Dialed About a Thousand Numbers

Donna Summer : Hot Stuff

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On April 25, 1979 Donna Summer released Bad Girls, a double album that became the best-selling of her career thanks to the #1 singles "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls", and the #2 hit "Dim All The Lights".  Disco was still at its height and Summer was still the reigning queen of disco in 1979, but she felt the genre was choking her to death. So she and producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte decided to add elements of rock and funk to the palette.

The first song on the album, and the first single, is "Hot Stuff". That's Doobie Brother and disco hater Jeff "Skunk" Baxter on guitar. The song offers a blueprint for incorporating rock into dance music that Michael Jackson used for "Beat It". Lay down the beat and make room for a rocking guitar solo.  When Summer took the song to Casablanca label chief Neil Bogart, he told her the song rocked too hard for her and suggested she give the song to Cher. She refused, won the argument and scored a #1 hit and a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.

The title track was the second single. Summer said she was inspired by an incident involving a Casablanca secretary:

"I was in my office in the old Casablanca building," she said. "I sent my secretary to do something, and the police stopped her on Sunset Boulevard. She was dressed in business attire, but they were trying to pick her up. That ticked me off. I pondered why that would happen to innocent people -- and then I developed compassion for the girls, working on the street." And the "toot-toot, beep-beep" at the end of the track? "I figured, what do guys do when they pick up girls? I had to emulate them tooting their horns."

Fans of the futuristic euro- disco sounds of "I Feel Love" will get more of a kick out of "Sunset People" and "Our Love", both released as singles in 1980 after Summer had left Casablanca for Geffen Records. 

In all Bad Girls sold more than two million copies and finished #10 in the Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll. It might be my favorite of her albums if only I didn't have such a soft spot for "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It" which helps A Love Trilogy top that list.

Critic Robert Christgau gave Bad Girls an A-, writing:

You tend to suspect anyone who releases three double-LPs in eighteen months of delusions of Chicago, but Donna is here to stay and this is her best album. The first two sides, for songs per, never let up -- the voice breaks and the guitars moan over a bass-drum thump in what amounts to empty-headed girl-group rock and roll brought cannily up-to-date. Moroder makes his Europercussion play on side four, which is nice too, but side three drags, suggesting that the rock and roll that surfaces here is perhaps only a stop along the way to a totally bleh total performance. Me, I still love my Marvellettes records.

25 Fave Songs of 1977

Donna Summer : I Feel Love

This was a brutal chore, cutting down my favorite songs of 1977 to just 25. In some cases (Wire, Television, Talking Heads, Ramones, Sex Pistols) , the songs I selected had to represent everything on the album. There were also some great singles on the R and B side that had to make the list. And then there were a handful of songs that didn't make a huge impression in 1977, but have stayed with me all these years ( Dwight Twilley, NRBQ, The Saints).

1. Donna Summer I Feel Love
2. David Bowie 'Heroes'
3. Dwight Twilley Band Looking for the Magic
4. The Clash Complete Control
5. Wire Three Girl Rhumba

6. Chic Everybody Dance
7. NRBQ Ridin in My Car
8. Elvis Costello Watching the Detectives
9. Television See No Evil
10. Ramones Sheena is a Punk Rocker

11. The Saints This Perfect Day
12. Sex Pistols God Save the Queen
13. Fleetwood Mac Dreams
14. Marvin Gaye Got to Give It Up
15. Parliament Flash Light

16. Heatwave Boogie Nights
17. Eddie and the Hot Rods Do Anything You Wanna Do
18. The Babys Isn't It Time
19. Electric Light Orchestra Mr Blue Sky
20. Talking Heads Psycho Killer

21. Richard Hell And the Voidoids Blank Generation
22. Metro Criminal World
23. The Jam Away From the Numbers
24. Cerrone Supernature
25. Ian Dury Sex and Drugs and Rock n Roll

The Future of Music

Donna Summer : I Feel Love

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On May 13, 1977 Donna Summer released the strangely uneven concept album I Remember Yesterday. Side One featured a collection of disco songs done in the styles of popular songs from the 1940s -50s and 60s. Never mind all that! The album also included, on its futuristic Side Two, the UK#1/US#6 smash "I Feel Love", a nearly six minute floor filler so out of sight Brian Eno called it "The Future of Music".

David Bowie tells the story:

One day in Berlin ... Eno came running in and said, "I have heard the sound of the future." ... he puts on "I Feel Love," by Donna Summer ... He said, "This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years." Which was more or less right.

Forty years later it still sounds like something from the future, an almost alien take on electronic dance music. Incredibly monotonous and incredibly sophisticated all at the same time, with Summer breathing life into this artificial ear worm.

  Loyal readers know I've only recently rediscovered the joy of the terrific trio Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. back in '77 I wouldn't be caught dead listening to disco. Today I'm a huge fan of the good stuff. There really is good disco out there. And "I Feel Love" is the best of them all.

Best Discoveries of 1976

Living musically in the year of 1976 opened my ears and eyes to some sounds this American kid somehow hadn't stumbled across. 

My biggest eye opener of the year was A Love Trilogy. Teaming up with Moroder was a match made in disco heaven.

