Donna Summer – Bad Girls

i have an issue with uk labels but is translucent..Is there an IRELAND PRESSING???

“Love to Love You Baby” brought my attention to struggling background singer Donna Summer as she cooed through a 17 minute disco copulation produced by the genius of Giorgio Moroder, pioneer of the new electronically generated sound that would identify the new dance sound that emanated in Italy and spread across the continents eventually washing ashore in America labeled “European Disco”. It threatened the existing and expensive manpower of predominately African American R&B groups and the professionally trained orchestras that could and would follow their maestro to an accelerated rhythm to accommodate the disco dance beat. Donna Summer’s performance to “Love to Love You Baby” made her, and Moroder, the new stars in the burgeoning dance music field. It was her second album, “Love Trilogy” that won me over as a fan of the African American transplanted to aspiring songstress. Just like the introduction of Madonna’s first hit “Holiday” and the rest of the album playlist, I was a slave to acquiring subsequent albums of these two novices to the already well established music industry. But as unpredictable as Mother Nature, Summer’s third album “I Yesterday” was a bit hard to embrace. Yet I played the distinctly unusual album until I got used to it, and now appreciate it as of her brave experiment with her craft and career. The magic of music is that regardless of your initial impression, the entirety of a well-produced album emits an earworm of memory into your brain of a moment in time that seemed valuable to us. Much as I was infatuated with the first Madonna album, my appreciation of her product dropped when she released “Like a Virgin”. Similarly, Summer’s “Four Seasons of Love” was a love/hate relationship: I played it continuously, studied the ridiculously corny over the top images of the singer styled like a dated Hollywood movie star captured in the lenses of the photographic artist Francis Scavullo. The album was so short after the Moroder/Summer interpretation of the four seasons that “Spring Affair” was needed to tack onto the end, re-enforcing it as the “hit” song, and to make up any hard feelings on the musically thin album, including a wall calendar. I found some of the “seasons” off-key, yet liked the format. But Summer’s next album I loved even more than “Try Me, Try Me, Try Me Just One More Time”, and I believed it should have been produced as a live rock opera: “Once Upon a Time”, like the Who’s “Tommy”. I used to play it from Track 1 to the finale, over an hour of drama. When “Bad Girls” was released as a single and then the album, I was no longer a fan of the awkward star entertainer, as Summers had been quoted as denying any loyalty to her gay audience at the offset of AIDS, and made a very “unchristen” reference to the correlation between that particular fanbase and the deadly disease. While “Bad Girls” and some other album hits played on the radio, I had no interest in buying it or celebrating Donna Summer, the artist. 40 years later, I read an article that made me want to purchase the “Bad Girls” Deluxe Edition, which has changed my tune to the album. Even witnessing the whitewashed version of Donna’s turbulent life by 3 Tony nominated and awarded actresses on Broadway could not sugar coat the diva Donna’s hypocrisy. Most of the songs on “Bad Girls” were painfully familiar (TOO familiar: “On the Radio”!?!). But I have now discovered the hidden treasures of some of the less familiar tunes that feel like they belong in the epic “Once Upon a Time”. “Journey to the Center of Your Heart”, “One Night in a Lifetime”, “Can’t Get to Sleep at Night”, and “Lucky”. I was growing tired and too set in my ways to try to keep up with the evolving Madonna show, as she seemed to want to satisfy a younger audience who was weaned on more contemporary sounds, i.e.: techno soundtrack and hip/hop/rap. But I was finally redeemed with Madonna’s release of the disco inspired (and Summer/Moroder sampled) “Confessions on a Dancefloor”. Even the harmless pop group ABBA’s playlist was borrowed without recognition. But now, 40 years later I was buying and realizing the genius of “Bad Girls”. Of course, the deluxe-edition offers even more bonuses. I love the emotional orchestration of “Mac Arthur Park Suite”, even if the core lyrics and music are not original to the Summer/Moroder team. And I swear I can still feel tension in B.Streisand and D.Summer performing the duet “Enough is Enough” knowing that the divas never even worked on the song together in the same studio!!!! They insisted the producers that those were the rules if they dreamed of this superstar collaboration. Hell, even arch enemies Joan Crawford and Bette Davies played well together to complete “Whatever happened to Baby Jane?” I wrote about being bitten by the disco bug in Times Square, 1976, at 18yrs old. Homo GoGo Man: a fairytale about a boy who grew up in discoland has been in publication for 4.5 years, and after consistently high sales, my publisher graciously agreed to releasing my play on words of the species “homo sapien” struggling to avoid extinction in a 2nd edition of that book that allowed me to flush out my tales of nightclubbing in NYC 1976-2004 starting out as a naive GoGo boy at 18 and ending up as a GoGo man at age 44. What goes around comes around. Donna Summer was taken from her fans prematurely on May 17, 2012, memorable as it is my birthdate, and I will can never exhaust my stereo from playing her volume of work, spare the ‘Christian’ messages, as the Summer/Moroder collaboration was as unique as Dionne Warwick/Burt Bacharach.

Not just the consummate disco album, but a consummate album regardless of genre. Ms Summer had it all - the voice, the song-writing skills (check out my favourite non-single track 'There Will Always Be A You', written solely by Ms Summer) and the beauty (which certainly did not hurt her capacity to sell her music to a captive and broad cross section of the community). Perfection even without the presence of the hypnotic, highly influential and timeless masterpiece 'I Feel Love'. One of the greatest albums ever released.

A classic Disco LP on the whole, but coming from an Electronic background myself it's all about the last side.

Starting off with Our Love, you instantly know you are in for a full side of synth bliss from Moroder. This technology is offset by Donna's sublime voice & euphoric lyrics. And, of course, this track features the stuttering kick which influenced New Order for their track Blue Monday.

Next is Lucky, with a classic Mororder bassline. Shimmering synth refrains sparkle throughout the track, pure class.

Before you know it, everything drops away and the amazing Sunset People arrives. Pretty Hi-NRG in tempo, it brings in promise of the 80's. You can just imagine some glitzy dancefloor in '79, everyone totally hyped about what the new decade will bring.

Of course, many 80's bands were inspired by the techno production / soulful vocal combination (Yazoo for example), but it all started with a German mastermind & an angelic girl.

EVERYONE! Check your LP's as my UK pressing when held up to a strong light is a see through deep red/pink

Giorgio Moroder, Pete Bellotte and Donna Summer! Make this album one of my favorites! The A side of record 1 is unbeatable in my opinion!