have explicitly said homophobic things to the press--direct quotes, and it's been all but forgotten or at leats forgiven. Cher, Shirley Bassey and Gloria Gaynor all are examples. Donna never has, has always denied it and has done tons of gay charity work, played Gay Days and given her profits to AIDS charities, sold out two Carnegie Hall charity shows for Gay Men's Health Crisis, has sued papers that have claimed she's said those things for libel, sang at her close friend Paul Jabara's (who wrote Last Dance, Enough is Enough, Raining Men and invented the AIDS red Ribbon thing) funeral, is close friends with and has worked with many gay writers and producers including on Crayosn who have all said she's a great friend, etc. Even if Donna did have homophobic feelings for a time (around 1980 when her life was filled with depression and prescription drug abuse and she delved deeply into religion to get out of that she was involved with some pretty extreme churches before she snapped out of it) she has done more than Pink Pound divas like Shirley bassey have done to make up for it IMHO--and I still don't think she did say any of that.

On the disco forum there's a remixer who has worked for Donna's husband's record label and he asked him, Bruce, about it, and as Bruce said even if Donna did believe any of that why would she say it ANYWHERE, she'd know it would be career suicide and she's frankly not that stupid.

Anyone who wants to read all the details on both sides of it can read this excellent article. http://www.donna-tribute.com/articles/99/rumor.html

Otherwise I really think the whole topic needs and deserves to be let go--what I love most is the people who still perpetuate the rumour usually have No idea what they're talking about and haven't even looked up the basic facts, pro and con, about it and its basis in reality. The gay press has never boycotted her, her concerts are filled with gay men and Donna doesn't look like she's gonna vomit when she's singing surrounded by them. It's just some gays still being drama queens at this point, frankly (what a waste when there are genuine targets of people filled with hate that they could spend the energy on).

[EricMontreal22]

My friend Tommy who runs the BEST obscure Disco blog, with mp3s each week at http://discodelivery.blogspot.com/ just posted his Donna Summer review and I think it's spot on--both the positives and negatives. I agree 100% so I'll just post it (And I'm meetign him in Vancouver for her concert...)

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Colour it a comeback?

Unsurprisingly, "Crayons" has been one of my frequent listens this past week, and so far reviews have been about as mixed as the genres on the record. Admittedly, even despite my own initial skepticism, I've found a lot to love on this record. It's hard to believe that all of seventeen years have passed since the last time Donna Summer has released an original album (and about eight since her last aborted comeback). In the intervening years, her status as "Queen of Disco" and her classic recordings with Moroder & Bellotte seem to have only gained currency, so understandably expectations have been anything but modest. Despite that, "Crayons" comes across as less of an opportunity to affirm her title as the "Queen of Disco" and capitalize on the appreciation, or at least the spirit of her earlier work than it is an excuse to pick up where she had left off nearly 20 years ago and record what is possibly the most diverse, self consciously current, accessible pop records of her career. Depending on one's perspective, it's either a laudable move or a missed opportunity, and it seems almost every review out there seems to fall in either one category or the other..

In a time when the music industry seems to require veteran artists to release endless streams of standards/cover albums (the first suggestion her label brought to the table, not surprisingly), I'm not sure that there's an album out there now that manages to be so unabashedly trendy, yet so un-trendy at the same time. In my mind, she deserves a good deal of credit for bucking the trend and at nearly 60, putting out an original pop record, however out of place it may seem. While the likes of Madonna and Kylie Minogue, having perfected the impeccably timed pop singer reinvention, may be able to pull off something similar without the same sort of criticism someday; between her seventeen year absence from recording and her still strong association with the disco era, considerable vocal talent notwithstanding, one can hardly say the same for Ms. Summer.. Unlike a near decade ago when the likes of Cher and Tina Turner were putting out hit records with younger producers, in the last four or so years it seems, the thought of an aging diva staging a comeback with a pop record as polished and commercial as this one today, produced by a laundry list of current hitmaking producers feels almost like a critical death wish..

With songs like "Stamp Your Feet," seemingly tailor made for a Nike commercial, it's hook copping the Gwen Stefani/Fergie-inspired (or not so inspired) 'spelling bee' trend, to "Mr. Music", where she opens with a line about 'hooking up her iPod, shaking her body and being 'naughty, naughty', to "Crayons" (featuring Ziggy Marley) which sounds like K-os crossed with Rihanna, or even "The Queen Is Back" with it's Mary J. declarations backed with ABBA chords and hip-hop beats, parts of the album sound, to put it honestly, almost embarassing on paper. Admittedly, given all that, it would be extremely easy to completely dismiss the album altogether, if the results weren't as surprisingly and seriously enjoyable as they actually are.

