LP Review: A Love Trilogy
Released: 1976
LP Charts: #16 R&B, #22 pop
Donna Summer’s first album was practically all pop-rock. Her second album was about 3/4 disco and 1/4 pop-rock. With A Love Trilogy, she’s gone full steam ahead into disco. The result is one of the greatest songs of her career anchoring a somewhat uneven album.
On Love to Love You Baby, I complained about how its 17-minute title track is awesome, but kind of starts meandering a bit after the 10-minute mark.
WELL, let me tell you that “Try Me, I Know We Can Make It” is majestically paced throughout its entire 18-minute run. Sure 18 minutes is long for a song, but never do you feel the 18-minutes. At least I don’t. (Okay, I do, it’s 18 minutes, but it’s a minor feel. I notice it, but I don’t get restless). There are great transitions and segues from one part of the song to another. It also helps this supposedly single song is actually separated into three movements to use an old classical music term: “Try Me”, “I Know”, and “We Can Make It”. That’s the love trilogy alluded to in the album title.
That’s the secret sauce for this 18-minute monster flowing along. Just as one movement begins to wear out its welcome another smoothly enters as strings, keyboards, and drums shake up the mood to announce the next portion of the track.
Released as a severely edited single, the song did poorly on radio (#35 R&B, #80 pop), but the full-length cut absolutely slayed the clubs (#1 disco).
After that side-dominating feature, Summer gets to engage in a theatrical redo of “Love to Love You Baby” thanks to a cover of Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic”. I know, weird sentence, but that’s what happened.
If you thought “Love to Love You Baby” had a lot of moaning… well… this song doesn’t have quite as much as that song did, but the moaning in “Could It Be Magic” is absolutely more incongruous. Indeed, “Could It Be Magic” and its prelude are nearly a masterpiece of disco, if not for the unseemly orgasmic asides. The song didn’t need it whatsoever. Feels like an example of someone telling Summer, Moroder, and Bellotte: “Hey, the moaning worked before, so do it again.” Whoever suggested it mistook moaning for sexiness.
Anyways, what works for “Could It Be Magic” (#21 R&B, #52 pop, #3 disco) is the ominousness that gives it a sultry emotional depth. There is an army of backup singers earning their keep, Summer is spectacularly understated in her delivery, and the orchestra rumbles, particularly the French horns.
The album’s other two songs are fairly insubstantial and harmless. The subject matter of the funky clavinet-laden “Wasted” is what you’d expect given the title. “Come With Me” goes in on euro-disco.
ALBUM GRADE: B
A step forward in terms of cementing Summer’s commitment to the dance floor, but the album still had some flaws and is heavily reliant on the monstrous “Try Me, I Know We Can Make It”. Whatever, another gold album for Summer.
Song Scores
Try Me, I Know We Can Make It: 9/10
Could It Be Magic: 7.5/10
Wasted: 6/10
Come With Me: 6/10