Nooooo sixties.
I Feel Love was not Donna Summer’s best song.
I used to listen to Donna Summer a lot as a child, thanks to having a mum who was a die hard disco fan. I remember wearing out a handed down, home recorded, best hits tape I had. Even though I Feel Love is an incredible song that did so much for dance/techno music, and was way ahead of it’s time, I wish people would actually look deeper into her immensely fun back catalogue and appreciate her as more than a one hit wonder.
I also wish people would stop being so down on disco! If it wasn’t for that genre, you wouldn’t have the pop/dance/techno music of the last thirty years. The term “Disco Sucks!” is so ingrained, but that term was single handedly invented, encouraged and advertised by radio stations backing white rock bands. Funny, that.
“Disco Sucks!” was carried along by rock fans, so anti-dancing and disco balls, that they joined together in 1979 at a White Sox game, stormed the baseball pitch, and burnt tons of Bee Gees records. The idea of burning records and music just because you’re “anti” it, is pretty terrifying to me.
The whole movement wasn’t just because of a hate of the music, fair enough if people didn’t appreciate the undeniable commercialism and superficiality of some of it, but it’s naive to think that acts like The Village People and Chic didn’t offend certain people for much more dangerous and disgusting reasons. The disco hatred trickled down, and 40 years later still is lumbered with the “uncool” tag, yet influences *so* much popular music.
All I know is, is when I Feel Love plays near the end of a night when all the embarrassing (*cough*good*cough*) stuff gets churned out, it sounds so much fresher, more exciting, and happier than anything else being played that same evening. The term “guilty pleasure” is for indie snobs, and should be completely and totally abolished. If you enjoy it, you enjoy it, that’s it.
Donna Summer’s version of MacArthur Park used to be my favourite song for a long time when I was little. A disco song about baking cake = Brilliant. Beyonce could only dream of pulling off these lyrics.
RIP The Queen of Disco.
