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It was not a hit. As a matter of fact, the entire album was a stiff.
Donna Summer was part of David Geffen's trifecta, launching his new, eponymous label with three superstars, Donna Summer, Elton John and John Lennon. And all three of their albums stiffed, although subsequent to his tragic and untimely assassination Lennon's album was resuscitated, "(Just Like) Starting Over" was played incessantly, and one can argue quite strongly that "Double Fantasy" contains the most well-known Lennon solo cuts, the ones the audience knows best, other than "Imagine," and the album is the one that has been embraced by the public.
But this is not about John Lennon.
Donna Summer was a superstar. Seen as a disco sideshow, the sound she helped pioneer became dominant and she was the scene's queen. Still derided by many, but then came "Bad Girls," suddenly it was clear Donna Summer could rock, that she was testing limits while the corporate rockers were repeating themselves.
That's where I came along. Someone my boss represented was in the band. Actually, two people. And they came in one day with the double "Bad Girls" album and I dropped the needle and was stunned, it was good! "Hot Stuff" started with a driving beat, with more energy than you heard on the rock stations. "Bad Girls" had a breezy feel that epitomized the ethos of the late seventies, and then there were those extraneous, background sounds, the beep beeps, and then Summer started to toss off the lyrics, as if she ruled the world and didn't care at the same time. And "Dim All the Lights," had a swinging, swaying feeling like the last dance at your high school, it captured the zeitgeist better than the rock stuff. And the closer, "Sunset People," which captured the feel of the Boulevard back when you had to be here to experience it.
So I bought the 1982 Geffen album "Donna Summer" the day it was released. The initial single, the opening cut, "Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)," had everything but the kitchen sink, but underneath the production was a substandard song. This was a new sound, nowhere near as good as the Giorgio Moroder sound. It was Michael Jacksonized Donna Summer.
Yes, they shared the same producer, Q, Quincy Jones, this was going to be a revelation, an apotheosis, Summer was going to be as big as the man with the one white glove, only she wasn't. "Donna Summer" was a dud.
Now, in truth, decades later I cottoned to "Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)," especially the breakdown, what happens starting at 2:42 is magical, but what are the odds something can be a hit, can become legendary if it takes years to get it? Zero.
Track 2 was even worse, "Mystery of Love." God, the whole album featured incredible production, incredible playing, incredible singing, just substandard material. The record existed in a nowheresville, this was not the Donna Summer of yore, it was too slick, too mainstream, it wasn't hip.
But Donna Summer still owed one album to Mercury, from her old deal, which she had to deliver as part of her contract with Geffen. And funnily enough, just like with Linda Ronstadt and Asylum a decade before, the album sans Geffen was gigantic, the one that broke through. Donna Summer was singing "She Works Hard for the Money" in her waitress uniform on MTV. She was back. But then she disappeared again, she never had anything resembling a true hit thereafter. Well, that's not completely true, Summer decamped to Atlantic, worked with Stock Aitken Waterman and produced "This Time I Know It's for Real" in 1989, but despite the chart numbers listed on the song's Wikipedia page, I don't remember a video in constant rotation on MTV. And I don't remember it being on the radio, it eluded me completely. Then again, I'd given up on Donna Summer at this point, there'd been too much disappointment.
But on that Geffen album "Donna Summer," there were two tracks, and I continued to go back to them, again and again.
The first was "State of Independence," a Jon and Vangelis composition whose recording had gotten radio airplay, that I knew, that was built on the magic of Jon Anderson's voice before he went back to Yes for the monster "90215," a sorely overlooked album today, sure "Owner of a Lonely Heart" is still heard occasionally, but go back and listen to "It Can Happen," Hold On," "Changes and "Leave It," maybe the younger generations will discover the album in the future, it's right there on streaming services, it's unique, requires no prior listening or understanding, and it delivers.
But the best iteration of "State of Independence" does not, exist on streaming services that is. Whoa, wait a second, after decades, it's finally appeared, an album I played incessantly back in the nineties, Moodswings's "Moodfood"!
Talk about a magical album, one that almost no one knows...
The entry point is "Skinthieves," with an astounding Jeff Beck guitar solo at the end. And then there's "Rainsong"... I could pull up what I wrote about this ethereal, meaningful number back in the nineties, but I don't want to bring up chiaroscuro memories. I'll just leave you with these lyrics:
"I was thinking about our life together
Knowing it must be now or never
To get back to you
Now I've just got to get out of this rain"
The vocal is by Linda Muriel, someone neither you nor I know, but the delivery is from deep inside her soul.
