Classic Albums Revisited: Donna Summer's 'Bad Girls'

In 1979, Donna Summer released the double-album 'Bad Girls'; continuing the collaboration with famed producer Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellote.  Summer was already a huge pop sensation when she undertook this ambitious project.  Leveraging her sultry and sexy image firmly established by her 1975 hit "Love To Love You Baby", the album contains plenty of innuendo on the hit tracks.  (Summer, a recent born-again Christian, was becoming conflicted by the image she was selling.)

The album combines the pop genres: rock ("Hot Stuff"), electronica ("Lucky", "Sunset People"), country ("On My Honor") and R&B; yet collectively the songs flow from one to the next naturally (often literally joined).  Additionally, the same tempo and beat deliberately permeates many of the songs.  Summer, herself, wrote or co-wrote eight of the fifteen songs.  Even the weak tracks (such as the slow ballads) are raised by the production quality, musical arrangements, Summer's performance and the listener's perception that all are pieces of a larger, significant project.  

Guest star Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, of the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan, delivers a scorching guitar solo on the first single "Hot Stuff".

Moroder was shrewed in incorporating sounds from the burgeoning electronic/synth pop scene (think Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Human League, Gary Numan); a formula proved out on Summer's "I Feel Love" (1977).  Arguably 'Bad Girls' in turn influenced other artists.  (It is hard to imagine New Order's "Blue Monday" without Donna Summer's "Our Love".)

As anyone who lived through the late 70s can attest, "Bad Girls" and "Hot Stuff" were ubiquitous staples of pop and R&B radio at that time.  The album went on to sell 6 million copies and was the best-selling album of her career, yielding four hit singles.

Following 'Bad Girls', Summer changed labels from Casablanca to Geffen.  Likely due to disco's tarnished image, in 1980 she released 'The Wanderer' which featured more rock and new wave elements than R&B.  She also consciously put a lid on the innuendo and sexy image she previously peddled.