LP Review: Four Seasons of Love
Released: 1976
LP Charts: #13 R&B, #29 pop
Four Seasons of Love delivers the peak of early Donna Summer—the period of her career when she was fully marketed as a disco sex kitten by Casablanca Records. The album cover clearly shows her still being conveyed to the public as such, but she also co-wrote every song here with producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte.
Furthermore on “Spring Affair” (#24 R&B, #58 pop), Summer is allowed to sound sexy as f*ck, without being forced to moan and groan. Her singing conveys all the sexiness the song needs. And the groove is humid and soulful accentuated by some gorgeous synthesizer work from Moroder. Great great great track.
It flows directly into the funkier “Summer Fever”, which has some hard hitting drumming. Also, kudos to Donna Summer recording a song called “Summer Fever”.
Side 2 dramatically simmers things down with “Autumn Changes”. It’s still a song you can dance to, but it’s more of a background music song. I don’t mean that as an insult, but “Spring Affair” and “Summer Fever” were far more aggressive in grabbing your attention. “Autumn Changes” gets by more on vibe, although it does get experimental with some steel drums and timbales.
“Winter Melody” simmers things down even further, but this song definitely grabs your attention. Summer sings it beautifully as she’s given the spotlight in a way not yet seen in her disco work. Hell, the song even made it to #8 on the Adult Contemporary charts. Talk about an unexpected crossover hit.
That lush ballad is followed up by a reprise of “Spring Affair” that closes the album out.
ALBUM GRADE: B+
You wanna know how much of a hidden star Summer was at this point? This was her third consecutive gold record despite only having one Top 40 pop single in the US across the three LPs. How did she do it? Well, the album as a whole hit #1 on disco charts which measured play in dance club. Yes, it was the dancers driving sales of her LPs at this point without the benefit of any radio play. Word of mouth (and foot, I suppose) drove her appeal.
I’d also like to note this was a concept album (loose as that concept is) with every song conveying a feeling or mood associated with a season of the year. There have been worse concepts put out by rock bands. Summer would conjure up even better concepts in the future.
Song Scores
Spring Affair: 8.5/10
Summer Fever: 7.5/10
Autumn Changes: 7/10
Winter Melody: 8/10