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New Bubbatunes - Diva 2

bub72 Donna Summer – Sweet Summer Songs (February 20, 2007)
Where Tina Turner may have more soul than any of her contemporaries, her songs tend to be more of a hit and miss where Donna Summer seems to have come up with consistently great songs at least from 1975 through 1989 because as I was looking through her catalog I came up with way more songs I loved than what a one CD collection could handle. Perhaps that’s the reason there’s about 20 Donna Summer compilations out there. I own two of them, one is a double disc full of her singles from the beginning of her career to the middle 90’s and the other is her first official greatest hits collection 1979’s On The Radio; both of them are great of course but like most performers, I have personal favorites that never seem to make it onto compilations and so Donna gets the bubbatunes treatment with Sweet Summer Songs, a 19 track set that compiles some of her more famous singles through out the years and some of my favorite album tracks.

Again we skip the obvious chronological track list and instead go for a big beat fast paced opener with her brilliant 1979 single “Bad Girls”. We spend a lot of time with Donna through her 1970’s output but that’s really where she did do most of her gleaming. I mean Donna’s 1970’s output was nothing short of brilliant, mixing it up between dance styled ballads, full on disco and pushing electronic dance music into the mainstream, she was never boring. We’ve included most of her hits during the time, the sexy and dirty debut of 1975’s “Love To Love You Baby”, her duet with Brooklyn Dreams “Heaven Knows” (1978), the string driven disco ballad “On The Radio” (1979), the introduction of electronics on “I Feel Love” (1977), the so insane it’s genius “Macarthur Park” (1978) and one of the very first songs I ever heard by Donna, 1978’s brilliant though still slightly overplayed “Last Dance.” A Donna Summer mix wouldn’t be complete without the mandatory sheer brilliance of the rock/dance hybrid known as “Hot Stuff”, so of course that is also here.

Although all those songs are legendary and brilliant some of her more under appreciated songs came from that era as well including two songs from 1979’s Bad Girls album, the smooth and bouncy story of Hollywood found in “Sunset People” which has been referred to as “the best Donna Summer album cut of her career” though it was released as a single in the UK in the summer of 1980. “Our Love” is another electronic based song and one that doesn’t get as much press as her others. The simplistic lyrics about love lasting even when you can’t be together isn’t exactly poetry but it’s sweet and the bleeping pulsing electronic backbeat including the drum machine solos is pure brilliance. I’ve always felt that “I Feel Love” had really poor lyrics and they were put in essentially to put Donna’s voice above the real purpose of the song – to introduce an all electronic sound where with “Our Love” Donna was actually able to express some real emotion and real drive while doing it above an excellent back beat.

Because of Donna’s amazing talent as a singer and her ability to change musical styles effortlessly, when disco died Donna’s career didn’t. Instead she was the second person signed to David Geffen’s new label (right behind John Lennon) and made one of my favorite albums 1980’s The Wanderer. We’ve included the brilliant title track which tells the story of a woman who just likes to go, go, go and refuses to stand still for a 9 to 5 life. When the song was released as a single the powers that be put the song “Stop Me” as it’s B-side and as the years progressed that song eventually got more play than the single. One of my favorite songs by Donna, it’s a simple little pop song that changes from a slightly mid tempo to full fast rocker as Donna hiccups the verses trying to get her man to believe she isn’t as awful as he thinks she is, as the chorus progresses however she has to ask the man if all of her pleading is just old hat, “So if you’ve heard this all before/ don’t let me carry on no more/ stop me/ stop me if you think you’ve heard this one/ this one/ stop me/ stop me if you think you’ve heard this one/ stop me/ stop me/ stop me!” It’s incredible and I wonder if Morrissey used this as the basis for his Smiths number???

