Donna Summer - 8 Albums Collection 1975-1979 (9CD) Japanese Mini LP SHM-CD, Reissue 2012

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Donna Summer - 8 Albums Collection 1975-1979 (9CD) Japanese Mini LP SHM-CD, Reissue 2012

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Donna Summer's title as the "Queen of Disco" wasn't mere hype – she was one of the very few disco performers to enjoy a measure of career longevity, and her consistent chart success was rivaled in the disco world only by the Bee Gees. Summer was certainly a talented vocalist, trained as a powerful gospel belter, but then again, so were many of her contemporaries. Of major importance in setting Summer apart were her songwriting abilities and her choice of talented collaborators in producers/songwriters Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, which resulted in a steady supply of high-quality (and, often, high-concept) material. But what was more, few vocalists could match the sultry, unfettered eroticism Summer brought to many of her best recordings, which seemed to embody the spirit of the disco era perfectly. The total package made Summer the ultimate disco diva, one of the few whose star power was even bigger than the music.

Summer was born LaDonna Andre Gaines on December 31, 1948, and grew up in Boston's Mission Hill section. Part of a religious family, she first sang in her church's gospel choir, and as a teenager performed with a rock group called the Crow. After high school, she moved to New York to sing and act in stage productions, and soon landed a role in a German production of Hair. She moved to Europe around 1968-1969, and spent a year in the German cast, after which she became part of the Hair company in Vienna. She joined the Viennese Folk Opera, and later returned to Germany, where she settled in Munich and met and married Helmut Sommer, adopting an Anglicized version of his last name. Summer performed in various stage musicals and worked as a studio vocalist in Munich, recording demos and background vocals. Her first solo recording was 1971's "Sally Go 'Round the Roses," but success would not come until 1974, when she met producers/songwriters Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte while working on a Three Dog Night record. The three teamed up for the single "The Hostage," which became a hit around Western Europe, and Summer released her first album, Lady of the Night, in Europe only. In 1975, the trio recorded "Love to Love You Baby," a disco-fied reimagining of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin's lush, heavy-breathing opus "Je T'aime…Moi Non Plus." Powered by Summer's graphic moans, "Love to Love You Baby" became a massive hit in Europe, and drew the attention of Casablanca Records, which put the track out in America. It climbed to number two on the singles charts, and became a dance club sensation when Moroder remixed the track into a 17-minute, side-long epic on the LP of the same name.

In the wake of "Love to Love You Baby," albums (as opposed to just singles) became an important forum for Summer and her producers. The 1976 follow-up Love Trilogy contained another side-long suite in "Try Me (I Know We Can Make It Work)," and demonstrated Moroder and Bellotte's growing sophistication as arrangers with its lush, sweeping strings. Four Seasons of Love, released later in the year, was a concept album with one track dedicated to each season, and 1977's I Remember Yesterday featured a variety of genre exercises. Despite the album's title, it produced the most forward-looking single in Summer and Moroder's catalog, the monumental "I Feel Love." Eschewing the strings and typical disco excess, "I Feel Love" was the first major pop hit recorded with an entirely synthesized backing track; its lean, sleek arrangement and driving, hypnotic pulse laid the groundwork not only for countless Euro-dance imitators, but also for the techno revolution of the '80s and '90s. It became Summer's second Top Ten hit in the U.S., and she followed it with Once Upon a Time, another concept album, this one retelling the story of Cinderella for the disco era.

Summer's albums were selling well, bolstered by her popularity in the dance clubs, and she was poised to become a major pop hitmaker as well. Her acting turn in the 1978 disco-themed comedy Thank God It's Friday produced another hit in "Last Dance," which won her a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal (as well as an Oscar for songwriter Paul Jabara). Doubtlessly benefiting from the added exposure, the double-LP set Live and More became Summer's first number one album later that year. It featured one side of new studio material, including a disco cover of the psychedelic pop epic "MacArthur Park" that became her first number one pop single early the next year. Her 1979 double-LP Bad Girls featured more of her songwriting contributions than ever, and went straight to number one, as did the lusty singles "Bad Girls" and the rock-oriented "Hot Stuff," which made Summer the first female artist ever to score three number one singles in the same calendar year. Her greatest-hits package On the Radio also topped the charts, the first time any artist had ever hit number one with three consecutive double LPs; the newly recorded title track became another hit, and Summer's duet with Barbra Streisand, "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)," became her fourth number one single.

