ANOTHER PLACE AND TIME

This was the name of one of my favourite albums. Donna Summer had been shunned by her biggest audience - the homosexualists beacuse she apparently made homophobic comments as she was a bit of a holy moly and now her career had kinda gone down the dumper, resigned to possibly doing a bit of off off off Broadway or worse - musical dinner theatre!

It was the late 80s, disco was dead as we knew it and the hits had dried up although she got some kudos for 'She Works Hard For The Money' and 'State Of Independence'. The most successful producers of pop music were Stock Aitken and Waterman in the UK and they were gagging for this ultimate fag hag to be in their stable of stars and their evergrowing pop smash count. Many thought they were dumb as her most loyal audience had almost desterted her and SAW were known for making records for teenybopper and gay men at discos. Kylie Minogue was their biggest artist with her lover Jason Donovan not far behind in a haze of pot. Divine had just died although her memorable hit 'You Think You're A Man' was fast becoming a gay iconic song with it's high energy beat and tough drag queen lyrics. They produced an album of throwaway classics with little effort but there are so many gems on this album. The lead single 'This Time I Know It's For Real' and follow up 'I Don't Wanna Get Hurt' were amazing and to this day send a wee shiver down my rather meter stick spine whenever I hear them. I was pissed as a fart in G-A-Y last March and when Donna came on with 'This Time..' with the pitch turned up a bit, the place went ballistic and naturally I couldn't stop shaking my shammy, the poppers certainly added to the ambience I admit.

Only a few months ago I bought the album and am listening to it right now and there are some amazing tracks. If anyone likes 80s high energy/mid-tempo fabulously camp music then this truly is the Jean Brodie creme de la creme. Donna's voice is electric throughout and the SAW melodies get my feet tapping like a reflex, the lyrics mean nothing to me although I'm not really one to read into the lyrics of a song, so long as there's a 'good beat and you can dance to it' as Amber Von Tussle would say, is all that matters to me. I've had 2 album tracks on repeat all night - 'If It Makes You Feel Good' and 'Love's About To Change My Heart' are simply amazing, I can't stop raving about them, if you want to listen to them, PWL Radio plays various Donna album tracks a fair bit and if I knew how to post an mp3 on this blog, I'd do it! But seen as I'm a computer cuntspit I won't.

Here's a pic of the album cover which shows that Donna was doing her geisha/harajuku/Tokyo bitch girl shenanigans over 15 years before Johnny-come-lately Gwen Stefani jumped on board.