The Abyssinians Kniow Jah Today  I had never heard of the Abyssinians until this year and now Satta Massagana is my favorite reggae album of 1976. A big deal!

Radio Birdman : Snake Another track from the year's best EP. Dig the Dolls influence!

The Quick : No No Girl - a delightful blast of Kim Fowley produced power pop.

Cartola : Sei Chorar  A great backstory makes this 1976 album even more amazing. Cartola was a Samba legend who vanished for decades before a journalist found the old man washing cars.

Terry Reid : Faith to Arise  Just feel good California rock from the legendary UK vocalist

Status Quo  : Mystery Song A slow burner from a band I'm only now learning to respect

Invisible : Perdonado (Niño condenado) - a beautiful discovery from Argentina!

40 Year Itch : Donna, Al and Bill

Donna Summer : Spring Affair ( single edit)

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On October 11, 1976 Donna Summer released her fourth studio album, Four Seasons of Love. It's a concept album co-written with Giorgio Moroder. There's an eight minute disco song for each season, highlighted by the opening track "Spring Affair". I like A Love Trilogy better .One of the most enjoyable things about writing this blog is discovering just how innovative the Summer/Moroder/ Paul Bellotte team really were. I was 12 years old and couldn't have cared less about disco at the time. But Brian Eno and David Bowie were certainly paying attention.

Al Green : Smile a Little Bit More

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For his biggest fans it was enough just to have Al Green overcome the "scalding grits episode"and to sing another set of songs written with Willie Mitchell. But this is formula, pure and simple. A low point from which Green would rebound with 1977's Belle Album.

Bill Withers : Close to Me

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Wait! Bill Withers recorded an album called Naked and Warm? Yeah and let's all just be thankful nobody got too literal about the album cover. This is what we call a transitional album. Withers is leaving behind the acoustic guitar for the "quiet storm", jazz-inflected sound that would eventually result with such hits as "Lovely Day" and "Just the Two of Us". There's some nice funk in the opening track "Close to Me".

40 Year Itch : I Know I Know I Know I Know

Donna Summer : Try Me I Know We Can Make It

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  I couldn't be more obsessed with a song than I am right now with this 18 minute disco epic Donna Summer wrote with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte for A Love Trilogy. If you enjoyed the New Wave sounds of the 1980's you'll hear many moments that should thrill you.

   At 5:28 there is a simple but very catchy marimba solo that might take you back to "Love Plus One" from Haircut 100.

  And at 9:26 there is a breakdown that sounds like something Talking Heads might have recorded on '77.

  It's all sandwiched between a dance track that is disco at its highest art form. Try it. You'll get it a big kick out of it.

40 Year Itch : Sure I'm Wasted

Donna Summer : Wasted

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   This deep cut from Donna Summer's A Love Trilogy, released on March 4, 1976,  is my favorite discovery of the year so far. The Giorgio Moroder/ Pete Bellotte production anticipates their groundbreaking 1977 hit "I Feel Love"--you know, the one that took David Bowie and Brian Eno on the Low road.

   The 18 minute A-side "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It" is a triumph of a different order. And then there's a Barry Manilow cover. But "Wasted" is nothing short of amazing.

40 Year Itch : New to the UK Charts

Slik : Forever and Ever

The Walker Brothers : No Regrets

With Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" still in the midst of its nine week reign at number one, I've decided to take a peek at the newest songs to make the UK Top 40. 

33. The Walker Brothers : No Regrets

The Walker Brothers returned to the UK Top 10 for the first time in nine years with this Tom Rush cover. It would be their last hit.

37. Donna Summer : Love to Love You Baby

  Disco queen Donna Summer would hit the UK #4 with "Love to Love You Baby" despite the BBC's initial reluctance to play the record.

39. Slik : Forever and Ever 

   The Scottish glam rock band Slik would hit #1 in February of 1976 with "Forever and Ever" written by the Bay City Rollers team of Bill Martin and Phil Coulter. This is the first many of us would see and hear from Midge Ure who would later hit #1 with Band Aid ( "Do They Know It's Christmas") and as a solo artist with "If I Was". He would also perform with Visage, Thin Lizzy and Ultravox. His first solo hit, incidently, was a cover of "No Regrets" performed in the style of The Walker Brothers.

40. Donny and Marie : Deep Purple

  With a treatment that might remind some of Nilsson's vocals on The Point, Donny and Marie Osmond revived the 43-year old classic "Deep Purple" and made it a #14 hit in the US and a #25 hit in the UK. Today, that would be like covering a song from way back in 1973.

40 Year Itch : 23 Orgasms

Donna Summer : Love to Love You Baby

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   Inspired by the scandalous Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg single " Je T'Aime ( Moi Non Plus)", which had returned to the charts, Summer and producers Georgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte recorded their own racy song. Producers convinced Summer to lie on the studio floor in the dark and moan throughout most of the single and its follow-up, a sixteen minute version that would take up an entire side of the Love To Love You Baby album. The BBC counted up 23 simulated orgasms. Time Magazine only came up with 22. Summer et al began counting up the money as the single hit Top 10 in the US, UK, Australia and half a dozen other countries. Summer became the world's most famous disco queen with multiple hits and Grammys.