For the casual fan, this two disc set would be all the Donna Summer they really need. For a complete newbie giving the collection a first glance, it would appear that each half of her career is given equal weight -- the first ten years on the first disc, and the next ten years on the second disc. But even a listener with a passing familiarity of her songs would know that isn't true. All her most famous songs are on Disc 1 -- and I'd be willing to bet that over 95 percent of what's been written about Donna Summer is centred on the Moroder-Bellote-Summer golden era. I found myself in the mood to hear her music and even I grabbed Disc 2 completely by mistake and didn't realize it until I was out of the house.
But as far as my own memories go, I'm too young to remember her 70's peak first hand. Much like with Elton John, I was aware of who Donna Summer was as early as '79-'80 (my parents were big disco fans and "Bad Girls" was on heavy rotation in our house) but didn't really hear her as a contemporary artist and follow her songs in the charts until the MTV/Much Music revolution started. So I have a soft spot for those 80's hits, starting with "She Works Hard For the Money" and its accompanying video starring Summer as a bored and exhausted waitress in a diner.
The two discs of "Gold" form an interesting narrative. Disc 1 showcases the perfect creative partnership between producer, songwriter, and performer. The whole was galvanized into more than the sum of its parts, Summer's identity as an artist is fully formed even in the early days, she and her team nailed the formula from their very first record together and spent the rest of the decade perfecting it even further.
Disc 2 tells a completely different story. Disco has faded, and Summer looks to stay relevant. She ditches her production team and tries something new, again, and again, and again. She spends the rest of the decade trying to see what sticks. Nothing does, at least not for more than an album's worth of material. However, for the most part the results are very successful. Rihanna was a chameleon of sorts, and could easily adapt to the style of her producer of choice. Similarly, Donna Summer post-1980 could do a little bit of everything. She had a last hurrah with Moroder, trying out the Minneapolis sound on "The Wanderer". She did a stint with the "Thriller" crew, working with Rod Temperton and Quincy Jones on "Love Is In Control", which wouldn't have been far out of place on an album during MJ's imperial phase. She anticipated ambient house with the jaw-dropping Quincy Jones/Vangelis collaboration "State of Independence". Seriously, this record is a soul-stirring masterpiece, and I'm not exaggerating about the ambient house reference.
Then she channeled Pat Benetar, going fem-rock lite with "She Works Hard For the Money" in collaboration with yet another superstar producer, Michael Omartian. She followed that with another Omartian-produced single, dipping her toes into reggae by bringing in Musical Youth to sing backing vocals on "Unconditional Love". It's yet another underrated single, with a fun and carefree music video to go along with it, kind of like Eddy Grant on an uncharacteristically bright day.
The next few years were less successful as she experimented with classic rock (covering Lieber and Stoller) and smooth R&B ("Dinner With Gershwin"), a bit desperate to find a new niche. This was like "Evita"-era Madonna happening ten years earlier, it's as if she wanted to leave the pop world behind altogether and cruise the awards show circuit. Fortunately, she soon returned to her dance/club roots by latching onto the hi-NRG hitmakers whose names practically defined a genre -- Stock, Aitken, and Waterman. "This Time I Know It's For Real" was a comeback of sorts, but "I Don't Wanna Get Hurt" is even better in that undefinable way that minimally separates any paint by numbers SAW production from virtually any other.
She later worked with Civilles and Cole -- correctly identifying them as the early 90's dance music producers of choice. She later dabbled in smooth R&B, knowing that the likes of All 4 One and Boyz II Men were taking off with that style. When the winds of change passed through, Donna Summer always knew where to stand. She even recorded "Con Te Partiro" (albeit in a cheesy dance version) before Andrea Bocelli made it his signature song.
I can't pretend that any of this material is as incendiary as the songs on Disc 1. So many disco stars never escaped the 70's, but Summer continued making hits well into the 90's, and in the course of getting there, found about ten different ways to transcend her disco diva image. She was consistently interesting, always adapting, and never reverting to old formulas. She was never more than one fluky collaboration away from a full-fledged comeback along the lines of Cher's "Believe". And you'd better, um, believe, that Summer could have sung the daylights out of that song, in that style of dance music, if the opportunity had presented itself.
