The Joy Of Disco (BBC Documentary)

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah others have said it, but Donna in many ways (including starting off with a sex kitten image that changed more to owning her sexuality--at least on record--even if it made her uncomfortable). It's too bad that disco docu's section on Donna Summer focuses still on the homophobia scandal which I think she's more than made up for (it bothers me that people like Shirley Bassey who were quoted on video as saying how horrific they found homosexuality have not had to deal with that anymore, but Donna who had some reports attitbuted to her, but no direct quotes, about the subject during her brief born again era, still can't fully shake the story).

I love Casanova Brown (Gloria Gaynor is someone who has become outspokenly religiously nutty--saying she performs at pride events as a way to save the gays, etc--ironic considering her last hit was I Am What I Am).

[DRW50]

I think a lot of it is down to regionalism - Bassey is seen as sleek, cool, old school British, while Summer is America, hot, cold, fiery, distant, making you feel many things, making it tougher to shake. I guess it's also down to the era of AIDS, which is always going to be a major flashpoint.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Her pop-rock/new wave flop album The Wanderer is also very underrated.

A lot of her 80's output was messy due to record company politics and Donna not really being able to find a true musical footing after Disco and her born-again era.

[alphanguy74]

Donna's troubles did all center around that supposed AIDS comment, she say emphatically that she never said it, and I believe her. There was one interview around 15 years ago where she started to cry when that came up, and she said "I never said it, nor do I believe it". and she ain't no actress... so I really think she is honest about this:

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Donna always wanted to act though.

One of the big reasons she jumped to Geffen was because of the empty promises David Geffen told her he'd do for her, one of them making her a movie star.

She was also writing a Broadway musical a few years ago that she was supposed to star in, but nothing ever came of it and she's not mentioned it since.

[alphanguy74]

Disco did continue in Europe, without the stigma... but of course, Europe never OD'd on disco like the US... so thee wasn't any burnout. some disco I actually dislike, and it tends to be things on the fastest end of the spectrum, and the percussion totally dominating the track. Tracks like that I find monotonous. Here's one of my very favorite Eurodisco songs, it has such complexity and great vocals:

My liking of disco is spottier than my favorite genre, which is early 70's Orchestral pop... but in general, I usually like about 30-40 percent of most disco songs.

[SFK]

Shirley also enjoyed a menthol cigarette from time to time because they were "good for the throat".

[DRW50]

My favorite Donna Summer song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOhi0NRfJ78

[EricMontreal22]

Ha I suppose that's not as bad as Dionne Warwick and her smoking--saying if they ever affected her singing in any way she'd give them up. Ummm... Has she heard her records in the past 20-30 years??

Alphanguy, I LOVE that cover of I Can't Stand the Rain.

I think this was her first great song (I can appreciate Love to Love You Baby as camp but it doesn't show off her voice, which is why nobody believed she could really sing) and miles better than the Barry Manilow original. Love that you linked the original full length version--most of the edited versions on her greatest hits albums edit the bridge with all the orgasms lol (which of course was a disco trademark back in the earlier days...)

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Her extended cover of MacArtur Park will also be her definitive moment in my life.

[DRW50]

I can see why they edited it out (I wonder if it played on the radio that way at the time) but it's certainly something to hear I had mostly just heard some of the shorter versions.

Disco did have that raw sexuality which became more about some goofy fun. It had a very interesting history.

And of course who can forget:

[Y&RWorldTurner]

House music seemed to fly under the radar in the 80's and early 90's.

It was probably the real successor to disco, yet never really gets any recognition or notice. There were other kinds of "club music" during this time, but at least up to the early 90's, that was the most noticeably trend, and then it was suddenly out of favour by the mid 90's.

I guess by then "dance music" was primarily pioneered in Europe with heavy electronic elements.

[EricMontreal22]

Wanderer was actually a minor hit--it went Gold. It was ahead of its time (we'll forget the awful I Believe in Jesus ending)--it showed that if produced right Donna could have moved past disco, alkong with Giorgio Moroder who produced it. Much of it is very early new wave. Rolling Stone, miraculously picked it as the album of the year in 1980 and gave it a brilliant review (they also championed the rock/disco Bad Girls double album before it was cool to praise her, which of course was a massive, massive success).

