Donna Summer - Light and shadow on the dancefloor

New York, 1976. Donna Summer opens the window of the hotel room where she's staying, on the eleventh floor of a skyscraper. She looks down, about to jump into the void. Suddenly the maid on duty walks in and is scared to death seeing her balanced on the ledge, but has the presence of mind to speak to her in a calm voice, and convinces her to step down and close the window. For Donna it's a shock, like suddenly snapping back into herself after an out-of-body experience. These are intense years; the stress, the loneliness, the daughter left in the care of her grandparents and the conflict she's been silently carrying inside, it all seems to come back to haunt her right now that the long-craved success has finally arrived. For years Donna will (deliberately) never mention what happened, and only once disco fever has passed will she find the words to address the subject and tell her story in all its facets, including the most dramatic and unexpected ones for a diva of her stature. One thing is certain: labelling Donna Summer solely as the Queen Of Disco can be reductive. Sure, it was indeed one of her songs that revealed to the world the movement's raunchier, more hedonistic side. And, incidentally, when disco imploded with a bang between '79 and '80, Donna Summer's image and career remained as if frozen in time. Almost everything that followed was largely unable to attract fresh attention, and in the popular imagination Donna has remained forever the First Lady Of Love.

But Donna Summer's story is far more intricate than her glittering image let on at the time. Behind the sequined dresses worn strictly without a bra, Donna was much more than a pretty-faced vocalist. A personality as strong and determined as she was elusive and complex, she was one of the first post-Elvis (and pre-Jackson) singers to have to juggle enormous mainstream success achieved through an image she didn't fully identify with, with all the backlash that entailed. Many tend to forget, for instance, that the supposedly sinful Queen Of Disco was in fact an absent mother plagued by terrible guilt — even before becoming famous: she had left her daughter Mimi in the care of her grandparents to chase her dream of becoming a singer. Donna was also an incurable romantic who was crowned the figurehead of the most libertine movement of the last century. The conflict with the religious upbringing she received as a child ended up causing her a great deal of personal turmoil (though, to be fair, in difficult times, faith was also her only guiding light in the dark). No one in her family was happy that Donna had become famous after simulating 16 minutes of orgasms on the historic "Love To Love You Baby", and it weighed on her considerably, but at the same time the dizzying earnings from that very song were also used to feed her sizeable horde of brothers and sisters — every cloud has a silver lining, it seems.

In short, Donna was a living oxymoron, a victim of herself and of her desire for success, as fiercely pursued as it was experienced as a sin, and certainly not immune to being the target of distorted media perceptions ("but while you were recording 'Love To Love You Baby' were you... touching yourself?" was a question she was often asked back then). On stage, then, Donna Summer could transform into a lioness, yet at the same time, once she shut herself in her dressing room, she felt like a prisoner of her own image, which she considered too sensual and provocative. At the height of her success, the gap between her public image and the real Donna grew so wide that it gradually split her personality in two, eventually leading her to abuse prescription drugs and suffer nervous breakdowns, and shortly after to the resulting collapse of her career and the costly lawsuit against her record label, the legendary Casablanca Records.

So how did Donna Summer manage to carry on over the years? Quite simply, thanks to her passion for music. The palpable emotion she was able to pour into her songs can be appreciated even far from the reflected lights of a mirror ball. Her performances came from somewhere deep within, almost as if they were a means of escape to a happy world where she could vanish from the madness surrounding her — a madness that, for better or worse, stemmed precisely from her continuing to sing. Listening to her most poignant ballads, one is tempted to think that Donna is perhaps the true heir to Barbra Streisand (it's no coincidence the two recorded an enormously successful duet together). Not only that: Donna Summer was always a co-writer of her own songs, a sharp observer of herself with a brilliant ear for melody. It's also thanks to her work in the studio that several of her records managed to overflow well beyond the simple concept of dance music; rich and sophisticated, structured as true concept albums, the records of her golden years are at once her shining personal testament and the crowning achievement of an unrepeatable slice of popular culture. Today as then, the iridescent beauty of those works shines undimmed as ever.

And let's not forget (as if we needed reminding), in the end it's also her track that essentially coined electronic dance music as we commonly understand it today. Not bad, is it?

First stop, one-way ticket: Boston-New York-Munich

The story of the star of humble origins who passes through the church seems like a well-worn cliché, yet it keeps repeating itself constantly, even — and especially — in a case like this one. LaDonna Adrian Gaines was born on December 31, 1948 in Boston, into a family of very modest means. She had an innate passion for singing and attended the choir of the parish in her neighbourhood of Mission Hill. However, squeezed among six other siblings, no one paid much attention to her voice. One Sunday, when she was about 10 years old, the parish priest asked her to sing the solo during mass. As the little girl sang, she suddenly felt touched by a divine hand, as if He, from above, wanted to show her the path to follow. The rest of the congregation fell silent. Her father recalled that "when Donna finished singing, the whole church was in tears, I myself couldn't understand what had happened". It's a pivotal moment, during which Donna decides that from then on every effort of hers will be devoted to becoming a singer. And, within the limits allowed by the family's modest financial circumstances (and respect for the Christian faith), they will do everything they can to help her pursue her dream.

In 1967 Donna moved to New York. For the small-town girl it's quite a shock; walking through the heart of the city, amid remnants of the beat generation and the idealism of the hippie movement, the world suddenly seems vaster, more colourful, more permissive and electrifying, but not necessarily more generous. She auditions for the musical "Hair", a landmark countercultural production in open protest against the Vietnam War; she doesn't get the part she was hoping for, but is offered a spot in a second production of the show that is moving to Germany. At first her family won't hear of it, but Donna is determined to follow her dream at any cost.

Munich, in the late Sixties, is a clean and orderly city, especially compared to New York. Donna settles in well, picks up the language with ease, and for two years has steady work in the cast of "Hair". When the contract ends, though, Donna decides to stay in Europe and try to make it on her own. At first nothing comes together, show business jobs are slow to arrive, and Donna soon finds herself scraping by however she can (for a while she even lives in Vienna). During these years, under the name Donna Gaines, she manages to record her first songs, run-of-the-mill pop numbers like "Aquarius" (a track taken from "Hair"), "Sally Go 'Round The Roses" and "If You Walkin' Alone", which reliably miss the mark.

Alone in a foreign country, and well past the age for marriage according to her upbringing, Donna takes a step that will soon cost her dearly on an emotional level; in 1973 she marries the Austrian actor Helmut Sommer, with whom she has her first daughter, Mimi, that same year. But domestic life doesn't suit her: the desire to be a singer is so strong she can't resist it. The divorce comes quickly, and with it the first (and probably greatest) sacrifice of her career: unable to support her daughter or give her the time she needs, Donna parts ways with her, sending her to be raised by her grandparents in Boston.

