Bad Girls | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | April 25, 1979 | |||
Recorded | December 1978 – March 1979 | |||
Studio | Rusk Sound Studios (Los Angeles, California) | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 71:28 | |||
Label | Casablanca | |||
Producer | ||||
Donna Summer chronology | ||||
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Singles from Bad Girls | ||||
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Bad Girls is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Donna Summer, released on April 25, 1979, by Casablanca Records. Originally issued as a double album, Bad Girls became the best-selling and most critically acclaimed album of Summer's career (before the release of On The Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I & II ). It was also her final studio album for Casablanca Records. In 2003, Universal Music re-issued Bad Girls as a digitally remastered and expanded deluxe edition.
Bad Girls reached the top of the US Billboard 200, where it stayed for six weeks: for one week on June 16, 1979 and then for five consecutive weeks from July 7 to August 4, 1979. Bad Girls also topped the Billboard R&B Albums chart for three weeks, from June 23 to July 7, 1979, and all cuts from the album topped the Disco Top 80 for seven weeks from May 26 to July 7, 1979. [2] It contained the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one hits "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls", and the number-two hit "Dim All the Lights".
Summer became the first female artist to have two songs in the top three of the Billboard Hot 100 when during the week of June 30, 1979, "Hot Stuff" fell to number two and "Bad Girls" rose to number three.
Bad Girls was certified platinum — now double platinum — by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) within a week of its release. At the 1980 Grammy Awards, Bad Girls was nominated for Album of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and "Hot Stuff" won the first Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Additionally, "Dim All the Lights" was nominated for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and "Bad Girls" was nominated for Best Disco Recording.
Bad Girls is considered one of the greatest disco albums of all time. [3] It was ranked by Rolling Stone 's list of the Women Who Rock: The 50 Greatest Albums of All Time at number 23. The magazine wrote, "The late great Queen of Disco pulls out all the stops for an album that sums up Seventies radio, from ladies-choice smooch jams to filthy funk." [4] In a BBC Music review of the album, Daryl Easla wrote, "Bad Girls is a fantastic reminder of when [Summer] was the Britney, Christina, Mary J and Missy of her day all rolled into one." [5] Part of the song "Our Love", also available as a B-side, was copied by New Order on Blue Monday. [6]
"I have a fantasy about rerecording that whole album," said singer Maria McKee. "It's fabulous." [7]
Having made her name in the preceding years as "the queen of disco," Summer set to work on her new album with long-time partners Giorgio Moroder [8] and Pete Bellotte, as well as various others she had not worked with before. By this time, although disco music was still popular, other styles such as punk and heavy metal were also doing well on the charts, so the team decided to incorporate a rockier sound into some of the songs. Other songs had a more soul/R&B feel to them, and in all it was probably Summer's most diverse album to date. The fusion of rock and disco was particularly evident, and synthesizers were used to augment the sound for a more electronic and dance oriented electro music in the first two songs on the album – "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls", which also became the first two singles to be released from the album. Both were huge hits and made number one on the American singles chart. The former also won Summer a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and became popular again in the 1990s when it was featured in The Full Monty and again in the film The Martian . "Dim All the Lights" was the third single and also became a huge hit, peaking at number two in the U.S.
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [9] |
Christgau's Record Guide | A− [10] |
PopMatters | favorable [11] |
Q | [12] |
Rolling Stone | favorable (1979) [13] |
Rolling Stone | (2003) [14] |
Virgin Encyclopedia | [15] |
Yahoo! Music | favorable [16] |
Bad Girls was universally acclaimed by music reviews. As well as the winner of the aforementioned Grammy Award for "Hot Stuff" (Best Female Rock Vocal Performance). The song "Bad Girls" was also nominated for Best Disco Recording. "Dim All the Lights" was nominated for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and the album itself was nominated for Album of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The album was also nominated for "Favourite Pop/Rock Album" at the American Music Awards of 1980. The single took an American Music Award for "Favorite Pop/Rock Single", while Summer took awards for "Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist" & "Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist". In 2020, the album was ranked at 283 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. [17]
Bad Girls would be Summer's final studio album for Casablanca Records, who ended 1979 with the release of a greatest hits double-album. For her next studio album, Summer wanted to branch out into other formats of music but since she and Casablanca could not come to an agreement on her musical direction, Summer opted to sign a new deal with Geffen Records, the then-new label formed by David Geffen. Her first album with Geffen Records was more rock/new wave oriented. In the meantime, Casablanca chose to release more singles from the Bad Girls album into 1980: "Sunset People" and "Walk Away", the latter of which became a moderate hit reaching the top 40. Casablanca/PolyGram also released a special edition compilation entitled Walk Away – Greatest Hits 1977–1980, which featured a selection of her hits from the Bad Girls period and the preceding years. In 2003 Universal Music, owners of the Casablanca/PolyGram back catalogue since 1998, re-issued Bad Girls as a digitally remastered and expanded deluxe edition.
