Donna Summer's Bad Girls Album was released 46 years ago today.

"TOOT, TOOT, hey, BEEP, BEEP"

My first album! I drove around in my little VW Rabbit blasting it everywhere.

Hot Stuff, OP

That's Twiggy, Pat Ast and Debralee Scott with Donna at R2.

What I have never understood about Summer is how popular she was and how it dropped off so quickly and totally. She claims she never said those anti-gay things from a stage but if she didn’t, how did she fall so fast? I don’t even think changing tastes can account for it.

Oy

I was 20.

r5, it wasn't just Donna

She became a born-again Xtian, R5. Not exactly members of her target audience.

Then along came New Wave. A lot of it sounded just like disco

Was the Bad Girls album any good beyond its hit singles? I never listened.

My thoughts are, when she became a holy roller she was quoted saying hateful and negative things about gay men, when questioned about how we made her career (which was true). She denied it, so fine. But when asked what her true feelings are, she refused comment. She did some work I guess - aids benefits and things....IDK - I used to love her, and used to live in Dorchester where she is from. I threw out the poster and albums I had of hers. Music was so important to me growing up, raised in an incubator of hate and abuse - Cindy Lauper, Madonna, Whitney Houston - pop music etc. I feel got me through. Finding out she was hateful was like losing a friend, losing a supporter - even though only imagined, that was the only kind I had then.

And the album still holds up. It was so unique with those Giorgio Morodor-produced tracks

Is Pat Ast in the Bad Girls video?

R10 Yes, 3/4 of it is great - side 3 which is all slower songs is not so great.

Not on the album but the song She Works Hard for the Money used to be constantly stuck in my brain.

Her masterpiece, IMO, is Four Seasons of Love. Still sounds exceptional on good sound equipment. It's perfect.

R13, Yes, that's Pat.

R10, I like every song on the album. I really like Sunset People.

Vocally beautiful r16.

My memory is that Bad Girls was played all summer of 1979

I was just listening to this Time Life CD in the car today the production on the Bad Girls track still sounds incredible it was as though I'd never heard her wail on the word "star" from the line...Like everybody else, they wanna be a star

Amazing how most of the tracks below have become such standards Donna still wins the gold star however.

Sounds of the Seventies: 1979

Good Times – Chic – 3:44

Fire – Pointer Sisters – 3:28

We Are Family – Sister Sledge – 3:37

You're Only Lonely – JD Souther – 3:47

I Want You to Want Me – Cheap Trick – 3:39

Too Much Heaven – Bee Gees – 4:57

Don't Bring Me Down – Electric Light Orchestra – 4:04

Ring My Bell – Anita Ward – 3:32

Reunited – Peaches & Herb – 4:00

Bad Girls – Donna Summer – 3:54

Da Ya Think I'm Sexy? – Rod Stewart – 5:26

I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor – 3:19

Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy – Bad Company – 3:19

Heart of Glass – Blondie – 3:26

Tragedy – Bee Gees – 5:04

My Sharona – The Knack – 4:00

Promises – Eric Clapton – 3:01

What a Fool Believes – Doobie Brothers – 3:43

Loved Donna Summer. RIP🌹

[Quote] Yes, 3/4 of it is great - side 3 which is all slower songs is not so great.

Some of the slower songs in the album are among her biggest hits: Dim All The Lights and Sunset People.

I also love On My Honor

R18 yes especially on Summer Fever. Her voice (and the back up) functions as part of the disco propulsion - another glittery and throbbing aspect of the total sound. I wonder if it was kind of innovative. I remember hearing it as a boy and thinking it was really out of this world. especially her non verbal vocalisations.

It really was about the times, and timing of when the album hit. It was huge instantly when it came out. Also I remember “Dim All The Lights” being its last cut to be issued as a single and being a hit into fall of 1979–and I think its quick success in a 3-minutes-edited 45 version symbolized the complete commercialization and oversaturizing of crossover-disco by then. January 1980 really did feel to many people like a transition period to new/rebranded music, styles, and artists. Yet it still sounds so classic and good now—it was innovative in bridging disco to rock and new wave, IMO.

R19 I turned five in 1979 and almost all those songs listed are the first that I'm really conscious of hearing regularly on the radio. Heart of Glass was the first 45 I ever bought (well that my mother bought for me) that year.

The most fabulous dance music album of the 70s! The platinum standard! No Madonna, No Kylie, No Rihanna, No Gaga without "Bad Girls"! The hit songs, of course! But deep with fab album cuts.

"Sunset People"

"Walk Away"

"Can't Get To Sleep At Night"

"Our Love"

This just showed up in my Youtube feed. Donna performing country standards! So many years before Beyonce.

Donna Summer - Country Medley 1983 (Live, The Eddie Rabbit Special, 1983)