As often happens, the meeting that changes everything comes about by pure chance. One day Donna walks into the Musicland Studios for a bit of backing-vocal work, and behind the console she finds Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. The chemistry between the three is instant. Donna has the voice, the looks and plenty of ideas, Pete knows how to write songs, and Giorgio, well, we all know what he's good at. As it happens, the two of them have a small label - Oasis - and soon enough Donna records her first songs.

Lady Of The Night is released in Holland in 1974 through a contact of Giorgio's at Groovy Records, a label whose very name promises little good. Success, in fact, is limited to Holland (and a sliver of France). From this "Dutch period" there survives a clip of Donna Summer performing the single "Lady Of The Night" as a guest on some outlandish talk show. The grain of her gorgeous voice is already unmistakable, and the song itself, with its ABBA-style melodic progressions in the chorus, lodges itself in the memory right away. But on its own, it isn't enough for the big leap forward.

From the cover photo - which captures Donna in a vaguely scowling expression, hooded and half-hidden by foliage - you can already glean something about the content of the rest of Lady Of The Night. It's generic pop-rock with touches of folk, guitars and flashes of piano, pleasant enough but far from memorable. Perhaps it's the excessive innocence of songs like "Friends", "Domino" or "Sad Song (Sing Along)" that, combined with the vaguely family-friendly streak running through some of the ideas, makes the album a touch too saccharine. The other single, "The Hostage", has a somewhat rockier edge and a well-constructed chorus, as well as an unusual and rather gripping crime-themed storyline (years later, for instance, Sade would become famous with a similarly themed track, "Smooth Operator"); success, however, is once again limited, because following the kidnapping of a prominent German politician around that same time, the song is banned for content deemed "unsuitable given the situation" (it opens, in fact, with a kidnapper's phone call demanding ransom). In short, the lady of the night ends up going to bed early.

Ohh... Ahh... The homecoming on disco's golden wings

Giorgio, I've had an idea, listen to this: ohh, love to love you, baby...

I like it!

This is exactly how Donna Summer's disco was born: an idea made of barely four words and a simple little tune. Bellotte is thrilled. Within a single night Giorgio already has the skeleton of the track ready. But when Donna gets to the studio the next day, she wants nothing to do with it. What is wrong with these Italians! Does Giorgio really want to record a song full of her love-moaning? Donna swears up and down she won't do it, but after the other two keep pushing, she settles on a compromise: she'll record it only as a demo to pitch to other record labels, and if anyone actually likes it, they can go sing it themselves! And so, for a few minutes, Donna slips into the role of Marilyn Monroe, naked in bed with a couple of drops of Chanel on her neck while waiting for the President (thanks to her background in musical theatre, acting doesn't come too hard to her). The rest is history.

In its first incarnation, the track is called simply "Love To Love You", and runs just over three minutes. Giorgio still has the right contacts, and gets it released in Holland. But not only there. A copy of the record ends up on the desk of Neil Bogart, then head of a small Los Angeles label, Casablanca Records. Neil is a real character, with unconventional tastes, a taste for going over the top, and courage to spare. Around that very time, for instance, he's the only man on earth who believes unconditionally in a band of four long-haired guys caked in white greasepaint going by the name Kiss. I mean, who on earth would ever care about those guys? Big laughs all round.

It's no coincidence, then, that for a man like him, hearing "Love To Love You" is a revelation. His wife Joyce recalls that, during a dinner party, Neil played the song over and over "for hours and hours". Can you picture the mortified embarrassment of Mrs. Bogart, trying to steer attention away by serving shrimp to her guests, while her husband plays the record of a woman masturbating?

The next day Neil calls Giorgio, and his request is a tall order: the track is dazzling, but he wants more of it! He wants 20 minutes of song - no, actually, he wants it to never end! Once again, Giorgio manages to convince Donna that this is the right move. The backing track is soon ready. Stretched out to an almost impossible state of ecstasy, the new sound is more irresistible than ever; the beat is muffled yet tight, inviting you to move and let go, and it's threaded through with a crystalline red line of synthesizer (the famous Moog). Then the lights in the studio are dimmed, to respect Donna's privacy and give her a bit of intimacy; the 16:48 minutes of "Love To Love You Baby" - and with them the whole of disco fever at its most unrestrained and libertine - are born right there. It will once again be a phone call from America bringing the "good news":

Congratulations, ma'am, your track is at number 2 on the Billboard chart

I'm sorry... which track?

Like a bolt out of the blue, the situation stirs up an unprecedented clash of emotions in Donna. How could it be! A whole lifetime spent singing, eight years of hard graft overseas, countless sacrifices, a divorce and a daughter she barely gets to see, and when success finally arrives, it has to be for that very track she hadn't even wanted to sing, the one where, according to the BBC's count, she simulates no fewer than 23 orgasms in sixteen minutes? What will the Mission Hill community think of her? And her family?

Still, there's little time to dwell on the matter, the album is out, and it's a massive hit. Despite its curious idiosyncrasy, Love To Love You Baby (1975) immediately catapults its singer past a million copies sold. Naturally, the title track takes up the entire A-side; on the flip, "Need-A-Man Blues" keeps a funky little groove and a sibylline synth line that ties it stylistically to the mother track, so much so that it's chosen as the single's B-side. But the rest of the record is anything but disco music. There's a ballad with faint blues leanings like "Full Of Emptiness" (which also gets a "Reprise") and "Pandora's Box", which sounds in every way like a Carole King song. Even more disorienting, yet simply gorgeous, is "Whispering Waves", with wave sounds in the background, a finely calibrated electric wash, and an exceptionally bucolic performance (after all, 1975 is also the year the angelic Minnie Riperton hits No. 1 cooing "Loving You", a track produced by Stevie Wonder).

Right from the start, then, Donna Summer proves she has a genuine black soul in her voice, yet isn't necessarily tied to a single approach; while disco music does go hand in hand with the soul of Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Isaac Hayes and Wonder himself, Love To Love You Baby is, all things considered, still a fairly European record, capable of showing a watercolor-tinted pop delicacy. But the frenzy sparked by the famous track "with the lady who comes" overshadows everything else, and Donna officially becomes the First Lady Of Love.

Barely eight months pass, and the Summer/Moroder/Bellotte trio already has the follow-up ready. Despite the singer's reservations, Casablanca insists on perpetuating her sexy femme fatale image and striking while the iron of love is hot. A Love Trilogy (1976) is a concept album made specifically to be played in the bedroom. Side A is once again taken up by a single track of almost 18 minutes, "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It", which, despite being lush with choirs, interlocking strings and a xylophone motif, doesn't quite have the same appeal as the suite on the previous record. Side B fares better, opening with "Prelude To Love", barely a minute of coy teasing meant to introduce "Could It Be Magic", the remake of Barry Manilow's famous song reinterpreted by Donna with all the passion and sensuality she can muster. "Wasted" follows the sumptuous thread of the more orchestral side of disco, with a mischievous string section accompanying the falsetto vocal, while "Come With Me" plays on slightly more forced tones.