That was a bigger part of her problem then turning away from drugs and embrasing Born Again religion (she's still very religious of course, though she goes to a church which is more than gay friendly)--she signed to the new Geffen Label for what was then a record sum in 1980. But Geffen really didn't know what to do with her (he didn't really know with anyone till he started with hard rock acts). After The Wanderer underperformed, the thought was with disco dead, and the rock sound maybe not doing it for her, she should try to be more black. Much like Whitney Houston Donna has always been criticized for the bizarre belief that she wasn't black enough (it didn't help that she made her career when she was a German citizen doing shows there and Moroder discovered her, so was always a part of the Eurodisco movement rather than the American/Philadelphia funk/disco movement). I think many even held it against her that she married (twice) white men.

So, after Donna had been working on her third double album, I'm a Rainbow with Moroder, Geffen suddenly pulled the plug (the album was finally released in the 90s and you can tell it's unfinished, but it has some gems) and paired her with Quincy Jones. Quincy did NOT like Donna and reportedly would shout abuse at her in the studio--he also didn't let her write much of her album at al, and to top it all off Donna was very pregnant, so she said working on that album, 1982's Donna Summer was a horrible experience (it did have a minor hit with State of Independence and while Quincy really doesn't let Donna's vocals shine, it's not a bad album--Bruce Springsteen who was a huge fan even wrote Protection on it for her, though the label at the last minute wouldn't let him duet with her, oddly). It sold ok, but that break from Moroder (who later gave hit songs written with Donna's voice in mind, including Flashdance and the power ballad Take My Breath Away to other artists) really seemed to be the beginning of the end of her doing groundbreaking dance/pop music, despite hits like She works Hard for the Money (the album it's from is a mess--her most overtly Christian), and the fun 1989 album with Stock Aitken Waterman which of course was a huge hit in the UK but hardly groundbreaking.

[EricMontreal22]

I wouldn't say all--the fact she was SOO identified with disco really was equally a problem for her in the US (aside from acts like the Beegees who did disco, but didn't become stars because of disco, nobody who rose through disco music in the US anyway really made the transition). But yeah. I've actually been at parties with older gay men where people have lectured me if they find out I like Donna Summer--whatever may have been said, and Donna has been known to say stupid things without thinking before so I think at her most fundamental religious something could have been said, though nothing about AIDS being a punishment, it was blown very quickly into insane proportions and she';s more than made up for it.

Don't forget too that she stood by her good friend Paul Jabara (the uber gay actor and songwriter of Last Dance, Enough is Enough, It's Raining Men, etc) when he died of AIDS and many abandoned him, performing at his funeral, and has given millions to AIDS charities. There's a good piece that gathers the various info, facts and rumours on the subject for anyone curious about it here: http://www.donna-tribute.com/articles/99/rumor.html Judging by the audience when I saw her live two years back (and she still sounds basically as great as ever--that voice doesn't change), I think the issue is largely past her, so it's depressing to see it come up again.

[EricMontreal22]

Ha have you seen her disco movie Thank God it's Friday. I admit I find it oddly fun--and it was shot in a real disco and sorta gives you a hint of what the culture was like there (and there's even some aspects of the mixed disco scene--unliek Sat Night Fever which many fans criticized for being so completely heterosexual). She's terrible in it, though apparently she was decent in her earlier stage roles. She *does* approach her singing as an actress which I appreciate--unlike, say Mariah, she doesn't oversing songs with endless trills just because she can, but services the song, sometimes using her head voice, sometimes her full belt, depending.

Ordinary Girl, her Broadway musical was in the works for years--there's a demo floating around, and of course she did two (pretty good) songs from it on her 1999 VH1 comeback concert. But it sounded ridiculous--it was based on her life and I guess she thought she would star in it even at her age. 5 or so years back they still mentioned it as upcoming for Broadway but that seems to be gone now... I don't expect too much, her autobiography, while it tells some harrowing stories from her disco days like a suicide attempt a maid in a hotel saved her from, is largely a bore.

She has so many dropped projects--after the success of her VH1 concert Sony signed her and she recorded a full album with dance producers Tony Moran and Metro (who was hot as he had done the year before Believe for Cher). Then management at Sony switched around and the album is still stuck in legal limbo, though Donna has said she'll try to release some of the tracks online. Then she was signed to Sony's "legacy artist" label Burgundy, and Crayons (which actually is a surprisingly solid album, her best in years) cracked the top 20 in the US, but then that label folded. Last year she said she was recording a dance album with some current producers and a standards album with David Foster, and she was on one of his recent specials, but it was meant to be out by Fall 2011, and still nothing...