Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder
1975 was my senior year in high school. I was inundated with The Eagles, The Doobie Brothers, Earth Wind and Fire, Grand Funk Railroad and Linda Ronstadt. Then along came Donna Summer. To me, she put a “face”, a visual, on electronic dance and club music. Prior to Donna Summer, electronic music was sex without an orgasm. It seemed senseless.
Donna Summer was destined to have a musical impact on the world. She had a love for music since childhood and the earliest toils of her career took her to Germany. It was there that she crossed paths with Italian producer Giorgio Moroder. Together they produced a demo of “Love to Love You Baby”. After hearing Summer’s version, he decided to release it and develop her sound. It became a hit in the United States due to its sensuality and strong dance beat. It was the beginning of a great career for Donna Summer, eventually tagging her with the label of “First Lady of Love”. The sensual nature of her simple lyrics told a story along with the driving disco beat. Her stories brought the finale, the orgasm, in your face, to electronic music. Donna Summer had a way of injecting her sensuality into a lackluster stream of electronic rhythms and tones. Her lyrics and frequent stories of “rags to riches” created a more “complete package” for the average listener.
The 70’s and 80’s were a time of sexual revolution as well as the specter of AIDS. Because of her strict Christian upbringing, she made controversial comments regarding the lifestyle of those contracting the AIDS virus. She later recanted her statements, having experienced friends afflicted with the terrible illness. Electronic music needed strong accompaniment, a strong partner. Her stories were likeably linked to rags to riches, such as “Once Upon a Time”, a modern Cinderella story, and “Thank God It’s Friday”, a movie about an aspiring disco performer, with the hit song, “ Last Dance”. She was the recipient of numerous Grammy awards and remains the only artist to attain three consecutive platinum double albums. More recently, she performed at The Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway in 2009, honoring Barack Obama. Donna Summer represented a lasting trend in American music and even today her songs remind us how far we have come.
Rudolph Rustin
Rudolph,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great perspective on electronic music! It's interesting to see how others are affected by this genre. When I think of Donna Summer, I think "Disco"; i've never truly associated her to electronic music because at an earlier age I was exposed to only one side of her stylings grouped with other disco artists in the 70s. Because I am an 80s baby, I wasn't able to appreciate the prime of her career, but thank goodness she is a timeless classic.
When you hit on topic of AIDS, I only wish you would have quoted her controversial comments. I was interested in finding out what made her retract her statements on such a pertinent issue.
C.Parker
Crystal,
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to an article regarding her comments. The 70's were a very tumultuous time for gay awareness, the newly erupting AIDS epidemic and a growing religious right, ready to persecute all those who did not comply to their beliefs. Donna Summer was also one of seven children raised into a very religious family. Her father was a minister.
http://www.donna-tribute.com/articles/99/wrongly.html
Rudolph
Hi Rudolph-
ReplyDeleteInteresting blog and perspective, indeed! I can very much appreciate your comments about Donna Summer's sex appeal, but I do not think Electronic Music had that reputation at that time. I agree with you that it certainly came from those origins, but as soon as these types of vocals were integrated, a new form of music was born…and it grew vastly different from Electronic Music. When you think of Kraftwerk being the pioneers of Electronic Music, they made every effort to make their presentation and sounds cold, driving, and nearly inhuman...as robots. Even in live performances, they did not connect charismatically as performers with their audience. They isolated the innovative and manmade sounds and the sounds, only. Not much of that has changed in Electronic Music with the DJ.
One of my favorite quotes is from the Kraftwerk documentary:
“With Kraftwerk, who knows what they were really like. They were robots. In a way…they were the precursor to the dance music scene…where…they were a DJ who you couldn't really identify either. It was a man who put records on and mixed records and manipulated sounds to create ‘a sound’. That was the whole thing. That was what you were interested...in being taken over by the sound, as opposed to gawking at the individual making the sound. And I think that's what they pioneered." 1
If the brilliant producer Giorgio Moroder found the “missing link” to a new genre of music by placing a floaty, beautiful woman’s voice over top of a driving digital beat, combined with the social scandal of a churchgirl gone bad, he won the winning ticket to take what Kraftwerk was doing and turn it into what would become known as Disco. At the time of its breaking into the scene, Disco was the most popular in the gay club scenes, and much more so than just the digital “sounds” of Electronic Music.
A great definition of what we can hear in “I Feel Love”:
“The disco sound has soaring, often reverberated vocals over a steady "four-on-the-floor" beat, an eighth note (quaver) or 16th note (semi-quaver) hi-hat pattern with an open hi-hat on the off-beat, and a prominent, syncopated electric bass line sometimes consisting of octaves.” 2
The dance clubs that played Electronic Music (which were predominantly not gay clubs) in Europe, did not have the same sex appeal found in the newly-created genre of Disco which thrived in the gay clubs throughout New York and Philadelphia, at the time.
“Disco also was a reaction by New York City's gay, black and Latino communities against both the domination of rock music and the stigmatization of dance music by the counterculture during this period.” 3
So, when one discusses Electronic Music in general, I feel that it is its own genre of music and one that was a basis for what became Disco, but not quite the same. It evolved with its own identifying elements. “Summer would become the first well-known and most popular disco artist (eventually having the title "The Queen of Disco" bestowed upon her by various critics) and would also play a part in pioneering the electronic sound that later became a prominent element of disco.” 4
Thank you for your perspective! Awesome post!
1 "Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution”
by Prism Films; Edwin Pouncey; 2:48:55; Music Journalist and Artist; http://www.veoh.com/watch/v17166226D39Jw7dc2:48:55
2-4 Wikipedia: “Disco”; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco
Stephany,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the commentary! Disco was a mutation of electronica. I liked disco for its simple, sometimes stupid message, sense of humor and outlandish showmanship of many of its artists. Performers tried to "do something" with electronic music. The EDM genre needs such representation today.
Thanks
Rudolph