Born in Boston, Donna Summer moved to Germany and appeared in musicals including Hair and Godspell. She and Moroder cranked out an amazing number of successful singles and albums from 1976 to 1980, going their separate ways after the disco backlash. Her legions of fans are apparently content to consult the official Donna Summer Internet Zone . But where Hayes' arrangements have imagination and a coherent flow, this track sounds like it was spliced together to fill out an album side. I'm forced to conclude that this record's place in history is due entirely to Summer's pornographic vocals.
Summer also gets to sing at full voice, instead of just cooing and simpering.
This disc is a concept album of sorts, with Donna whispering one long disco ode to each season. Proceed with caution. It seems that this time around they focused on writing good melodies rather than gimmicks - the entire set was written by Summer, Moroder and Bellotte, and I suspect that at this point Summer was beginning to contribute to the music as well as lyrics. Meanwhile her voice sounds great - she's not turning cartwheels to show off her versatility, just singing the way she does best. Though the album doesn't contain any of her most memorable hits, overall it's easily her best, and the fact that the tracks haven't been played to death may enable disco cynics to approach this with a fresher attitude than most of her work.