Customer Reviews

The Journey: The Very Best of Donna Summer

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

....never really followed Donna until a few months ago. I'm more into current dance/house music. However, at a wedding reception, they played 'Last Dance'....well I began exploring her music a little further, and here is the newest release! I absolutely love it, but then I found the Anthology CD (1993) and it's much better- same material as this release but the edits are longer, plus there's even more of 'the very best' on the Anthology.

Anyhoo, not a bad buy for $12, I've bought four more albums since this one...Donna's awesome! This release is good for listeners who aren't too familiar with her (like I was)...it's a nice snapshot of her overall music career, and the liner notes and bio inside the cover pretty much give you a nice briefing. Her 70s music is much better than her 80s stuff....check out her albums "Love to Love You Baby" "Four Seasons of Love" and "Love Trilogy"....makes you want to envision disco balls and everyone packing the dancefloor in their platform shoes and big hair!

Buy it! I'm collecting everything the woman has done.

This album is a terrific compilation of Donna Summer's greatest hits. The album has primarily the disco songs that made her a smash success such as "Love To Love You Baby," "Hot Stuff," "Bad Girls," "Last Dance," and "Dim All The Lights." You also get her classic duet with Barbra Streisand, "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough);" and a group called Brooklyn Dreams helped Donna out on background vocals for "Heaven Knows." There are twenty (yes, twenty) songs on this single CD, so you don't get many 12" extended versions of the songs. To compensate for that loss, however, there is a second bonus CD included inside the jewel case with remixes of some great songs including "Hot Stuff," "I Feel Love," and "You're So Beautiful."

The remastering work was well done; the sound quality is excellent in both my regular CD stereo at home as well as in my portable CD player. This highlights the richness, sexiness and electricity in Donna's voice. Her voice is exciting and always leaves the listener wanting more!

The liner notes are great. There's an extensive essay by Brian Chin, quite a few color photos of Donna, song credits and listings of where each song charted at its' peak of popularity after its' initial release. I also liked the excerpts from Donna's autobiography called Ordinary Girl: The Journey. The extra bonus CD comes inside the regular sized jewel case, however, so you need to carefully pull it out as to not break the plastic case. (They manufactured the CD jewel case this way to save a few bucks on production costs, no doubt.)

Summer fans also hear her great "crossover" songs into something that is more like mainstream pop. You get "She Works Hard For The Money" and "This Time I Know It's for Real." Donna performs a sublime rendition of "I Will Go With You" and there are two "new recordings" by Donna called "That's The Way" and "Dream-a-lot's Theme (I Will Live For Love)."

Overall, the songs Donna sings are the best and this CD is excellent proof of that. The melodies are catchy and the musical arrangements impressed me. Congratulations are due both to Donna for her outstanding accomplishments in the field of music over decades of time and to the other people who helped produce this electric album.

I highly recommend this album as an excellent starter album for people who want to get to be more familiar with Donna Summer's talent. This CD is also great for disco fans, pop fans and even fans of dance music in general.

This album is called "The Journey, The Very Best Of Donna Summer," as if they are somehow implying that Donna's work is done and this is some type of complete and final retrospective. However, I for one will bet that for Donna Summer, the journey to produce great exciting music is far from over.

This latest Greatest Hits package is a great overview of Summer's past and present. Universal has released this package as a great companion piece for Donna's new Autobiography "Ordinary Girl" The digitally remastered singles sounds better than ever.
Global pop music at its best.
Plus it is a 2 disc set, with great bonus tracks. The Amazon track listing is incorrect. this is the correct listing:

Disk 1:
Love To Love You Baby 3.22

Could It Be Magic 3.54

I Feel Love 3.46

I Love You 3.18

Last Dance 3.19

MacArthur Park 3.56

Heaven Knows 3.39

Hot Stuff 3.50

Bad Girls 3.57

Dim All The Lights 3.58

No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) Duet with Barbra Streisand 4.48

On The Radio 4.05

The Wanderer 3.46

Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger) 4.19

State Of Independence 4.25

She Works Hard For The Money 4.10

This Time I Know It's For Real 3.36

I Will Go With You (Con Te Partiro) 4.08

That's The Way 3.52 (new recording)

Dream-A-Lot's Theme (I Will Live For Love) 4.52 (new recording)

disk 2
I Feel Love 12" single remix (8:10)

Hot Stuff 12" single remix (6:40)

This Time I Know It's For Real 12" single extended remix (7:22)

Dream-A-Lot's Theme (I Will Live For Love) (D. Summer/N. DiGesare) 12" extended remix (Approximately 10 minutes) Remixed by Giorgio Moroder and Chris Cox, produced by Giorgio Moroder

You're So Beautiful (D. Summer/T. Moran/N. DiGesare) Ultimate Club mix (Approximately 10 minutes) Produced by Tony Moran and co-produced by Nathan DiGesare

The real big news here are the new Giorgio Moroder tracks and the underground club smash "(You Are) So Beautiful". "Beautiful" is already being played on KTU in NYC.
The Moroder tracks "Dream Alots Theme" and "Thats The Way" are even hotter. It makes you look forward to a full new CD from Summer in 2004. The CD is a great value and a great joy. This is for old and new fans. If you never owned a Donna Summer CD, check this one out and you will will want to buy her full CD's which contains the long versions of all of her classic hits.:) I just got my tickets for the Madison Square Garden show. :) I hope she does "Beautiful".

