The Queen is BACK ! --- But is it a COMEBACK ?
By petman2001 Jul 5, 2008
Pros: Fresh, innovative sounds
Cons: with mediocre filler
Donna Summer has always felt conflicted about her being typecast (as a talented vocalist of mere "dance music"), about her fame, and about some of her fans. After a seventeen year hiatus, Donna heralds her royal return! In a noble effort to... recapture some of her past glory, Dance-Floor Donna sings (with obvious references to her earlier Disco Diva days): "So many years ago on the radio, she crept into ya soul and loved to love ya all...The Queen is Back!" Well, partly. * * * One gets the strong impression that DS has resented her being pigeonholed by fans and the music industry with the "Queen of Disco" moniker, and has persistently tried to peck out of this disco/dance cage with forays into other, more "respectable" musical categories. Yet, despite her tenacity, she has never really attained the popular and financial heights she once knew whenever straying too far from these familiar genres. She crows, "Fame made a fool out of everyone...It's all about who they think you are," and "Let me introduce myself. I'm a woman that you've never seen. You might know me from somewhere else as someone that I've never been." * * * Her Majesty seemingly wants to reclaim her crown while at the same time implying she'd like to abdicate her throne! Our Queen, perhaps, but a reluctant, conflicted Queen. * * * Despite repeated efforts to expand her musical repertoire in the past, these have mostly been fair to failing commercial diversions. (Donnapologists may disagree.) While promising "the Queen is Back!" on *Crayons*, she nevertheless tries the everything-but-the-kitche
n-sink approach again---with mixed results. The album starts off with great fanfare, full of the energy, freshness and passion we have missed, as she tries on varied contemporary dance music styles. However, more than halfway into the album, the excitement peters out, plummeting into generic, lackluster, indistinguishable filler of dance numbers, pop tunes and ballads, unworthy of our Grande Dame. While listening to her convincing impersonation of Tina Turner in Track 9 may be a hoot, her "stretch marks" throughout the CD are most embarrassingly revealed here. * * * So, does she feel unfairly bound to restrict her God-given talent mainly to fan-friendly dance fluff? Rumors also persist about her love/hate/love relationship with a sizable portion of her fan base after finding religion: gay men. The story goes she loves the sinners, hates the sin, loves the sinners' money. After 17 years of mounting bills, is this CD just Donna's most recent attempt of holding her nose at her fans while going in for another financial dip at the same well? Heaven Knows. * * * (The Royal) "We" are glad the Queen is back. Unfortunately, her tiara has lost much of its former regal glitter. Read more Less
