Comments on: DONNA SUMMER – “I Feel Love”

By: swanstep

swanstep — Mon, 21 May 2012 03:54:08 +0000

Blondie doing I Feel Love (Live) in 1979.

By: swanstep

swanstep — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:43:12 +0000

Yikes. Damn, she was in great voice (and basically looking great too) on Jools Holland’s show only a couple of years ago, e.g., here. Definitely made one think that it was insane that nobody from the electronic dance world had collaborated with her recently (I mean – really – what *has* William Orbit been doing the last ten years when he could have been working with DS?). The First Lady of electronic dance music absolutely.

By: Rory

Rory — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:19:43 +0000

The first thing I thought of on hearing the news was that 9.4 reader score. That’s some testament.

I’m reading another long obituary thread at MetaFilter, where this comment in particular appealed. Another linked to Sound on Sound’s Classic Tracks dissection of IFL.

By: AndyPandy

AndyPandy — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:12:01 +0000

As someone else said the deaths of famous people don’t usually affect them but this one did because her music was there at important times in their life.I agree completely. I didn’t even know she was ill so this is totally out of the blue. I haven’t felt so shocked since Michael Jackson passed away.

By: thefatgit

thefatgit — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:04:21 +0000

This seems appropriate…

http://youtu.be/lEV7TrhkZUk

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:58:20 +0000

Currently topping the ft reader scores chart with an AVERAGE of 9.4, with Beach boys 2nd at 9.05

That’s a clear lead

By: thefatgit

thefatgit — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:56:35 +0000

Very sad to lose such a beautiful voice. I’m shocked because IFL is high on my list of all-time faves.

By: Lazarus

Lazarus — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:41:21 +0000

I had no idea she was ill to be honest. And for that reason this news is somehow even more shocking than Whitney. Just very, very sad.

By: will

will — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:46:47 +0000

Awful news. The deaths of famous people don’t usually affect me but this is really saddening. I have so many personal memories associated with her music, all of them positive, and 63 just feels far too young.

By: punctum

punctum — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:58:58 +0000

worst news possible:

http://www.tmz.com/2012/05/17/donna-summer-dead-last-dance/

By: Paulito

Paulito — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 01:19:21 +0000

Rather disappointing to see that only 75% of voters on Popular ’77 have given this a 6 or over. Clearly, not everyone here is as discerning as I thought…

By: Matt M

Matt M — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 11:54:23 +0000

OK – Really nothing new to add except to stress the contrast between Moroder’s robotic rhythmic grid and Summer’s breathy vocals that are both ethereal and sensual at once. It’s not really a disco track. It’s a Krautrock-Soul hybrid that was easily mistaken for a disco track.

I think it’s the greatest pop track ever bit each to their own.

By: abaffledrepublic

abaffledrepublic — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 18:21:25 +0000

More on the extended Cowley remix. It was around in 1977, but as an unofficial bootleg rather than an official release, so I imagine that disco DJs, if not radio stations, would have given it plenty of airplay. It wasn’t given a ‘proper’ release until five years later, by which time Summer’s career had moved in a different direction and the commercial disco boom had long since gone bust.

Can anyone shed any light on why this wasn’t a 10?

By: Spectre5299

Spectre5299 — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 17:22:28 +0000

Every commenter before me has given great insight into why this particular record is so groundbreaking and amazing, but I will still chime in for it. I Feel Love is my favorite pop single of all time. It’s all about the paradoxes of the song and production to me. The pulsating bassline and mechanized beats pointing towards the future of pop music, while it’s production clearly grounds it to the 70′s. The coldness of the music contrasting with Summer’s warm, sexy cooing of the lyrics. And I would hesitate to call them “lyrics”. More like fragments of an untapped wonder of senses. I Feel Love has always evoked images of a emotionless android awakening to sexual ecstasy, or the euphoric feeling of love. A thing of processed thoughts now for the first time feeling something new. Something that cannot be sent through a processor, but only felt through the body. The intertwining of sex and dance. A set in stone 10.