Because of her diversity, we get to ride with her into the rock arena with 1980’s “Cold Love” an awesome guitar synth driven track that was the second single from The Wanderer album. I read a book a few years ago that had the best rock singles ever and believe it or not this song was one of them. Donna’s voice is in super form as she struts around looking for love, “Hope in the dark/ love in the light/ I keep on looking for someone who’s right/ a face and a name/ it’s always the same/ so sick of playing love’s foolish games/ tell me why/ tell me whyyyyy… cold love/cold love/ another shot of rock and roll love/ cold love/ cold love/ whatever happened to that sweet old love/ tell me why/ tell me why/ tell me why…”

After The Wanderer, Donna went back to the studio with her long time collaborators Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte to create a two-disc album known as I’m A Rainbow. Geffen Records rejected the album and they set her up with Quincy Jones instead so for years the I’m A Rainbow album sat on the shelves until it was finally released on CD in 1996. But what happened between those 15 years of shelf life is a few songs ended up here and there - usually on a soundtrack. One of those songs is actually one of her best songs ever – the synthy pop fun of “Romeo”. As Geffen shelved the album, they let Giorgio Moroder use it for his mega hit soundtrack to the film Flashdance. The song is full of fast paced Donna cooing and announcing how great a man she has. The music is full on early 80’s synth pop and her vocals and sort of 60’s girl group delivery makes it one of my favorite songs by Summer ever.

With the I’m A Rainbow album shelved, Donna was hooked up with Quincy Jones for 1982’s Donna Summer album. Of the Quincy Jones productions came the top ten hit, “Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)” which is a high hitting gem if ever there was one. Full of energy and personality, it’s one of those hits that you forget about it until you hear it and then you can’t get the damn thing out of your head. Also from the Donna Summer album came an interesting foray into new music territory with the slightly reggae religious themed “State Of Independence.” I’m not huge on songs about Jesus when I’m not in church and Donna seems to know this so instead of a full on gospel choir type of song like she had done before (1980’s “I Believe In Jesus”), she used contemporary beats, ethereal lyrics and one of her best vocal performances. It probably didn’t hurt any that her chorus of back up singers were actually Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, Dionne Warwick and Lionel Richie.

Sweet Summer Songs delves even further into Donna’s more unrecognized 80’s work with the 1987 single “Dinner With Gershwin” which is set to a kind of creepy little metallic synth track as she registers low trying to get close to her man, “I wanna have dinner with Gershwin/ I wanna watch Rembrandt sketch/ I wanna fly double with Earheart/ impossible I guess…” The clever lyrics by Brenda Russell (“Piano In The Dark”, “Get Here”) tell the story of a fantasy as the list of what Donna wants to do really consists of getting “next to you.”

Donna’s material through the early 80’s continued to keep her career in fairly high momentum, in 1983 a contractual obligation to old label Casablanca had her record an album for them, the result was one of her biggest hits ever with “She Works Hard For The Money.” If new wave and guitar rock were ushering in a new wind in the early 80’s pushing music like Donna’s crafted dance into the wings, this was Donna’s effort at pushing back. Using full on rock guitars but keeping some synthy and dancey bass lines, Donna’s song about the workingwoman hit a thread with the public and both the single and video were in constant play.

The 80’s ended with Donna working with yet another group of boys who were changing dance and pop music – those Brits known as Stock/Aitken/Waterman whose songs had been on rotation for most of the late 80’s with Banarama, Rick Astley and Kylie Minogue being just a few who had worked with the boys. The Donna Summer resulting album Another Place & Time may not have been quite up to par with other Donna albums but it was obvious by 1989 that both the boys of SAW and Donna were pretty good at creating brilliant singles and “This Time I Know It’s For Real” is no exception. It’s almost perfect in the delivery by the boys and with Donna writing the lyrics and singing in her Summer style, it’s one of the best singles the boys ever produced.

Donna Summer – Sweet Summer Songs (bub72)
Track List:
01. Bad Girls
02. Cold Love
03. Dinner With Gershwin
04. Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)
05. Last Dance
06. The Wanderer
07. Our Love
08. Heaven Knows
09. On The Radio
10. Hot Stuff
11. Romeo
12. State Of Independence
13. I Feel Love
14. Stop Me
15. Sunset People
16. She Works Hard For The Money
17. Macarthur Park
18. Love To Love You Baby
19. This Time I Know It’s For Real

Come back to see our next new Bubbatune compilation with a diva who can certainly knows where broken hearts go even if she gets so emotional she has to exhale... any guesses? Until next time, beep beep aaah toot toot or just shoop shoop...

Labels: Bradley, bub72, Bubbatunes, diva, Donna Summer

posted by swivek @ 11:27 AM