DONNA SUMMER: BORN AGAIN BAD GIRL

DONNA SUMMER: BORN AGAIN BAD GIRL

JIM FELDMAN

Linda Ronstadt had an early jump on the '70s and Olivia Newton-John's chart-andsales figures are undeniably impressive, but all things considered, Donna Summer was the most successful female artist of the last decade. Some of the all things being considered: In 1979, Summer became the first woman to have three # 1 pop hits (according to Billboard, whence come all my statistics) in one year—"Hot Stuff,"

"Bad Girls," and her duet with Barbra Streisand, "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)"; three double-albums in a row— Live And More, Bad Girls, and On The Radio, Volumes I & //—hit # 1 and went double platinum, triple platinum and platinum respectively.

And she's definitely a contender in the '80s, too. Admittedly, her star dimmed a bit when she left her disco base behind, releasing the tough, rock-oriented The Wanderer and then her first album not produced by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, the slick, overblown Donna Summer, helmed by Quincy Jones. Seeking to drastically expand her audience, she confused her fans (in the case of Donna Summer, bored them may be more like it), and while these two albums sold pretty well, gold just doesn't shine so bright after all that platinum. But her latest album, She Works Hard For The Money, energized by the born-again Christianity of both Summer and her producer, Michael Omartian, is selling like crazy; its messages may not be to everyone's taste, but it's a clever, commercial blend of rock arrangements, Euro-swirl, and various dance rhythms, with a couple of ballads thrown in for good measure. In other words, it's pointedly contemporary and has returned Summer to the top of the heap. So much for the (eager?) voices of doom.

Of course, Summer's most important achievement is that in a few short years, she legitimized disco for mpny non-believers, with records that were always innovative and more interesting than the floods of concurrent disco discs. In doing so, she became the only true star to emerge from disco,transcending disco's limits so completely (particularly with Bad Girls), she earned the appellation "superstar." Indeed, that Summer finally turned away from disco shouldn't have surprised anyone, because while her records—taken as a whole—were the best that disco had to offer, they also had strong pop tendencies. (Interestingly, Summer's hits were less R&B/soul-influenced than they were pop-constructed; she has always been a bigger pop star than a black-music heavy.)

Ultimately, an article recapping Donna Summer's career must necessarily focus mainly on her long-time producers, Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, since before she recently began to emphasize her born-again mentality, she had no discernible personality.

She did however, have a great disco voice—taut and muscular, suffused with controlled electricity, alternately razor-sharp or girl-group breathy. Perfectly suited to mid-'70s disco's highly stylized and exaggerated synthesis of romantic possibility and erotic immediacy, Summer provided the vehicle for Moroder and Bellotte to launch their careers.

Discovering her in Germany—she hails from Boston—where she appeared in a number of musicals, they played her voice as a de-personalized instrument to create the fantasy persona at the heart of their records. From "Love To Love You Baby" through Bod Girls, she represented an ingenuous good girl/bad girl yearning for romantic and/or erotic fulfillment.

Like so many disco singers, Donna Summer may have begun her recording career as little more than her producers' tool—an exploitable voice and a name to hang on an otherwise faceless studio production, but in the end, expendable and without a personal power base upon which to build a career. But Summer was luckier than most: her voice was distinctive, as well as powerful, and perhaps more importantly , her first single, 1975's extended, soft-core orgasm "Love To Love You Baby"— essentially, a novelty record beneath the dreamlike, disco ambience—escoped the disco arena and became a massive pop smash worldwide.

After all the hits, She Works Hard For The Money is the first, honest-to-God Donna Summer album, in more ways than one. For better and for worse, Summer wants to share her born-again beliefs with her fans. The better: Her singing now has an impressive emotional resonance and a stirring conviction. On the Caribbeanderived "Unconditional Love," Summer, with some help from Musical Youth, just may win you over to Jah, and on the fine ballad, "Love Has A Mind Of Its Own," she and gospel singer Matthew Ward show what duet singing is all about. And now the worse: Summer is preaching in many of her songs, which can be terribly off-putting. But not only does she push Jesus/God a bit too insistently, she also, on "Woman," asserts male superiority, and onstage throughout the country recently, she has been making nasty, self-righteous anti-gay remarks. I'm glad that Summer has been inspired; I'm a fan from the beginning. But if she doesn't cut the cracks and do something about the overkill in her lyrics, I and a lot of other people may stop listening entirely. Which would be too bad, because another few albums of such excellent vocal work, and Donna Summer would be a fitting subject for a retrospective article, and not just her records.