But the piece-de-resistance on "Moodfood" is "Spiritual High (State of Independence), Pt. 2." Actually, there are three parts to "Spiritual High," they start the album, and you should listen to them all, but Pt. 2 has got a driving club beat and the vocal is by none other than Chrissie Hynde! Yes, with a voice somewhere between Jon Anderson and Donna Summer, and for some reason her thinner vocal adds even more meaning. But the version on "Donna Summer"...
Q throws in everything, including the kitchen sink, but this time the underlying song is worthy of the production. It features the essence of Toto, David Paich, Steve Porcaro and Steve Lukather, as well as backup vocals by Bill Champlin, Steve George, Richard Page and one Pamela Quinlan. Well, there's also an all-star chorus featuring everybody from Michaels Jackson and McDonald and James Ingram, Stevie Wonder, Christopher Cross, Dionne Warwick, and even Dyan Cannon, and that's not everybody! Yes, only Q does this, but here it works. But this nearly six minute version of "State of Independence" isn't a single, not what they play on pop radio, although it did go to number one in the Netherlands, but in the U.S. they played this kind of stuff on FM rock stations, but this was not rock, but it was great.
But not as great as "The Woman in Me."
"You know baby
I'm so happy to be here
With you tonight
And I just wanna let you know
That I'd follow you to the end of the world
Just to show you that I care
And I want you to know that
If you need me
I'll always be there"
That's all sotto voce, before the main vocal begins. It's so intimate.
Unlike U2 at the Sphere. I was reading about that earlier today, that's spectacle, U2 performing "Achtung Baby" and other hits, "The Woman in Me" was never a hit, and never will be. It was released as a single, but barely made a dent, it's just an album track on an album that was a stiff, that is not going to have a renaissance, because it was a misfire, not that good, Donna didn't need all that production, she was enough, but on this cut Q's production techniques work.
"Dancing close
Feeling restless
It's a slow sultry night"
Sultry is the word. For the entire song. It's the aural equivalent of "Body Heat." And it's personal. You feel like you're the only one listening, unless you're living the life delineated in the song, with your honey, sharing a private moment.
Private. So much of today's music is public. Meant to be shared with the assembled multitude, to party. And some of that stuff is great, but what really reaches me is the opposite, the stuff made for just me, alone in my bedroom, when my spirits are low, when I need the music to soothe me, to make me feel like there's a reason to continue to live, just to hear this sound, to experience this bond with the sound.
So I dropped the needle on "Donna Summer" the day I bought it and was disappointed until I got to cut 3, "The Woman in Me." It immediately registered. And I wasn't listening to it on earbuds, it didn't emanate from a small speaker in the dash of an automobile, rather it was coming out of the speakers of my state of the art stereo with enough power to wake up the neighbors (and, unfortunately, I once did this).
We need an entry point to an album. And back when records were shorter, with two sides, it was easier to do this. We'd play them through once, then concentrate on one side, then the other, waiting for a track to speak to us. And "The Woman in Me" spoke to me, immediately.
And for some reason, in a fog this morning, reading the newspaper, eating coffee skyr with walnuts and blueberries, "The Woman in Me" started playing in my head. I could have called out to Alexa to play it, but it was better in my mind, more personal.
It's not like I was in a bad mood, but I can't say I was in a good one. I had nothing on my day's plate that was disturbing, then again, there was nothing exciting scheduled. And the news was fascinating, but it was at arm's length, I was not in the paper, but "The Woman in Me" was in my head.
And I started to think... Of that old house, listening to "The Woman in Me." About all my moods, all my feelings, back when. And how "The Woman in Me" is primary to me, but seemingly no one else. It was a commercial misfire. You're not hearing it on the radio. All that effort went into its production, its recording, but it's really only known to a select few, those who purchased the album and played it, and those who might have heard it on one of its occasional radio spins. But it's a hit. To me. On my own personal parade. Donna Summer is alive when I hear "The Woman in Me," and so am I. When I hear the right song in my head my life is complete, I can conquer all comers, I feel powerful.
And today "The Woman in Me" is that song.
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