Ooh - it's so good, it's so good It's so good, it's so good

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts.

04/09/77 : I Remember Yesterday - Donna Summer

Another woman!  What's going on?!?  Won't someone give the poor men a chance?  This is our second visit with the Queen of Disco and last time I was a bit perplexed by what she served up  - who know quite what we're going to get here?!?

Well, once again, it's quite perplexing - there's all sorts of stuff on there and it's also very much a game of two halves.  The first half is fine, but no more than that and I can't, for the life of me, think why they thought they needed to end it with a reprise of the title track which opened the album - and when they say it's a reprise, it's three minutes long so it's not a lot shorter than the original.  

The second half, however, is a vast improvement - there's a good mix of stuff in there from its funky opening pair of tracks, the balladry of "Can't We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over)" and the overall excellence of "I Feel Love" - what a way to close the album!  Generally I think it's a bad idea to leave your best track to the end of the album, but it's done her a load of favours here because I'm left with the feeling that is a much better album than I suspect it actually was.  I'd have to say I'm not sure about the Walking Dead vibe her photo on the album cover is giving off though.

We're at #11 in the charts this week on her twelfth week of a 23 week run with it having peaked at #3 in its fifth week - if "I Feel Love" isn't responsible for that, I'll be amazed.  The top five were an Elvis Presley best-of (he'd died in the previous month), the Connie Francis best-of, Jean Michel Jarre, Elvis (again) and A Star Is Born OST and the highest new entry was Elvis (#30) and the only other one was Elvis (#52).  He also had a few re-entries in the chart this week - #20, #21, #26, #27, #37, #38 and #49, giving him 14 albums in the chart (nearly 25% of the entire chart).

Wikipedia has a lot more on the album than I was expecting, but there's incredibly little content - the only fact of interest is that it was produced by Giorgio Moroder (and Pete Bellotte - who I've never heard of and he's most famous for his work with Donna and Giorgio).  The critics were pretty middling on it, but it did well commercially, getting to #18 in the US and #1 in Spain and Italy.

"Customers also listened to" Village People, Gloria Gaynor, Tina Charles and Lipps Inc - it's DISCO, baby!  But is anyone more disco than Donna?  I still have a sneaking suspicion this album isn't as good as I remember it being, but "I Feel Love" is such a fine track that I'm happy enough to think I like it.

28/08/77 - A fine album elevated by several super quality tracks
11/09/77 - An enjoyable and interesting "not my kind of thing"