I Feel Donna Summer Love

Was pretty gutted to hear last night that singer Donna Summer had passed away aged just 63. She died of lung cancer which she blamed on toxic dust inhaled after 9/11 in New York. A tragedy within a tragedy.
Although still very active as a recording artist Donna was best known for her work in the 70s, practically inventing disco music as a genre and certainly breaking new ground with her more electronic based work with Giorgio Moroder. The epic Moog-fuelled I Feel Love is probably one of her best known songs, but let's not forget other gems such as Love To Love You Baby, I Remember Yesterday, the somewhat bizarre McArthur Park ("someone left the cake out in the rain..") and the classic disco-stomper Hot Stuff

Her raunchy, sexy style in the 70s disco phase under the Casablanca label, was somewhat offset with her becoming a 'born-again Christian' in the 80s. Although Summer spent much of the decade in musical obscurity, save for her collaboration with Anderson/Vangelis on State of Independence, she returned to the charts in 1989 under the Stock, Aitkin & Waterman umbrella with This Time I Know It's For Real and an album Another Place and Tim.

1991's Mistaken Identity album saw Donna try out a more urban style but with little success. The single Work That Magic failed to do just that. The rest of the nineties saw just greatest hits compilations and a live album, with Donna living on her legacy.

Crayons, an album of original material, was released in May 2008 with modest succes in the US although shifting very few digital units in Europe. An undeserving demise to one of our best female vocal artists and songwriters.

Ironic then that it was 30 years ago almost to the week that New Order issued their first electronic-dance orientated single Temptation which borrows heavily from the Summer / Moroder song Our Love from the ground-breaking Bad Girls album, as does their subsequent Blue Monday released in 1983 which started the electronic Hi-NRG dance and house music trends.

full playlist below