I Will Survive: The Anthology
Two CDs' worth of Gaynor is, frankly, a lot: Beyond her two classics (the brilliant, cyclically relentless title track and "Never Can Say Goodbye"), there's not much that made it above the dustier reaches of the charts, and not much that deserved to. Gaynor was a disco diva by the numbers, and her career lived and died with the style--her records are generic in the sense that they were absolutely of their genre. SoI Will Surviveis programmed for discophiles more than for Gaynorphiles--the real star here is the production. The set includes three medleys that occupied full sides of her first three disco albums, as well as tracks from her '74-'81 albums that show off what her arrangers could do.--Douglas Wolk