A Love Trilogy sells reasonably well, but doesn't yield a single hit. Looking back, it's an album that was certainly important at the time in helping cement the First Lady Of Love image in the public eye, but it was also at the same time responsible for starting to weigh on its singer — the attempted suicide at that New York hotel, already mentioned, happens during this period. Today, listening to it is pleasant enough, but hardly essential.

Nevertheless, regardless of Donna's state of health, Casablanca's money-making machine doesn't stop. Just seven months later, Four Seasons Of Love (1976) adds a new chapter to the discography. This time, the concept is a love affair played out across the span of the four seasons. With no more long tracks, the album sounds much more balanced, and compared to its predecessor, it's still a more engaging listen today. "Spring Affair" (and its "Reprise") handle the hormonal awakening, while "Summer Fever" represents a far hotter, more irrepressible craving for sex.

On side B, "Autumn Changes" plays on a nice rhythmic range with funky flavors, leaving it to the gorgeous "Winter Melody" to cool things down and carry us, swirling between flute, sax and guitar solos, into the warmth of a duvet to cuddle up by the fireplace while snow falls outside.

Once again sales are satisfying, but the singles don't come close to matching the glories of "Love To Love You Baby". Like the previous album, Four Seasons Of Love has perhaps fallen a bit into obscurity, but listening to it is still very enjoyable and even fun, thanks to the gentle eroticism it radiates. At the very least, "Winter Melody" deserves a spot on any self-respecting compilation.

I Feel Love

The following release, I Remember Yesterday (1977), is also a concept album. But this time the idea temporarily sets aside disco's more sinful side — with an evident sigh of relief from Donna — and instead charts an imaginary journey through the various eras of dance music, a genuine tribute that Moroder and Bellotte hold especially dear. Absolutely not to be missed is the 1920s atmosphere of "I Remember Yesterday" (which to today's ears is the ultimate vintage-within-vintage), but equally delightful are the 1950s-style remake "Love's Unkind" (a gorgeous interplay of sax, string progressions and piano), and the 1960s-style "Back In Love Again", which openly pays homage to the Supremes and Phil Spector's wall of sound with a bouncy choral r'n'b groove; Donna proves at ease everywhere, as if she'd never sung anything else. Side B, meanwhile, focuses on the present, with two disco tracks like "Black Lady" and "Take Me" (whose hilarious male chorus sounds like the blueprint that Aqua would later base "Barbie Girl" on…). There's also room for a full-throated, genuine power ballad like "Can't We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over)".

And yet, for all the overall success of I Remember Yesterday (objectively one of the best albums of Donna's career), nothing — and I mean nothing — prepares the listener for what the trio is about to propose as the "future" of dance music. And damn if they didn't truly write the future! But that deserves a chapter of its own.

It all starts with a Moog line, rising slowly but inexorably over the horizon. Then the rhythm kicks in, just three notes modulated to the point of obsession with a merciless, robotic precision, capable of stirring unease and sending the nervous system into a frenzy. Finally the voice enters, a clear falsetto with lyrical yet rarefied tones, as if it had lost its own humanity against that deafening wall of synthetic sound. The hypnotic melody being sung keeps cyclically returning in different keys each time, in an up-and-down motion that sends the listener into ecstasy. Then the chorus bursts out — I! Feel! Love! — where every last scrap of remaining humanity gathers together all at once and explodes. In the instrumental break the synth pounds drier and more robotic than ever, twitching and writhing, as if the machine were momentarily regaining the upper hand before the voice returns to fight back, impossibly ethereal and unnatural, yet at the same time so very human. A masterpiece.

Fully electronic music compositions had already existed for decades — Kraftwerk themselves had paved the way — but Giorgio Moroder's idea is as simple as it is revolutionary: create a disco track using, as its foundation, layers built exclusively from a synthesizer. "I Feel Love" will achieve enormous success in America, in England and across the rest of the world, and it's still perhaps Donna Summer's most beloved track to this day. The praise, tributes and remakes made over the decades are countless. A famous anecdote: during the recording of the celebrated Berlin trilogy, David Bowie recalls the enthusiasm of Brian Eno, who burst into the studio brandishing the 7" single and declaring, "I've just heard the sound of the future!"

But the legacy of "I Feel Love" runs much deeper. Once extracted and sped up, the track's rhythm lays the groundwork for techno music, helping to define what we now commonly call EDM (electronic dance music). In 2012, around the time of Donna Summer's death, the song was officially added to the National Recording Registry.

From Disco To Eternity – The Imperial Period

The impact of "I Feel Love" on the rest of the world is immediately palpable. Many jump on the electronic bandwagon, disco toughens up and spreads everywhere, becoming the most popular genre of the moment. But Donna Summer is far from out of ammunition. In fact, with Once Upon A Time (1977) her true imperial period begins. Once again Donna manages to (slightly) deflect Casablanca's demands for ever more nudity and provocation, and the cover of the new album features the face of a gorgeous woman dressed in what looks like a wedding gown (the back cover shows her in all her splendor). The ambition is boundless; the new album is a double concept record of 16 tracks, telling, in chronological order, the story of a modern-day Cinderella. Naturally, the parallels with Donna Summer's own life abound, and that's probably also why the record transcends the idea of mere dancefloor fun. On Once Upon A Time, Donna Summer pours in everything she's got. As everyone knows, the story of Cinderella has a happy ending — the prince arrives and they live happily ever after — but along the way, it's certainly not all smooth sailing. The dramatic opening notes of "Once Upon A Time" alone are enough to reveal that behind Donna Summer's disco music lurks a much darker side:

Cinderella, then, lives through a harrowing urban nightmare (in the relentless rush of "Faster And Faster To Nowhere"), daydreams ("Fairy Tale High") and bares the claws of the falsely innocent lover ("Say Something Nice"), or else calls out for her father's help in a moment of particular vulnerability ("Sweet Romance"). Riding the success of "I Feel Love", one side of the album is conceived as an electronic mini-suite: it ranges from the emphatic choruses of the despondent "Now I Need You", to the determination-laced despair of "Working The Midnight Shift" and the illusion of a better life in "Queen For A Day".

Of course Cinderella also has her rosier moments, such as the gospel-soul of "A Man Like You" or the courtly ball scene "Dance Into My Life", building up to the final climax of "Rumor Has It" — the prince's search for the beautiful stranger — the gorgeous "I Love You" (one of her finest singles ever) and the happy ending "Happily Ever After".