With the countless Donna Summer compilations around, you would think that Universal would opt for a compilation that would give fans something more than what they already have. This compilation once again features the heavily cut versions of songs. It's main attraction is the inclusion (on the Australian and UK edition only) of the hard to find single "Theme from the Deep". Overall, the best part of this CD is the second disc which includes the 12 inch version of "Love to Love You Baby" which is great to have. The other extended mixes on this disc are ok, although not sure why they included the patrick Cowley remix of "I feel love" over the original 12" mix.

My advice to anyone considering buying this, is to pass over this, and look at the more recent double CD titled "Donna Summer: Gold", it is truly amazing. It contains longer versions of most of the key singles, and features the correct single version of "love to love you baby". GOLD is worth every single penny ... and shows that record companies sometimes get it right.

One may hesitate picking up this particular compilation, as there have been many, many Donna Summer compilations released in the past decade. "Why would I pick up this one," you may ask. "What's so special about this one?" Well, here are a couple reasons why you should.

The Journey is, overall, a wonderfully concise overview of Donna's body of work. Not as exhaustive as her 1993 Anthology, and not as skimpy as the 1998 Greatest Hits or 2003 20th Century Masters CDs. In a nutshell, it's basically a revamping of 1994's Endless Summer, now covering her earliest US hit, 1975's Love To Love You Baby, and her last, 1999's I Will Go With You. The songs, the majority of which are in their radio edit versions, are remastered beautifully, and have never sounded better.

One of the catches to this CD, are the two new tracks which reunites Donna with her long-time collaborator, Giorgio Moroder. The two last worked on 1992's Carry On, and before that, 1981's I'm A Rainbow album. Both of the new tracks, in my opinion, are in a word -- stunning.

I Will Live For Love is just so wonderfully over the top, terribly Hi-NRG, but just so much fun to listen to! Follows the classic Donna style -- a slow ballad intro, which then transforms into a pumping dance track, in the vein of Last Dance, Dim All The Lights and Melody Of Love.

That's The Way is one of Donna's best songs in quite some time. It's such an intriguing number, quite an unusual entry in the Donna Summer canon. Everything about the song works: the mid-tempo, plodding beat, the reggae-styled guitar and percussion, and of course, Donna's vocals -- very, very sexy vocals. Not to mention the rather playful spoken passage in the middle... wherein Donna does a little bit of self-promotion. "I wanna love you baby, like you know I'm Donna Summer". Indeed!

This first pressing of The Journey also comes with a bonus CD featuring five 12" mixes, including Hot Stuff, I Feel Love and This Time I Know It's For Real. All of which are basic extended versions. The real treat are the remaining two tracks on the disc.

I Will Live For Love appears a second time, in remixed form, a 9-minute remix done by Giorgio Moroder and Chris Cox. Speaking personally, I prefer this slightly more subdued remix than the perhaps a bit too over-busy original version.

Also making its public debut is the Ultimate Club Mix of You're So Beautiful. A song that made the rounds on bootlegs earlier in the year, it finally gets the public release it deserved. Rather similar to the original bootleg mix, cleaned up, slightly adulterated with more synths and effects, and lengthened by almost 2 minutes. Personally, I have issues with Donna's vocals being so buried in the mix, and I still find it much too hard a mix for my liking. Personally, I would love to hear a more poppier-sounding mix of Beautiful -- something in the vein of the Tommy Musto vocal mix of The Power Of One, for instance.

Overall, Donna's "The Journey" is a tremendous value, combining her classic tunes with some new ones with her old collaborator, Giorgio Moroder, bringing her full-circle. The addition of the bonus remix CD is yet another reason to pick this compilation up without delay.

I have bought her other compilations and greatest hits--but this is the best and most comprehensive! As a longtime listener of Donna Summer since 1978, she made some unbelievable songs, not just for disco, but for other genres as well. All the hits, from Last Dance, to my favorite On the Radio, to Dim All The Lights to Bad Girls to Hot Stuff, to Hard For the Money, to This Time I Know It's For Real (yes I followed Donna in '89!) are on here. Donna and Giorgio Moroder were the Lennon/McCartney of the late '70s, an excellent pairing and an endless run of hits! And I love the two new songs she did in 2003. It shows her willingness to move forward as a singer. I like the new disco-based song that she did. I like that Donna moved forward when most of the other disco stars faded in the '80s. Would have liked one song from her '87 album (Dinner With Gershwin) on Geffen, but you can't get everybody. This is better than Endless Summer from 10 years ago, only more this time! I played this album this summer on the interstate in New Mexico on a road trip! And you need to have this album in your collection! Excellent dance floor music!!!!!!

