Donna Summer: Singles... Driven by the Music

To celebrate the upcoming anniversary release of Donna Summer's 'Another Place and Time', I've been listening to the 'Singles... Driven by the Music' collection from 2015.

DONNA SUMMER gained prominence during the 1970s disco era, propelled by her incessant and creative driving force behind the genre's global popularity, rightly earning the title "Queen Of Disco" and becoming one of the most successful recording artists of the entire decade.

Donna was the first Artist to have three consecutive Double-Albums reach No. 1 on the US Billboard charts and also became the first artist to achieve four No. 1 singles in a thirteen month period.

Donna's catalogue has sold more than 130 Million units worldwide and this re-issue campaign of seven of her later albums, prove that she was able to accommodate new musical and production styles as the decade progressed.

Donna Summer became the first Artist signed to the new Geffen Records label in 1980 and released her first single and album - both entitled 'THE WANDERER' - for the label in the same year.

This collection collates the Singles originally released on Geffen Records and Atlantic Records from the albums 'The Wanderer', 'Donna Summer', 'Cats Without Claws', 'All Systems Go', 'Another Place And Time' and 'Mistaken Identity'.

Originally a CD boxset, this 98 track collection is considerably less expensive to purchase from iTunes.  It's a great collection and a more than worthy addition to some great Donna albums in recent years.

Donna Summer - Another Place and Time (30th Anniversary)

Donna’s ‘80s close-out album was 1989’s ‘ANOTHER PLACE AND TIME’, which paired her with multi-hit making, multi-million-selling UK producers Stock Aitken Waterman.

The album’s lead single ‘This Time I Know It’s For Real’ was an uplifting, club floorfiller and radio-friendly hit, peaking at #3 in the UK (#7 on the US Billboard Hot 100), giving Donna her highest charting single for more than a decade.

Four further singles were released from the album including the two Top 20 hits, ‘I Don’t Wanna Get Hurt’ and ‘Love’s About To Change My Heart’, giving Donna back-to-back UK Top 10 hits for the first time since 1977, as well as remixed versions of ‘When Love Takes Over You’ and ‘Breakaway’.

This 30th Anniversary Edition is packaged in a sumptuous 24-page A5 Media Book, which contains the original full album credits and acknowledgements, as well as the lyrics, a newly authored 6,400 word liner note by noted US writer Christian John Wikane, featuring new interviews with Pete Waterman, Matt Aitken, Bruce Sudano, Phil Harding and Video Director Dieter Trattmann.

This 3CD version contains 35 Tracks and Mixes, including the original studio album and a large selection of extra singles mixes, 6 unreleased mixes and 2 anniversary megamixes. DONNA SUMMER gained prominence during the 1970s disco era, propelled by her incessant and creative driving force behind the genre’s global popularity, rightly earning the title “Queen Of Disco” and becoming one of the most successful recording artists of the entire decade.

Bananarama: Dance Music (Live at The Observatory in San Deigo)

Whooooooop! Thanks Davearama for your camera work.

D I S C O and envy

I sometimes look at photographs of Grace Jones, in the days when she was a less menacing disco diva - or Sylvester getting mighty real - or the sounds of Donna Summer getting saucy in the recording studio to a hypnotic melody.....and I feel extreme envy that I wasn't old enough to experience some of that.

Don't get me wrong, I know that the seventies weren't particularly brilliant in so many ways, but there has always been something about the disco era that seems so exciting, so sexy and so god damn desirable.

Sadly, I don't have a time machine and you're now mourning that you won't be able to see me in high-waisted purple flares or the fetching jump suit that's pictured.

At least we have the music to get us by.

Men had an awful lot of hair in the seventies and I lost a lot of mine in my 30s, so I would have possibly have been an outcast compared to many.  Though I do have a beard and a hairy chest, so I perhaps would have worn a gold necklace with a medallion to lure future potential sex conquests.

I imagine discotheques with lit-up dance floors and a DJ whose hair is so enormous that he can barely see through it to change records.

However, I draw the line at wearing white trousers.

I wonder - am I alone in my jealousy of the disco era?

Check out some amazing photos from the legendary Studio 54 here