Despite how they may come across on paper, the aforementioned first four tracks end up being some of the most infectious tracks on the record. The single, the Greg Kurstin produced "Stamp Your Feet" makes the perfect combination of dance-appeal and current pop-radio friendliness and "Crayons" (also produced by Kurstin), despite the surface similiarities to her less-than-stellar 1983 single "Unconditional Love," thankfully comes across infinitely better. Even the J.R. Rotem tracks - "Mr. Music" and "The Queen Is Back" with their slightly awkward combination of Donna and their urban styled production values, end up being some of the most memorably catchy tracks on the record.

Although not without it's low-points - namely the gimmicky, overproduced "Fame (The Game)" and "Slide Over Backwards" on which she adopts a southern alter ego by the name of Hattie Mae Blanche Dubois, other album highlights include the latin styled "Driving Down Brazil," as well as Toby Gad produced "Science of Love" with it's memorable melody and impassioned vocal and lyric, which is, aside from the ones already released, perhaps the most obvious single on the album. As well, the more 'unplugged' tracks on the album, "Sand On My Feet" and the personal "Be Myself Again" and the socially conscious "Bring Down The Reign" are also notable memonts, successfully bringing Donna and her voice into a setting in which she has rarely, if ever been heard. In so doing, they're perhaps the two tracks which most dramatically and clearly confirm the album's ambitions..

The first single and # 1 Billboard Dance hit "I'm A Fire" produced by Sebastian Arocha Morton emerges as another obvious highlight along with the international/US Circuit City bonus (also produced by Morton), "It's Only Love." Out of all the others, they are the only two tracks which seem to perfectly bridge the feeling of Donna Summer's classic disco recordings with today's contemporary dance/electronic aesthetics. It has to have been at least thirty years since a Donna Summer record has captured the sheer sensuality and sexiness in her voice as perfectly as "It's Only Love".

Although it's questionable whether this record will appeal to the same people who would buy a Fergie or Rihanna record, given how influential the work of Giorgio Moroder, particularly her work with him continues to be among newer generations of producers and listeners, there would likely be no shortage of younger, perhaps lesser known, but no less able and ambitious producers willing to return her to the forefront of contemporary electronic/dance music, if she so wishes to in the future. Anyone expecting as such with this album however, would probably be disappointed. Despite that, as a quality pop album and as a showcase of Summer's versatility, it's a roundly successful effort. Although her last original album was released seventeen years back, it's been even longer since Donna herself has sounded this engaged and exciting. So while this album may not singlehandedly untie her legacy from the past, she's at least proved that she's not about to be trapped by it, either. Hopefully the next album won't take another seventeen years.

As a side note, I've got my tickets to see her in Vancouver (well, Richmond actually) this coming August on her summer tour. It'll be my first time seeing her live, so I can't wait! I'll make sure I'll post a review and maybe some pix when I get back..

[Sylph]

So how's this holding up?

[Chris B]

I dont remember this album too much, but I do recall it having some good tracks. That lead single Stomp was horrendous. Dated, tacky and didn't suit her at all.

[EricMontreal22]

Aww Sylph, did you bump this for my benefit?

For me it's a mixed bag. I think it stands up, as a whole, better than anything she's done since 1981, which is saying something. It's solid, the Greg Kurstin tracks as well as the two dance epics, I'm a Fire and It's Only Love (annoyingly only on the European pressings!) are awesome, and hold up on iPod shuffle with anything similar coming out at the moment. Some of it, like Be Myself Again, I only love cuz I saw her sing it live. It's typical of some of Summer's more self indulgent lyrics, that she honestly does pull off live. I think fans wanted more of a full on dance album (which it seems we're about to get--she premiered a new track at Vuitton's London opening), and I get that. That said I'm so thankful she worked with talented NEW producers--I adore Moroder but he hasn't done anything worth a fart since 1988, including his reunion tracks with Donna (OK, Carry On, is cute).

I hadn't actually listened to this for a good half year and just pulled it out last week. The fact she makes a Rhiannon-esque track like Crayons, well *work* is merit enough I think.

Us fans waited since 1991's AWFUL Mistaken Identity album, so compared to that this is as awesome as Once Upon a Time or Bad Girls.

[Soapsuds]

There was a song from the Crayons album that I liked but cant recall which one. I think it was a remixed version but I could be wrong.