It's impossible to remain indifferent. Packed with gorgeous melodies, lyrically inspired and deliberately dramatic as if it were a musical, yet never coming across as pedantic or saccharine, Once Upon A Time is a true gem, tailor-made for the most attentive listener. Almost 40 years after its release it still hasn't stopped casting its spell, and it's probably among the finest fairy-tale-themed concept albums ever made.

Crowning Donna Summer as a live performer is Live And More (1978), a double album recorded three-quarters live during a concert at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. Donna runs through all her biggest hits to date, proving herself a superb interpreter and the consummate stage diva. The vocal performance is supreme, as is the backing band and the backing singers who "fill out" the sound, making the quality of the concert every bit as good as a studio production.

To be fair, there is one issue with Live And More, and it lies in the way some tracks were abruptly cut to fit the vinyl format, which undeniably robs the listener of the sense of the show as it was actually performed — had they left everything intact, like Judy Garland's "Judy At Carnegie Hall", it would have been a whole different matter — but the essence of the songs is nonetheless preserved as much as possible.

The greatest interest of Live And More lies in the choice of unreleased tracks, or ones not included on previous albums, such as "Last Dance", a massively successful single — and Grammy winner — taken from the soundtrack of the film "Thank God It's Friday". But that's not all; Donna turns into a jazz kitten on the thoroughly entertaining "Only One Man", and then on the "My Man Medley", where she reinterprets with captivating seduction George and Ira Gershwin's "The Man I Love" (made famous by Billie Holiday), Duke Ellington's "I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good" and the folk standard "Some Of These Days". Finally, she reaches sublime heights with a version of "The Way We Were" (Barbra Streisand's "signature" song) and above all with the unreleased "Mimi's Song", a moving song Donna wrote specifically for her daughter, which — knowing the biographical backstory behind it — is enough to bring a tear to the eye.

It could have ended there, but Donna still has one more trick up her sleeve. Side D of the record is entirely taken up by the studio version of the "Mac Arthur Park Suite", 17 stunning minutes structured in 4 movements, of which the title track "Mac Arthur Park" (originally by Jimmy Webb) is the standout moment: the song starts slow, with the orchestra building gradually and Donna moaning and lamenting, before the rhythmic explosion kicks the party into gear. It's a triumph, and Live And More reaches number 1 on the American chart, as does the single version of "Mac Arthur Park", which will spend a full 3 weeks at the top. Worth noting, incidentally, that on the CD reissue the entire "Mac Arthur Park Suite" was replaced by "Down Deep Inside", a track Donna recorded in 1978 for the film "The Deep".

By now disco music is an unprecedented phenomenon, with everyone seemingly gripped by dancefloor fever. Even a simple (if rough) overview of the era already offers an impressive array of names. Hip swivels, tight trousers and flowery shirts: the legend of Tony Manero — a bit tacky too, if we're honest — is born in November 1977, and "Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Soundtrack" becomes one of the most celebrated pop-culture phenomena of the decade. But classics keep piling up relentlessly everywhere; Bee Gees and KC & The Sunshine Band, of course, but also Nile Rodgers at the helm of his Chic, the travelling carnival of Village People, Jackson 5, Shalamar, Gloria Gaynor and the other Queen Of Disco par excellence, Sylvester, who in 1978 releases "Step II", the album featuring the eternal "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)". A chapter all of his own — naturally — Michael Jackson and the explosion of "Off The Wall".

Europe answers back too, with Average White Band and Boney M, not to mention the quintessential "architects" Cerrone and Giorgio Moroder himself with the landmark "From Here To Eternity". It's also time for a string of lightning-fast one hit wonders like Patrick Hernandez, or the former porn star reborn as singer/astrologer Andrea True Connection with "More More More".

But the allure of disco is so strong that countless artists attempt the crossover; here's Barry Manilow (this is where "Copacabana" comes from), Electric Light Orchestra, Diana Ross, ABBA, jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, Tina Turner fleeing from Ike, and dozens of others. But the most "unlikely" names are just as intriguing and striking; out of New York punk come the glittering Blondie with "Heart Of Glass", but there are also the Kinks with "(I Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman", the Beach Boys re-recording "Here Comes The Night" in disco form, or the Rolling Stones with an outright hit like "Miss You". Even a reluctant Cher signs with Casablanca, and the resulting "Take Me Home" instantly revives her fortunes, remaining to this day one of the best-known hits of her endless career.

The competition, in short, is fiercer than ever, but Donna Summer's response always stays one step ahead. Bad Girls sees the light of day in April 1979, and immediately marks the stylistic (and commercial) consecration of a career that, for all its brevity, is already incredibly prolific and packed with hits. In reality, the story behind Bad Girls is anything but rosy. At Casablanca, Neil Bogart keeps pushing for Donna to present herself to the public in an ever more revealing and provocative way, while she feels more frustrated than ever at being treated like a parcel. The fact is that, shortly before going into the studio, Donna — who had already become dependent on antidepressants — suffers a nervous breakdown. It's her sister who takes charge of the situation and brings her to church; one afternoon that year, in the quiet before the altar of a small country church, Donna rediscovers the faith she had lost years earlier, and with it the inner strength to carry on. Her relationship with Bogart remains difficult, and the end of the road between her and Casablanca is now just around the corner, but for the moment Donna manages to land another hit.

Bad Girls is far from being a religious record — just look at the title and the inner sleeve, where Donna plays a prostitute getting arrested while "working" under a streetlamp — but the result of Donna's newfound inner strength (not to say anger), combined with the ears of Moroder and Bellotte, who have already picked up on the rock sounds in the air, makes the music simply electrifying. Bad Girls is the complete album, an oxymoron to the nth degree embodied by its performer, caught between love and hate for the success she built with her own two hands. The disco music takes on a rock edge and pushes hard on bass and drums, while at the same time pushing the ballads to obsessive extremes and letting a thread of electronics snake through with uncanny grace.

"Hot Stuff" probably needs no introduction. Over the years it has become one of Donna's signature songs, an eternal karaoke favourite and, thanks to "The Full Monty", also the soundtrack for every self-respecting drunken night out — play it in the most down-at-heel suburban bar on a Monday night and there will always be some drunk ready to hit the dance floor and attempt a striptease. Much the same goes for "Bad Girls", a famous little tale of prostitution set to a hugely catchy funky groove (complete with "beep! beep!" backing vocals).