The album was certified double platinum for sales in excess of 2 million copies in the U.S. on December 1, 1993 (double albums are certified per disc by the RIAA rather than per complete unit). It also became her second consecutive number-one album in the U.S., also spending three weeks at number one in Canada on the RPM 100 national albums chart. [18] It has sold over 4 million copies worldwide. [19]
All tracks produced by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte except "My Baby Understands" by Donna Summer and Juergen Koppers.
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Hot Stuff" |
| 5:14 |
2. | "Bad Girls" |
| 4:55 |
3. | "Love Will Always Find You" |
| 3:59 |
4. | "Walk Away" |
| 4:27 |
Total length: | 18:35 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
5. | "Dim All the Lights" | Summer | 4:40 |
6. | "Journey to the Center of Your Heart" |
| 4:36 |
7. | "One Night in a Lifetime" |
| 4:12 |
8. | "Can't Get to Sleep At Night" |
| 4:45 |
Total length: | 18:13 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
9. | "On My Honor" |
| 3:34 |
10. | "There Will Always Be a You" | Summer | 5:07 |
11. | "All Through the Night" |
| 6:01 |
12. | "My Baby Understands" | Summer | 4:03 |
Total length: | 18:45 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
13. | "Our Love" |
| 4:51 |
14. | "Lucky" |
| 4:37 |
15. | "Sunset People" |
| 6:27 |
Total length: | 15:55 |
No. | Title | Producer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
16. | "Bad Girls" (demo version) | Summer | 4:00 |
Total length: | 75:28 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Producer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. | "I Feel Love" |
| 8:12 | |
2. | "Last Dance" (from the soundtrack Thank God It's Friday ) | Paul Jabara | 8:11 | |
3. | "MacArthur Park Suite" ("MacArthur Park"/"One of a Kind"/"Heaven Knows"/"MacArthur Park (Reprise)") |
| 17:35 | |
4. | "Hot Stuff" |
| 6:47 | |
5. | "Bad Girls" |
| 4:57 | |
6. | "Walk Away" |
| 7:16 | |
7. | "Dim All the Lights" | Summer | 7:14 | |
8. | "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" (duet with Barbra Streisand) |
| Gary Klein | 11:44 |
9. | "On the Radio" (long version; from the original soundtrack Foxes ) |
| Moroder | 7:35 |
Total length: | 79:31 |
Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
|
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Canada (Music Canada) [42] | 2× Platinum | 200,000^ |
France | — | 200,000 [43] |
Germany | — | 250,000 [44] |
Greece (IFPI Greece) [45] | Gold | 50,000^ |
New Zealand (RMNZ) [46] | Gold | 7,500^ |
United Kingdom (BPI) [47] | Silver | 60,000^ |
United States (RIAA) [48] | 2× Platinum | 2,000,000^ |
Summaries | ||
Worldwide | — | 4,000,000 [19] |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
Donna Adrian Gaines, known professionally as Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter. She gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s and became known as the "Queen of Disco", while her music gained a global following.
Roberta Kelly is an American disco and urban contemporary gospel singer who scored three hits on the US Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart between 1976 and 1978. Her most successful US hit single, "Trouble-Maker", spent two weeks at No. 1.
Love to Love You Baby is the second studio album by American singer Donna Summer, released on August 27, 1975, and her first to be released internationally and in the United States. Her previous album Lady of the Night (1974) was released only in the Netherlands. The album was commercially successful, mainly because of the success of its title track, which reached number 2 on the US Pop charts despite some radio stations choosing not to play the song due to its sexually explicit nature.
A Love Trilogy is the third studio album by American singer and songwriter Donna Summer. It was released on March 5, 1976, eight months after her international breakthrough with the single and album of the same name – "Love to Love You Baby". The bold, sexual nature of that particular song had earned Summer the title 'the first lady of love'. By now Summer's work was being distributed in the U.S. by Casablanca Records, and the label encouraged Summer, Moroder and team to continue in this vein. A Love Trilogy uses the first side for one long disco track in three distinct movements 'Try Me', 'I Know', 'We Can Make It', and coalescing into the "love trilogy" of the title – "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It". Side two contained three additional erotic disco songs, including a cover of Barry Manilow's "Could It Be Magic". The album's artwork showed Summer floating light-heartedly through the clouds, again adding to the image of her as a fantasy figure.
The Wanderer is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Donna Summer, released on October 20, 1980. It marks a musical departure for Summer, being an album influenced by rock and new wave whilst previous albums all fell under the disco music category. Her inaugural release of the Geffen Records label, it became a top 20 album in the United States, with the title track reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100; other singles failed to enter the top ten. However, the record was less successful on the charts than her previous album Bad Girls, which topped the Billboard 200 for five weeks.
Four Seasons of Love is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Donna Summer. Released on October 11, 1976, this concept album became her third consecutive successful album to be certified gold in the US. It peaked at #29 on the Billboard 200. In addition, all the cuts on this album went to number one on the disco chart.
Live and More is the first live album recorded by American singer-songwriter Donna Summer, and it was her second double album, released on August 28, 1978 by Casablanca Records.
