Donna Summer
Bad Girls

THE REVIEW

1979. Disco was about to sink, and Donna, as we all know, would sink with the genre she had been Queen of, never to re-emerge except with forgettable albums. In short, Bad Girls is Donna's last worthwhile record; the last one in which she collaborates with Moroder; the last one with the Casablanca label.

In terms of sales, this album is part of the famous trilogy of double albums that Donna placed in a row at first place on the chart (first comes the wonderful Live & More live, then this album of unreleased songs, and finally On the Radio, a greatest hits). It seems clear to me that this moment represents a sharp break in Donna's career, which could be explained in the simplest of ways: good records up to this point, bad records from here on. So Bad Girls is the last hurrah, but what a last hurrah, guys!

In the meantime, it must be said that (unfortunately) Moroder and Bellotte, who had written and composed with her until that point, were joined by other authors. The Moroder - Bellotte - Summer partnership was perfect, and indeed the best tracks of this double LP are their offspring. For me, Bad Girls is somewhat Donna's White Album; there's really everything in it, here's a quick recap:

Hot Stuff stands out as a manifesto of crossover, with the big guitar solo, a bold evolution of the dancefloor-filling tracks of the glorious past years. Bad Girls and Love Will Always Find You focus on naivety, the first becomes a bestselling single but remains bland, the second has a cloying and irresistible horn section. Walk Away is another beautifully syncopated piece.

Dim All the Lights deserves a review of its own: Donna creates a masterpiece, the piece starts slow and romantic, then unleashes all the syncopated energy of Disco. And throughout this, Donna's performance is one of the best ever heard. This is the pinnacle of the album and surely one of the highest points reached by Donna during the collaboration with Moroder.

We go up a few tracks and reach the third side, which opens with a kind of ballad trilogy; On my Honor with the piano, There Will Always Be a You and the poignant All Through the Night. The piece I like the most is the second, but it must be said that all 3 would have been rather anonymous tracks in terms of structure, instruments, and arrangements. Instead, they are if not memorable, then nevertheless very pleasant, and it's not easy to choose just one, and all this is owed to the magnificent performer.

The last side is reserved for the most futuristic Disco, that of I Feel Love and the second side of Once Upon a Time. This part of the record, where performance matters less, turns out to be the weakest.

Bad Girls is a memorable album because it allows Donna to fire her last shots with the Moroder - Bellotte company (in reality, they will still collaborate on a couple of tracks on The Wanderer, the next album, but we can consider the golden period closed here, and in style). It may not be Donna's best album, but it is the most ambitious, being a double. This fact of the double album is surely tasty for listeners, but it makes it difficult for this album, with its 15 tracks, to stand up to classics such as I Remember Yesterday or Four Seasons of Love, which had 8 and 4 tracks respectively, albums in which the risk of getting a song wrong was certainly lower. But it will be history, in addition to the enormous sales success, that will make this album an icon.