But it's not just a matter of singles. There's the curious sax of "Love Will Always Find You", the ear-grabbing melodies of "Walk Away", "Journey To The Centre Of The Heart" and "My Baby Understands", through to ballads like "Dim All The Lights", which sounds like a Rod Stewart number done in a husky, romantic disco style, the nocturnal atmospheres of "There Will Always Be A You" and the sheer drama of "All Through The Night" (complete with a spoken intro delivered like a seasoned actress). But above all it's "On My Honor" that stands out, a true showcase of Donna's vocal artistry, enriched by a lovely piano figure and a lone country guitar line snaking through and exponentially heightening the pathos. There's no shortage of the electronic side either, deployed this time across the final three tracks: "Our Love", "Lucky" and the rarefied synths of "Sunset People" are instant classics.

Bad Girls is Donna Summer's second double album to top the charts, where it will go on to achieve triple-platinum certification, and remains to this day her bestseller.

The final flourish comes with the essential double compilation On The Radio: Greatest Hits Volume I And II (1979), which also shoots straight to the top of the charts in no time. Not only that, but the collection goes down in history as the first to crossfade its tracks into one another, creating a continuous flow that fits the genre in question perfectly. Though incomplete for reasons of space (it was, after all, conceived for the vinyl format), it contains all of Donna's most important hits and offers a genuinely solid overview of her discography, well worth a listen.

Could she have stopped there? Of course not. As tradition dictates, the compilation is padded out with a couple of new tracks to entice even those who'd already collected the previous albums into buying it. But while, in most cases, the token new song is usually just filler, in the case of On The Radio: Greatest Hits Volume I And II the extras are nothing short of essential: "On The Radio" (taken from the film "Foxes") once again races into the top 5, and remains to this day one of her most celebrated songs of all time. The rest is taken care of by the duet with Barbra Streisand, "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", which is simply irresistible in its 11-minute extended version, and whose sheer pheromonal exuberance cements it as one of the classics most beloved by gay audiences (and, the icing on the cake, it will spend a couple of glorious weeks at n.1, selling over two million copies).

Caporetto, the Terror and the guillotine. Disco Sucks!

It seemed as though the moment of disco music would never end. Instead, after an unchallenged reign over the charts of half the world and millions upon millions of records sold, 1979 turns out to be, at once, the year of its apotheosis and of the swiftest fall ever recorded in the history of entertainment up to that point. Summing up what happens in those months isn't easy, but there is one event in particular that acts as a catalyst for everything that follows.

On July 12, 1979, a sizeable crowd of rock fans, wearing shirts reading "disco sucks", takes part in the Disco Demolition Night, which, according to the organizers, is meant to take place between the first and second halves of a baseball game at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The crowd in the stands watches in disbelief as a mob of rockers, sick of dancing on fluorescent tiles, starts burning disco albums in an enormous bonfire. The event naturally ends in a riot, with the game suspended and the police called in, but the message is crystal clear: disco sucks!

Of course, that protest is only the most colorful tip of the iceberg, since the backlash against disco is spreading just about everywhere, but the outcome is effective: while in July 1979 the US top 10 counts 6 disco songs out of 10, by October there isn't a single track that could be classified as such among the top 10, and by the time 1980 rolls around, merely uttering the word is pure blasphemy. In short, disco gets a (perhaps even deserved) dismissal after years of media overexposure. The iconoclastic fury of punk, for instance, which had been running undercurrent during those very years, hadn't managed on its own to overturn music's fortunes, but it had nonetheless kept alive the idea of a harder sound and far more committed social themes compared to the joyful escapism disco music was accused of peddling. Soon, hard rock, metal and new wave will become some of the new points of reference.

The fact remains that, with disco's ruinous defeat, the "blacklisting" of all artists once associated with the movement duly follows. It's like watching the musical transposition of the French Revolution, with the people of rock establishing their own Reign of Terror and sending every possible ex-disco act to the chopping block. And who, in those days, is the plump queen of brioches to be sent to the guillotine? Exactly, Donna Summer herself. It may sound like an exaggeration, but, barring a few rare exceptions, from here on her career will settle into far smaller audience numbers, at times almost nonexistent ones. Dozens of new pop stars will spring up from every direction, each vying in turn for the ever-slippery throne of dance music, and over time Donna will end up embalmed among the (great) glories of the past.

Yet in these months, the generational changing of the guard is the last thing on her mind. After years of deep dissatisfaction, arguments and artistic disagreements with Neil Bogart's Casablanca and his wife Joyce (who had both become close friends of the singer), Donna makes the difficult decision to walk away from it all at the height of her success, even taking the label to court over the emotional damages it caused her. The lawsuit is extremely costly and will leave everyone involved with a bitter aftertaste for years to come. When Bogart suddenly dies of cancer in 1981, it's a devastating blow for Donna; it is, after all, the loss of someone who had been very important in her life, and this seems to exponentially deepen the guilt that haunts her in those years.

As if by some prophecy, something breaks forever and the enthusiasm vanishes in an instant. Without disco music, Donna Summer simply isn't the same anymore. From here on, with trends following one another in rapid succession, all of Donna's various attempts at reinvention will range, at best, from passable to wearily routine, always carried out professionally but often devoid of any real enthusiasm. Her personality on record will grow increasingly elusive, as though she were playing a part in order to avoid exposing herself. It's a fall without precedent, and the public will soon forget she even exists.

The kingdom that isn't

The new contract Donna signs with Geffen should give her a bit of breathing room, especially with the arrival of her second daughter, Brooklyn, born to husband/musician/co-writer Bruce Sudano. Unfortunately, it's all just an illusion. The pressure to deliver a new album hardly lets up under David Geffen's management. Moroder and Bellotte are pushed to finish the new work as quickly as possible, and The Wanderer sees the light of day in record time, in October 1980.

The gap with the past is immediately striking: where disco had once been shrewdly laced with other genres, the new album shamelessly introduces soft-rock atmospheres, hints of new wave and gospel riding the wave of her rediscovered faith, but also a thick layer of bombastic keyboards that at times sink the rest of the work. Above all, the refined and passionate Donna Summer no longer seems at ease with this kind of chart-friendly melodic rock, further stuffed with some truly dreadful bolted-on guitar solos.

There are still enjoyable tracks, "Running For Cover" and "Cold Love" above all, but on the whole it's as if that captivating storytelling that had made the albums of the past indispensable has suddenly gone missing. "Looking Up", "Who Do You Think You're Foolin'", the childish "Stop Me" or the guitar-driven "Night Life" carry an atmosphere that simply no longer fits the performer in question. Just listen to the bizarre "Grand Illusion", which seems to echo the shamanic wave of Kate Bush, to notice how, this time around, the trio really didn't know which way to turn. And the gospel number "I Love Jesus", however heartfelt the performance, doesn't fare any better.