At the peak of her success, Summer decided to leave Casablanca, and became the first artist signed to the new Geffen label. Sensing that the disco era was coming to a close, Summer attempted to modify her style to include more R&B and pop/rock on her first Geffen album, 1980's The Wanderer; the album and its title track were both hits. Not wanting to alienate her core audience, Summer returned to pure dance music on an attempted follow-up; however, Geffen deemed I'm a Rainbow not worthy of release (it was finally issued in 1996). Instead, Summer ended her collaboration with Moroder and Bellotte and teamed up with Quincy Jones for 1982's Donna Summer. "Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)" was a significant hit, but none of its follow-ups did very well. With producer Michael Omartian, Summer moved back into post-disco dance music and urban R&B with 1983's She Works Hard for the Money; its title track was a smash and became a feminist anthem of sorts.

However, with her career momentum slowing, it also marked the end of Summer's prime. Despite winning a gospel Grammy for "Forgive Me," Summer's 1984 follow-up Cats Without Claws flopped, as did the 1987 comeback effort All Systems Go. Hiring the British production team of Stock, Aitken & Waterman, Summer scored her last major success with the 1989 Top Ten single "This Time I Know It's for Real," from the album Another Place & Time; around the same time, she began denouncing her earlier, "sinful" disco material. Released in 1991, the lackluster, urban-styled Mistaken Identity effectively killed her career momentum, and none of her new '90s albums produced that elusive hit. However, she did make some noise on the dance charts with "Melody of Love," from the excellent 1994 retrospective Endless Summer, and reunited with Moroder for the 1997 non-LP single "Carry On," which won the inaugural Grammy for Best Dance Recording. Summer subsequently signed a deal with Sony, which primed her for re-establishment with the 1999 greatest-hits live album VH1 Presents: Live and More Encore!; it featured the new song "I Will Go With You (Con Te Partiro)," which had some success on the dance charts. The energetic and eclectic Crayons, her first proper studio album since Mistaken Identity, was released on the Burgundy label in 2008. She remained intermittently active with concert and TV appearances during the next several years, and released the "To Paris with Love" single in August 2010. After battling lung cancer, Donna Summer died at her home in Naples, Florida on May 17, 2012; she was 63 years old.

Biography by Steve Huey, Allmusic.com

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Donna Summer - 8 Albums Collection 1975-1979 (9CD) Japanese Mini LP SHM-CD, Reissue 2012

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"Love to Love You Baby"'s 16 minutes and 48 seconds of arousal and refill – ticklishly sensitive rhythm and fusion – threw disco into a tizzy overnight, but the tonally starved blues-of-isolation on the B-side isn't to be missed, either: the broken promises Donna Summer bemoans in "Full of Emptiness"; "Need-a-Man Blues," with its unrequitedly sexy guitar rhythm as out of range of Summer's voice as she of satisfaction; the imaginary seaside hold-me in "Whispering Waves"; and "Pandora's Box," where Summer and guitar scream icily at one another as they turn their backs on each other's body music. Hunger without recourse; essential disco.

Review by Michael Freedberg, Allmusic.com

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Donna Summer - 8 Albums Collection 1975-1979 (9CD) Japanese Mini LP SHM-CD, Reissue 2012

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Donna Summer's quizzical "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It" wings her nervous little falsetto from risk to dare and from dare to mad hope, and her rhythm section gropes from testy touch-beats to tightrope walkers' guitar figures and safety-net harmonies. The remaining four tracks substitute dances with imaginary lovers for her debut album's love starvation blues. Don't dismiss these subtle mood poems the way fans of "Love to Love You" sped right past the B-side of Summer's debut; the flightier Summer plays a rhythm, the dicier her resolution.

Review by Michael Freedberg, Allmusic.com

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Donna Summer - 8 Albums Collection 1975-1979 (9CD) Japanese Mini LP SHM-CD, Reissue 2012

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One is inclined to resist this package of self-conscious stardom concepts – the LP version sported its own 1977 calendar featuring La Summer dressed up as winter, spring, summer, and Marilyn Monroe vamping on the subway grating (fall, presumably), and the four "seasonal" dancey suites promise more and say less than the typical Summer intimate "touch-me" would deliver without any hype. Fortunately, the music has a mind of its own. The rhythms push and go poof as delicately as ever; the horn section mutes and jazzes the melody; the beats stop, run, and stop again whenever they damn please; and Summer expresses private rapture in falsetto as she smooches, oohs, and ahs onto the mix like lipstick traces. Oh, rapture indeed.

