LP Review: Bad Girls
Released: 1979
LP Charts: #1 R&B (3 weeks); #1 pop (6 weeks)
Welcome to the clear apex of Donna Summer’s career. Bad Girls was Summer’s third straight double album and this bad boy (fittingly) dominated the summer of 1979 with three hit singles.
Hot Stuff: #3 R&B, #1 pop
Bad Girls: #1 R&B, #1 pop
Dim All the Lights: #13 R&B, #2 pop
Hell, the only reason why “Dim All the Lights” wasn’t also a #1 pop hit was because Summer had a duet with Barbra Streisand (“No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)”) that was sitting at #1 and blocked it from taking the top spot.
America had Summer fever and rightfully so because this is a pretty damn good album. Not perfect, but it’s worthy of any and all praise. It also a marked departure from Summer’s studio album immediately preceding this one, Once Upon A Time…. That earlier LP was still largely steeped in Philly Soul style disco with influences from eurodisco plus a few electronica songs.
Bad Girls is harder edged and LOUD, anticipating… NAY… laying the groundwork for the fusion of rock, dance, and pop music that would take over the airwaves by the mid-1980s. This change in direction is partly due to the growth of Summer and her longtime collaborators Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, but it is also thanks to newcomer Harold Faltermeyer who arranged the music and played synths on this album. All four of them, in various incarnations and formations, wrote every song here.
SIDES 1 and 2
So not only did Summer have two mega-hits on this album, they open the album.
“Hot Stuff” has a rock guitar solo from Steely Dan friend and Doobie Brother Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. The song also won the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Don’t be mistaken though, this is still a stompin’ disco track as Summer emphatically demands “a wild man” come back home with her tonight. Deserved every bit of its success and Michael Jackson aped the whole idea for his 1983 hit “Beat It”.
Come on. Think about it. A Black artist mostly known for dance hits decides to “toughen up” their image by bringing in a well-respected rock guitarist on a supposed rock song that is still very much dance music.
Anyways, “Hot Stuff” leads directly into “Bad Girls”, which is equally fantastic as Summer empathizes with the hard working prostitutes of the world. Definitely the funkier and poppier of the two #1 hits, this song has hooks galore: a traffic whistle, the backup singers’ “toot toot, hey, beep beep”, the horns, Summer asking “hey mister, do you have a dime?”.
Fun, fun, fun all the way around.
Okay, those are genre and era defining songs. What about the more mundane efforts? Well, that’s where you more clearly see the burgeoning fusion of pop, rock, and disco. “Love Will Always Find You”, “Journey to the Center of Your Heart”, an “One Night in A Lifetime” are all somewhat interchangeable in this regard as slightly uptempo pop-rock-disco tracks. I guess “Journey” is the most memorable because it has a slightly annoying keyboard whizzing through it.
“Walk Away” (#35 R&B, #36 pop) is of the same general formula, but is more of a ballad than dance track. Still, mid-and-late ‘80s female pop singers owe a lot to this template. Speaking of ballads, we have “Dim All the Lights”! Summer again does her classic ballad-into-dance routine here. “Can’t Get to Sleep At Night” is the finale of these danceable ballads and has nice inclussion of secondary percussion and organ to differentiate it from the other dance numbers.
One drawback of these two sides of music is that the drumming is fairly consistent. I know by this point there was the standard disco drumbeat, but man it would have been nice to have some variation.
SIDE 3
Well, out with the danceable ballads and in with the ultra romantic ballads since this side of the double album is meant to showcase Summer’s ability to do slow numbers. As you might imagine, it’s the weakest side of the LP, but it has its moments.
“On My Honor” incorporates country music while “There Will Always Be A You” opens with operatic wailing and is pretty gentle. “All Through the Night” is perfectly average. It comes and goes without much impression.
“My Baby Understands” qualifies as power pop, I suppose. It’s got Summer belting like a rock star again with screeching guitar. Whatever the genre, best song on this side of the album.
SIDE 4
Just as on Once Upon A Time… Summer devotes an entire LP side to electronic dance music. Given that this album went triple platinum and spent six weeks atop the pop album charts, this is probably the largest exposure yet that electronic music had in the US.
“Our Love” commences the side with a beat so dope that New Order straight up jacked it for their 1983 classic “Blue Monday”. Not as dope is “Lucky”. It’s a fairly laid back, but bubbly electronic dance tune. And finally there’s the album-closer “Sunset People” about the fancy, party people of Los Angeles. I’ve never done cocaine, but this what I imagine what it feels like to sweat while snorting some coke.
ALBUM GRADE: A-
This double album has higher highs than Once Upon A Time…, but it lacks the focus. Furthermore, as aforementioned, Sides 1 and 2 have some really repetitive drumming to the point that some of the songs begin sounding the same. You never had that problem on Once Upon A Time…. Songs on that album (for the most part) sounded like extensions of others instead of repeats or retreads.
But don’t take my criticism too harshly. This is still a really good album.
Song Scores
Hot Stuff: 10/10
Bad Girls: 10/10
Love Will Always Find You: 7/10
Walk Away: 7.5/10
Dim All The Lights: 7.5/10
Journey to the Center of Your Heart: 6/10
One Night in A Lifetime: 7/10
Can’t Get to Sleep At Night: 7.5/10
On My Honor: 6/10
There Will Always Be A You: 7/10
All Through the Night: 5/10
My Baby Understands: 7/10
Our Love: 8/10
Lucky: 7/10
Sunset People: 8/10