The success of The Wanderer is immediate, but short-lived. The pleasant single "The Wanderer" reaches n.3 on the charts, but the other singles don't come anywhere close to the top 10; today the album is out of print. In short, while another disco-era survivor like Grace Jones flies off to Compass Point Studios to record the landmark "Warm Leatherette" and officially kick off her golden period, Donna, who wanted to play "the wanderer", stays stuck in a right mess.

Even more incredible is the fate of I'm A Rainbow, recorded in '81 but shelved at the last minute by Geffen for not being deemed up to standard (it will only be released in 1996, to very little success). Just like in the golden years, I'm A Rainbow attempts a return to the double-album format, but this time the Summer/Moroder/Bellotte team is joined by a whole host of collaborators, and the 18 tracks are scattered far and wide into a genuine pastiche. Once again, cheesy guitars ("Leave Me Alone" among the worst ever), run-of-the-mill numbers like "Back Where You Belong", "Brooklyn" dedicated to her daughter, or the overblown and somewhat syrupy ballad "I'm A Rainbow" badly drag down the listening experience, paling in comparison to what had been produced only two years earlier.

When things go well, there's a curious nod to the contemporary synth-pop brand of Human League and Depeche Mode that's starting to turn heads overseas, see “People Talk” and “Melanie”, which are indeed far from bad, even if they don't fully suit Donna's strengths (a fact made even more evident by the other synthetic experiment, “Runner With The Pack”). “Walk On (Keep On Movin')” has a curious rhythm that could pass for Police, while gusts of Celtic art-synth are applied to the ballad “To Turn The Stone”, with a result as evocative as it is disorienting. Utterly indecipherable, on the other hand, is the remake of “Don't Cry For Me Argentina”, which Donna delivers with the dramatic flair of a true diva, but the bombastic, unruly arrangement strips it of all pathos (and the guitar-driven reprise of the theme is downright nauseating).

In short, I'm A Rainbow is a real mess. There's undoubtedly something good buried in there, but to find it you have to wade through the entrance hall of a wax museum, which isn't necessarily a pleasant experience. Her fortunes really are incredible: just two years earlier Donna Summer was America's luckiest singer, while now she's not even allowed to release an album. At least out of all this mess “Romeo” gets its moment of glory, since in 1983 it's included on the soundtrack of the hugely popular “Flashdance”.

In an attempt to turn around Donna Summer's declining fortunes, Geffen decides to reshuffle the deck, and in doing so ends once and for all her partnership with Moroder and Bellotte. It's the end of an era, in other words, but perhaps it's just as well: the times have changed irrevocably, and new paths need to be tried. And the new arrival is certainly no nobody; Donna Summer (1982) is recorded under the supervision of Quincy Jones, a jazzman of historic stature and a formidably skilled producer who, in those very months, is also working on Michael Jackson's “Thriller”.

The first thing you notice – aside from the vividly colourful cover photo where Donna is literally covered by her own hair – is that the new album is trimmed down to just 9 tracks, which at this point is certainly not a bad idea. The songs start rolling, and indeed, compared to the chaos of the previous two albums, the sound is thoroughly symptomatic of the era: rounded off, glossy, looking towards both dance and r'n'b, and reveling in an impressive range of acoustic and sampled instruments. There's no shortage of hummable melodies either, like the aggressive lead single, all handclaps and sing-along choruses, “Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger)”, or the third-world-flavoured atmospheres of “State Of Independence”, a track originally by Vangelis that indeed keeps its solemn tone amid the gusts of synthesizers that sweep through the ending. There's also room for the effective “Protection”, which was meant to be a duet with Bruce Springsteen, and a track like “Livin' In America”, which is instead Springsteen-esque right down to the bone (the most bombastic kind, though). Nor is there any shortage of the classic r'n'b mid-tempo number with sampled horns, “(If It) Hurts Just A Little”, and a Chaka Khan-style number like “Love Is Just A Breath Away”.

So what's missing, then? In a word, the performer. With the exception of the closing “Lush Life” – a sly, electro-bucolic reworking of an old jazz standard – Donna Summer is a terribly formulaic record, one that can work well enough as a pop album for distracted listening, but is completely drained of any emotion. At times it feels like Quincy Jones is trying to squeeze Donna into Jackson's shoes, but of course that can't work. To be fair, Donna herself puts less and less of herself into what she does; the performances are, of course, “perfect”, but the spark is missing. Despite clocking in with the fashion of the moment, and being, with hindsight, Donna's best album of the '80s, Donna Summer achieves rather unsatisfying commercial results compared to expectations.

The fall, in short, has been set in motion, and the world of pop shows no mercy. For every artist who rests on her laurels for a moment with a less compelling record than usual, another ten immediately pop up elbowing for space. Among the various pretenders to the throne, one in particular pushes harder than the rest; she's draped in lace and crucifixes, she's clumsy and off-key as a cracked bell, but damn irresistible and so hungry for success that Napoleon Bonaparte himself wouldn't stand a chance against her: in October 1982 the world witnesses the arrival of Louise Veronica Ciccone, and soon the image of the new female popstar will be (re)forged once and for all.

The Last Thule

A legal technicality still requires one more Donna Summer album to be released under the old Casablanca label (which, in the meantime, following the collapse of disco, has been absorbed into the PolyGram group). Geffen decides to hand over 9 songs Donna has recorded with new producer Michael Omartian, not least because nobody has very high expectations for it. As luck would have it, She Works Hard For The Money (1983) turns out to be her last great success. The famous title track is irresistibly catchy, and MTV plays its video on heavy rotation, showing the singer in the role of a cleaning woman struggling to bring home a couple of dollars. Although certainly not financially struggling herself, Donna seems to fully identify with the role, having spent the last 10 years working like crazy, enriching herself but also plenty of other people along the way. “She Works Hard For The Money” becomes a genuine girl power anthem that spreads everywhere and remains to this day one of her most celebrated songs ever.

The album is also a solid success, but once again it will soon be forgotten, and rightly so. The remaining tracks shuffle through the plastic sheen of “Stop, Look And Listen” and the other anthem “Woman”, clumsily hop aboard the reggae bandwagon (the populism of “Unconditional Love”), or let through a candy-floss ballad like “Love Has A Mind Of Its Own”.

It might sound like a joke, but “Tokyo” even imitates certain Japan atmospheres. And indeed it's from England that fresh blood is now arriving, since the Second British Invasion is in full swing. Compared to Donna Summer's plasticky, family-friendly pop, the androgynous Annie Lennox, for instance, is far more captivating, and the sound of Eurythmics is certainly no less so. The fashion of the moment calls for instantly catchy melodies, but also a certain ubiquity of content and flashy colours, whether it's the pretty boys of Duran Duran or explosive hit-machines like Boy George fronting Culture Club, or even a New Yorker like Cyndi Lauper, who is literally taking over with “She's So Unusual”.