Review by Michael Freedberg, Allmusic.com

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Donna Summer - 8 Albums Collection 1975-1979 (9CD) Japanese Mini LP SHM-CD, Reissue 2012

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Donna Summer continued her climb to superstardom with this late-'70s album, her first since the attention-grabbing Love To Love You Baby album in 1975 to crack the pop Top 20. The single "I Feel Love" was her second Top 10 R&B and pop hit, and paved the way for Summer to emerge shortly after as disco's reigning queen.

Review by Ron Wynn, Allmusic.com

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Donna Summer - 8 Albums Collection 1975-1979 (9CD) Japanese Mini LP SHM-CD, Reissue 2012

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Donna Summer and her liberators have created one audience and redefined another, and this record's four sides of dream worlds without end sometimes manipulate each audience. The candy-girl music of "Fairy Tale High," "Queen for a Day," and "If You Got It Flaunt It" explicitly recognizes her newly created gay audience, a daring acknowledgement coming from a mainstream pop star. As for her redefined audience of naïve young things who live in the suburbs and dream of romance, adventure, and sex while they search for identity, Summer works her music into a true-to-life Cinderella story staged as four acts of impatient pulse, delirious space noise, wish-upon-a-star voice monologues, and motion.

Review by Michael Freedberg, Allmusic.com

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Donna Summer - 8 Albums Collection 1975-1979 (9CD) Japanese Mini LP SHM-CD, Reissue 2012

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After becoming the queen of disco thanks to orgasmathon hits like "Love to Love You Baby" and "I Feel Love," Donna Summer topped off her five-year rise to fame with this live set. Certainly not a contender for first-disc choice, Live and More still works quite well as a '70s sampler for the converted. And since disco was the party music par excellence, the album's feel is one of a all-nighter in action. Featuring her signature hits and a fat chunk of disco tracks from the Once Upon a Time record, sides one and three solidify Summer's reputation as one of the most exciting and slick singers on stage. Balancing out the requisite dance material, Summer spends side two waxing nostalgic via a pop standards medley ("The Man I Love," "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good," "Some of These Days") and some nice jazz and blues-imbued fare of her own. And ending the album on a very high note, Summer indulges in "McArthur Park Suite," a classic long-player that bookends two of Summer and producer Giorgio Moroder's pop disco numbers with a dance-friendly take on Jimmy Webb's monumental classic. Along with cloud-walking bouncers like "I Love You" and "Last Dance," this closing piece finds Summer at her sophisticated and tuneful best. There's nothing here to eclipse the original versions of these cuts – save for the Webb cover, which is new – but the Summer faithful will nonetheless want to pick up this very enjoyable concert recording.

Review by Stephen Cook, Allmusic.com

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Donna Summer - 8 Albums Collection 1975-1979 (9CD) Japanese Mini LP SHM-CD, Reissue 2012

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Bad Girls marked the high-water mark in Donna Summer's career, spending six weeks at Number One, going double platinum, and spinning off four Top 40 singles, including the chart-topping title song and "Hot Stuff," which sold two million copies each, and the million-selling, Number Two hit "Dim All the Lights." Producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte recognized that disco was going in different directions by the late '70s, and they gave the leadoff one-two punch of "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls" a rock edge derived from new wave. The two-LP set was divided into four musically consistent sides, with the rocksteady beat of the first side giving way to a more traditional disco sound on the second side, followed by a third side of ballads, and a fourth side with a more electronic, synthesizer-driven sound that recalled Summer's 1977 hit "I Feel Love." Though remembered for its hits, the album had depth and consistency, concluding with "Sunset People," one of Summer's best album-only tracks. The result was the artistic and commercial peak of her career and, arguably, of disco itself.

Review by William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Donna Summer - 8 Albums Collection 1975-1979 (9CD) Japanese Mini LP SHM-CD, Reissue 2012

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On the Radio: Greatest Hits, Vols. 1-2 originally appeared as a double vinyl set in 1979 and was regarded well enough to make the transition to other formats. The release is an almost complete anthology of her popular '70s output, including the number one club singles "Love to Love You Baby," "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It," "I Remember Yesterday," "MacArthur Park," "Bad Girls," "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)," and "Hot Stuff."

Review by Andy Kellman, Allmusic.com