"Hot Stuff" is a song by Pete Bellotte, Harold Faltermeyer, and Keith Forsey released as the lead single by American singer Donna Summer on her seventh studio album Bad Girls, produced by English producer Pete Bellotte and Italian producer Giorgio Moroder in 1979 through Casablanca Records. Up to that point, Summer had mainly been associated with disco songs but this song also showed a significant rock direction, including a guitar solo by ex-Doobie Brother and Steely Dan guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter. It is the second of four songs by Summer to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
"Bad Girls" is a song by American singer and songwriter Donna Summer from her 1979 seventh studio album of the same name. Casablanca Records released it as the album's second single on June 23, 1979. The song was produced by Summer's regular collaborators Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, and co-written by Summer and the members of Brooklyn Dreams, Bruce Sudano, Joe "Bean" Esposito and Edward "Eddie" Hokenson.
I Remember Yesterday is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Donna Summer. It was released on May 13, 1977, seven months after the release of her previous album. Like her previous three albums, it was a concept album, this time seeing Summer combining the recent disco sound with various sounds of the past. I Remember Yesterday includes the singles "Can't We Just Sit Down ", "I Feel Love", the title track, "Love's Unkind" and "Back in Love Again". "I Feel Love" and "Love's Unkind" proved to be the album's most popular and enduring hits, the former of which came to be one of Summer's signature songs.
Once Upon a Time is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Donna Summer. It was released on October 31, 1977, and peaked at No. 26 on the US Billboard 200, number thirteen on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and No. 24 on the UK Albums Chart. The entire album charted as one entry at No. 1 on the Hot Dance/Disco chart. Once Upon a Time includes the singles "I Love You", "Fairy Tale High", "Once Upon a Time" and "Rumour Has It". The album did not spawn a hit single as popular as "I Feel Love".
Peter John Bellotte is a British songwriter and record producer most noted for his work in the 1970s with Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer.
On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I & II is the first greatest hits album by American singer Donna Summer, released on October 15, 1979.
The Dance Collection: A Compilation of Twelve Inch Singles is a compilation album by Donna Summer released in 1987. Summer had become the biggest star of the disco era in the 1970s when signed to Casablanca Records. By 1987, Summer was signed to the Geffen label, and Casablanca had long since been bought out by Polygram. This album was released on Polygram's Casablanca label. It features some of her most famous songs from the disco era in their extended 12" versions, as they would often have been played in the clubs during their popularity.
The Donna Summer Anthology is a double CD compilation album by the American singer Donna Summer, released by Polygram Records in 1993. The compilation featured the majority of Summer's best known songs right from the start of her success to the then present day. Summer had originally made her name during the disco era in the 1970s and in the decade that followed had experimented with different styles. Most of the tracks on this compilation are the original album versions of the songs, which were sometimes edited down for their release as a single. Included for the first time are two remixed tracks from her then unreleased album I'm a Rainbow, which had been recorded in 1981 but was shelved by her record company. The album also featured the Giorgio Moroder-penned and produced song "Carry On"', marking the first time Summer and Moroder had worked together since 1981. Summer and Moroder, together with Pete Bellotte had written the vast majority of her 1970s disco hits. Four years later, "Carry On" would be remixed and become a big dance hit. It also won Summer a Grammy for Best Dance Recording, her first win since 1984 and her fifth win in total.
Brooklyn Dreams were an American singing group of the late 1970s, mixing R&B harmonies with contemporary dance/disco music and best known for a number of collaborations with singer Donna Summer. The band consisted of Joe "Bean" Esposito, Eddie Hokenson and Bruce Sudano. Esposito provided lead vocals for the band and played guitar, while Sudano played keyboards and Hokenson played drums and occasionally sang lead vocals.
"Love to Love You Baby" is a song by American singer Donna Summer from her second studio album (1975). Produced by Pete Bellotte, and written by Italian musician Giorgio Moroder, Summer, and Bellotte, the song was first released as a single in the Netherlands in June 1975 as "Love to Love You" and then released worldwide in November 1975 as "Love to Love You Baby". It became one of the first disco hits to be released in an extended form.
"Dim All the Lights" is a song by American recording artist Donna Summer released as the third single from her 1979 album Bad Girls. It debuted at number 70 on August 25, 1979, and peaked that year at number two on November 10 and November 17 on the Billboard Hot 100. Produced by her longtime collaborator Giorgio Moroder with Pete Bellotte, the track combines Summer's trademark disco beats with a more soulful pop sound. It was the third Hot 100 top-two single from the album and her sixth consecutive Hot 100 top-five single.
"Cold Love" is a song by American singer Donna Summer, released as the second single from her album The Wanderer. The song was written by Harold Faltermeyer, Keith Forsey and Pete Bellotte and produced by Bellotte and Giorgio Moroder. It peaked at No. 33 in the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 49 in Cash Box. Summer earned a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
Foxes is the soundtrack to the 1980 film of the same name, starring Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, Sally Kellerman, Randy Quaid as well as The Runaways' lead singer Cherie Currie. The double-album was released on the disco label Casablanca Records.
It really was a gift, and it was quite ironic – and quite sad, really – that we stole it off a Donna Summer B-side. It is a weird song. It's become one of Manchester's greatest records.
It became the best-selling album of Summer's recording career, selling 4 million copies worldwide, (...)