In all this commotion, of course, an album glossed over in dull yellow like She Works Hard For The Money disappears within just a few months.

Total defeat

After the “snub” of a lost opportunity like the album just handed over to others, Geffen sends Donna back into the studio with Omartian to try and at least capitalize on her newly regained image. But it's too late: Cats Without Claws (1984) is once again a record that fails to achieve the hoped-for success (peaking at n.40 on the charts). More than the lack of sales itself, what's apparent is the weariness of the whole work, with Donna Summer now little more than a shadow of herself, unrecognizable beneath the plasticky blanket of the sonorities fashionable at the time. From the new album, “Suzanna” is worth saving, along with the vaguely watered-down new wave of “Oh Billy Please”, but the rest is an unremarkable mix of r'n'b, synthetic funk and the occasional punchy soul-rock ballad that leaves little to nothing behind once it's over.

Besides, anyone in '84 wanting to listen to music in similar genres has at least three far fresher and more valid options available: Prince's “Purple Rain”, Chaka Khan's “I Feel For You” and the reborn Tina Turner's “Private Dancer”, three first-rate performers with three albums capable of drawing attention on a global scale. Irony, once again, is cruel to Donna; perhaps the title was meant as a charm against bad luck, but Cats Without Claws truly fails to leave a mark, and slides into obscurity without even getting off the ground.

Finally, after a full 12 albums released without pause in under 10 years of a career that saw the swiftest of rises and the most ruinous of falls (only Janet Jackson, with the nipplegate at the 2004 Super Bowl, will manage to top that), Donna slows down the pace. Casablanca/Mercury puts out two compilations, the thoroughly pointless The Summer Collection: Greatest Hits (1985), but also the far more interesting The Dance Collection: A Compilation Of Twelve Inch Singles (1986), which, as the title suggests, gathers some releases from Donna's disco years in the extended versions played in clubs back in the day. Brought together on a single album, heavyweights like “I Feel Love”, the entire “Mac Arthur Park Suite”, “Dim All The Lights” and “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” create a backward-looking dancefloor journey that, even today, remains a pleasure to revisit.

However, nostalgia is short-lived. Her 1987 comeback with All Systems Go, produced by Harold Faltermeyer, is another resounding flop. Once again, more than the songs themselves, which aren't exactly memorable, what really stings is the singer's total lack of enthusiasm, letting herself be recycled by whichever producer happens to be around without any real conviction. All things considered, only the title track and "Voices Cryin' Out" are (perhaps) worth saving, buoyed at least by stadium-sized choruses, but the rest of the tracks make up an album that's almost impossible to comment on, a mix of the syrupiest Michael Bolton, the poodle rock of acts like Bon Jovi and Whitesnake, with a dash of Bros and Olivia Newton-John thrown in. Even when Donna raises her voice ("Bad Reputation", "Love Shock"), the result is utterly devoid of pathos.

So, while the world is being set ablaze by the golden pipes of the new big thing Whitney Houston, and Terence Trent D'Arby makes his historic debut, All Systems Go is largely ignored in America and remains to this day one of those mid-career albums by a great diva that practically no one knows (and even fewer appreciate). Still, the single "Dinner With Gershwin" climbs to n.13 in England, providing the key clue to the reasoning behind Donna Summer's next move.

Jumping from one thing to another (and the gay backlash)

Finally free of her Geffen contract – which by this point had only ever released the absolute worst of her output – Donna Summer instinctively follows up on the success she found in Britain with the last single from her previous album and heads back to Europe, this time not to work with Moroder and Bellotte, but to join the thriving hit factory of Stock/Aitken/Waterman – people like Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley and Bananarama are riding high. The deed is soon done: a Donna Summer with her face painted like a geisha is picked up by a pair of mechanical pincers and dunked into the formaldehyde. Another Place And Time is released in 1989, and like every other S/A/W product, its fate can be guessed blindfolded: a hugely successful lead single in England ("This Time I Know It's For Real" reaches n.3), while the other singles follow with progressively waning interest and quality, and by year's end the album is soon forgotten like the rest of the series. And to think that, in the same year, still on Geffen, the eternal Cher suddenly storms back into the global spotlight with the bombastic hair-rock record "Heart Of Stone"… right when Donna has abandoned the genre!

No matter; if nothing else, this time around Donna at least shows she still cares about her career, to the point of trying a different path from usual. And, if you like, compared to her recent disappointing studio albums, to European ears Another Place And Time can still come across as thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish, as well as sticky and endlessly hummable. But once again, the lack of inspiration, or even just the will to try to say something original, makes Donna look increasingly like an empty shell, by now reduced to a faded cover girl of herself.

The sense of adventure, however, continues even more explicitly on the following Mistaken Identity (1991), made in collaboration with Keith Diamond, an album that, in its incredible confusion, ends up being perhaps the most curious one in years. At this point it's unclear whether the title was meant ironically or not, but the fact remains that Donna Summer sets off in search of someone else's identity, having come up totally dry with her own (the blonde wig she sports on the cover is quite telling). One of the most in-demand sounds of the moment in America is called new jack swing, a black music subgenre already coined back in '86 by Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis and their protégée Janet Jackson on the landmark "Control". And so here's Donna Summer as the most improbable of fly girls, "rapping" like a tough street kid (?) on "Get Ethnic" or "Body Talk", as if she were Will Smith on his way to Bel Air.

Every now and then some Stock/Aitken/Waterman leftovers resurface (the embarrassing "Work That Magic"), as does a ballad like "Heaven's Just A Whisper Away", which sounds a lot like Jackson's "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" from the "Bad" era. There's a wink at club culture with the acid-house of "What Is It You Want" or with the classic nineties atmospheres of "Cry Of A Waking Heart". The piano-bar mood of "Fred Astaire" might actually work on its own, but it's completely lost within the context of the album (not to mention that at the time this kind of soul doled out over dance beats was the sole prerogative of Manchester's own Lisa Stansfield).

In short, total confusion, for which failure is by now a foregone conclusion. But the limited impact of Mistaken Identity is no longer just a matter of overdressed fashion and a blurry image. For several years now, rumors have circulated about certain statements Donna is said to have made after rediscovering her Christian faith in 1979, statements that apparently came out strongly against gay rights (something to do with Adam & Eve versus Adam & Steve, as the story goes). The matter simmers under the surface, but keeps resurfacing like a thorn in her side every time Donna puts out a new record, to the point that many at the record label start pinning the almost constant lack of success that has plagued her career for the past decade on this very issue.