By: thefatgit

thefatgit — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:02:13 +0000

This is a stonewall 10 for me. A tune that can make you physically drop what you’re doing and listen and feel the groove and dance. Or at least jiggle about a bit and nod your head. In ’77 when this was #1 it was the start of the school hols. Quite a weird summer after the mad heatwave of ’76, with the Silver Jubilee fresh in everyone’s mind. The Sex Pistols and The Clash were not quite on my radar, although I was aware of them, but Donna Summer…WOW! This was like nothing I had heard before, a mesmerising single. Ahead of it’s time. Not really understanding why until much later. To me this felt like the start of something much more engaging than disco. A heart-pumping groove like rock but supersonically faster. Incredible. After that…nothing. No mad grooves, no thumping beats no spacey synths. Nobody picked up the baton and ran with it until 1987! Why?

By: AndyPandy

AndyPandy — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:38:56 +0000

Bit late in the day but I’ve just seen the BBC’s ridiculous “Top Ten dance tracks” linked to on this thread.
Just the kind of pigs ear that you’d imagine the BBC would make of such a task. They might “get” rock but you just know when it comes to “dance” they might as well forget it…

Alison Limerick!? as someone said “WTF?!” – is it a coincidence that this figured high in the appalling ‘Mixmag”s top dance tracks from the mid-90s which they had temerity to bar readers from voting on. As I think I might have said before I can only think that a couple of their editorial staff came up on their first pills whilst this mediocre rubbish was being played one night as there’s no other reason for remembering it years later.

And I agree with the bewilderment about the Northern Soul track (owing to some friends who were Scooter Boys/Mods I like to think I have a pretty broad knowledge of NS and I’ve never even knowingly heard this track…did they pick it because in their ill-informed way they thought NS was ALL about obscurity so they went and picked a track that was pretty obscure even on the NS scene?

And why no hardcore/rave…?

well at least we should have been thankul for small mercies- I’d half thought that knowing the kind of people who come up with these things it’d be full of ‘student techno’ eg Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, Underworld, post-Firestarter Prodigy etc…

By: SteveM

SteveM — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:32:10 +0000

what is meant by ‘dance meaningfully’?! i just dance meanly

emotional connections to “Dance” Music come all too easily for some of us

By: DJ Punctum

DJ Punctum — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:56:48 +0000

Maybe the panel of experts all brought different compilation CDs and they just picked the tenth track on each. It’s a good one, though, if very “token NS entry” in a non-poll like this.

By: Mark G

Mark G — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:46:37 +0000

#106 yeah, but this got number 10 on a radio2 poll? How did that happen? I mean, I know a bit of NS but I don’t know this one. Should listen more, I guess…..

By: DJ Punctum

DJ Punctum — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:51:48 +0000

I’ve no idea what the man’s on about; I’ve not been to Poptimism since February and categorically deny any glowstick (ab)use.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:44:34 +0000

Yes you’re on dangerous ground here Rosie – everyone who’s been to Poptimism will have seen Marcello glued to the dancefloor all night, glowstick aloft, teeth grinding, raving his bollocks off while the likes of Kat and Lex are forced into humiliating retreats.

By: DJ Punctum

DJ Punctum — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:32:14 +0000

Have you ever tried to dance to any “Dance” music Peggy?

By: rosie

rosie — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:03:02 +0000

Without discussing any particular record, I continue to maintain that all pop music is, ipso fact, inteded at least in part for dancing to. Regardless either of whether it specifically alludes to a particular dance or of whether it falls into the genre known as "Dance" (much of which, it seems to me, is difficult to dance meaningfully to as it is devoid of any kind of emotion.)

By: mike

mike — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:42:17 +0000

No issues at all with the deserved inclusion of “Where Love Lives” – an absolute classic, and one of those tracks that would always, always drag me onto the floor.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:24:26 +0000

#108-110: No more discussion of that particular record please!