It's not entirely clear how things actually played out, but these are undeniably hard years for the gay community and tempers are running high; the AIDS epidemic is all over headlines worldwide, many feel ghettoized and abandoned with no support or comfort, and the death toll keeps rising by the day, so much so that even a popular figure like Freddie Mercury will pass away not long after. So, having idolized her and contributed no small part to her success, the gay community cannot bring itself to accept this possible "betrayal" on the part of the Queen Of Disco. In the end, Donna Summer calls a press conference to clear things up and denies ever having made such statements. Peace is restored, to some degree, but by then it's too late. With a full eight albums of new material mostly flying under the radar (and a quality level that's certainly nothing to write home about, which rules out any later reassessment), her place in popular memory keeps slipping further back to 1975 and "Love To Love You Baby", the Summer-era image that endures to this day.

On the gossip front, one could point out that, with hindsight, far from being a trivial matter, the "Donna vs gay" dispute at least served as a cautionary tale for countless other female popstars, who from then on would be far more careful than usual about anything said regarding their (typically sizeable) gay audience. In the case of Lady Gaga, the fight for LGBT rights would at times become almost the sole reason to keep going.

From the '90s to today – silence, comeback and disappearance

The relative silence Donna Summer imposes on her output leaves the various labels that have housed her music over the years plenty of time to flood the market with an endless string of compilations – more than 20 in total! Honestly, though, rather than trying to assemble a fully coherent anthology, the whole affair has gradually turned into a real jungle of infighting, scavenging of b-sides dredged up from the Paleolithic era, and constant reshuffling of the same record, with tracks removed and others added depending on which country the album was released in; as far as I'm concerned, the whole matter is utterly uninteresting, but I'll still flag some of the best-known releases found in the English-speaking world.

With a whopping 34 tracks, The Donna Summer Anthology (1993) is certainly comprehensive in every respect, offering the broadest possible overview, but naturally the second disc consists almost entirely of post-1980 material, which, as already noted, tends to feel rather dated.

Christmas Spirit (1994) gathers all the seasonal classics ("White Christmas", "O Come All Ye Faithful", "O Holy Night" and so on); the orchestral arrangements are big and emphatic, the keyboards glossy and thoroughly dated, but Donna reconnects with her old gospel roots and delivers it all with an almost operatic voice, certainly still impressive but at times also a bit out of place.

Like practically every other seasonal record, Christmas Spirit deserves to be judged in a category of its own. From a commercial standpoint, however, the visibility it gets is once again minimal, since the massive success of Mariah Carey's "Merry Christmas" from the year before continues to overshadow every other release of its kind (and still does to this day).

Highly rated by audiences instead was Endless Summer: Donna Summer's Greatest Hits (1994), another comprehensive compilation of a full 19 tracks, though it tends to use the short radio edits of the songs, to the point that several tracks from the disco period lose a bit of their original charisma.

Better, if anything, is Live & More Encore (1999), which documents a televised Donna Summer concert from that period; she's in great form as ever, though perhaps missing that mix of verve and nervous energy that had made her other famous 1978 live album so epic. As if almost trying to give a sense of budget cuts, the historic duet with Barbra Streisand is now performed with Tina Arena instead.

Spread across a full three CDs, The Ultimate Collection (2003) once again retraces her career from her early days in Holland up to more recent times, while also offering a few rarities, such as the 15-minute version of "Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus," the famous Serge Gainsbourg track rearranged in a disco key.

Yet another one, The Journey: The Very Best Of Donna Summer (2003), contains, besides the usual overview, a few new tracks made in collaboration with Giorgio Moroder (really nothing special).

Finally, Gold (2005) is yet another total reshuffling of everything mentioned above, as thorough as it is stuffed with material that's not exactly essential.

Unfortunately, though, the worst was yet to come. Skipping entirely over the first 2000s disco revival, carried out in Europe by the ingenue Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Donna delivers a real stab to the heart with Crayons (2008), her first album of new material in 17 years. No point beating around the bush: the quality of this record is undoubtedly the lowest of her entire career. Donna gets run through the vocoder like a latter-day Cher, flattened by production modeled on the crudest version of Timbaland's current sound, tossed about over dance-hall rhythms and western-style atmospheres, surrounded by fake-sounding guitars, bits of American college-rock, and forced to sing melodies propped up on strings like so many puppets: Crayons is the worst of contemporary pop, so much so that the unrecognizability of its performer is almost an advantage, as if nobody wanted to tarnish the image of what she once was.

The single most appalling moment of all is "Queen Is Back," a sort of crude R&B number on which Donna tries to play the diva making her comeback, demanding her throne back; the whole thing was obviously meant to be ironic, but for some reason listening to the track just produces intense embarrassment. Adding insult to injury, the song even contains a sample from Kevin Federline's "Lose Control," a man who went down in history as the phoniest rapper ever to exist, as well as the first ill-fated husband of Britney Spears (the one who wanted to keep sharks in the backyard pool, ignoring the fact that their two infant children would be playing right around it — the divorce was quick but painful).

If this profile has no final rating, part of the reason is also that Crayons would probably have hit rock bottom, and frankly it was too heartbreaking to end the long career of a great performer on such a note. Donna Summer passed away suddenly on May 17, 2012, at the age of 63, due to cancer. Having been largely forgotten amid pop's revolving carousel for over 20 years by that point, the Queen Of Disco was already, for many, an icon frozen in time, and no one expected great things from her anymore, but the news of her death was still a bitter surprise that shook the entertainment world and beyond. Her discography remains available to explore, and I hope this profile has at least brought a bit of order to it.

2015, among other things, will see the release of a splendid box set, Complete Casablanca Album Collection, which contains remastered versions of all 8 albums released during her golden period — an expensive item, but highly recommended for collectors and casual fans alike. And speaking of recommendations regarding her discography, I take full responsibility for the revisionist take on Donna's career that I've applied in this profile, since I realize I've shown a clear bias toward the period between '75 and '79. No offense or malice intended, but it's a widely held opinion that from the '80s onward, Donna Summer's career was something of a mixed bag of releases, both a blessing and a curse for one of the most beautiful divas of entertainment of the last century. Should you wish to discuss this (civilly), you can do so on the OndaRock forum.

One last glimmer, however, Donna seems to have sparked all the same. Perhaps following the passing of its godmother, disco music has experienced a brief revival, climbing back up the charts across much of the world thanks to hugely successful projects such as "Random Access Memories" by Daft Punk (which indeed features Giorgio Moroder and Nile Rodgers among others), Arcade Fire's intriguing "Reflektor," Bruno Mars's "Unorthodox Jukebox" (the best-selling album in the world in 2013), Justin Timberlake's "20/20 Experience" and Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams with "G I R L" and the famous "Blurred Lines" with Robin Thicke and T.I.

Ride the wave of great music

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