In September of 2003, Donna Summer released her twenty-seventh album entitled, THE JOURNEY: THE VERY BEST OF DONNA SUMMER. This is, yet, another great album by the Queen of Disco, despite the fact that it is missing a few tracks here, a few tracks there. But still a great compilation.

LOVE TO LOVE YOU BABY
From the album LOVE TO LOVE YOU BABY (1975). Still a great song.

COULD IT BE MAGIC
From the album A LOVE TRILOGY (1976). Just simply an amazing cover. It's a song that I could really dance to.

I FEEL LOVE
From the album I REMEMBER YESTERDAY (1977). An amazing song. I love it's Disco-vibe.

I LOVE YOU
From the album ONCE UPON A TIME...(1977). Great song.

LAST DANCE
From the original motion picture & motion picture soundtrack THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY (1978). Still a classic after all of these years.

MacARTHUR PARK
From the single MacARTHUR PARK (1978). Great song. This is definitely a song that I could really dance to.

HEAVEN KNOWS
From the single HEAVEN KNOWS (1978). Another great Disco song.

HOT STUFF
From the album BAD GIRLS (1979). This is, yet, another great song, with it's Rock-Disco combination.

BAD GIRLS
From the album BAD GIRLS (1979). Awesome.

DIM ALL THE LIGHTS
From the album BAD GIRLS (1979). Great song.

NO MORE TEARS (ENOUGH IS ENOUGH) (performed by Barbra Streisand & Donna Summer)
Original version from Barbra Streisand's album WET (1979). Still the best Diva Duet in the history of music.

ON THE RADIO
From the album ON THE RADIO: GREATEST HITS VOLUMES I & II (1979). Awesome song. I could definitely tear up the dance floor with this track.

THE WANDERER
From the album THE WANDERER (1980). Another great song, with Donna Summer leaving Disco behind.

LOVE IS IN CONTROL (FINGER ON THE TRIGGER)
From the album DONNA SUMMER (1982). Awesome tune.

STATE OF INDEPENDENCE
From the album DONNA SUMMER (1982). Awesome tune.

SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE MONEY
From the album SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE MONEY (1983). Great song.

THIS TIME I KNOW IT'S FOR REAL
From the album ANOTHER PLACE AND TIME (1989). I'll never forget the day when I first heard this song. The minute I heard it, I instantly fell in love with it. This is one of Donna Summer's great dance tunes of the '80s.

I WILL GO WITH YOU (CON TE PARTIRO)
From the album VH1 PRESENTS DONNA SUMMER: LIVE AND MORE: ENCORE! (1999). An awesome song. I must have listened to this one at least ten times.

THAT'S THE WAY
Previously unreleased. Great.

DREAM-A-LOT'S THEME (I WILL LIVE FOR LOVE)
Previously unreleased. Great.

Even though I am asking myself, "How many 'Greatest Hits' compilations can someone have?", this compilation is still very amazing, even though the compilation is missing the following: "Spring Affair", "I Remember Yesterday", "Our Love", "Once Upon A Time", "Rumour Has It", "Sunset People", "Cold Love", "Unconditional Love" (performed by Donna Summer & Musical Youth), "There Goes My Baby", "Supernatural Love", "All Systems Go", "I Don't Want To Get Hurt", "Love's About To Change My Heart", "When Love Cries", "Friends Unknown", & "Carry On". But still a great compilation.

This is yet another collection from Donna Summer and you can not complain about the songs on here because they are all classics. The 2 cd Anthology is a better compilation than this but I defy you to find a bad song here at all. The main reason for me to own this collection is the 2 new songs that are on Disc 1 -"That's The Way" and "Dream-A-Lot's Theme(I Will Live For Love)" that reunite her with the legend that is Giorgio Moroder. The second disc also contains the 12" mixes for "Dream-A-Lot's Theme(I Will Live For Love)" (12"Extended Remix-9:16) and You're So Beautiful(The Ultimate Club Mix-10:50) that are sure to be classics as well. Hopefully Donna will try and put out a new cd of brand new material or if there is another compilation from Universal in the next few years then try and put out a box set of ALL(and I do mean ALL) the 12" dance mixes that Donna Summer has ever put out----I know I will buy it.

Donna Summer seems to be suffering from a major lack of career confidence. In the past 15 years, she has relied on numerous "Greatest Hits" compilations. She has not released a full record of news songs since the 1991 bomb, MISTAKEN IDENTITY. Summer likes to tease her fans by slipping in a new song or two so that they'll buy yet another "Greatest Hits" collection just to be able to get that new track. It's a formula that's worked for her ever since the 1980's ON THE RADIO record - another greatest hits with a couple of new tracks. It's a miserly way to treat fans - whether it be Summer herself or her record company. Summer, who used to be an innovator in pop music in the 70's and 80's, is now left to having her old music remixed on an annual basis to a new club audience or leaking out some me-too tracks. THE JOURNEY is another example of Summer's musical tease.

From a price point of view, THE JOURNEY is a nice buy - 20 tracks - 18 of which are her hits of yesteryear - plus 2 new tracks and a bonus CD of extended remixes which includes one more new dance track. So, you get 3 new tracks in total! It's a cruel game she's playing - 18 tracks which were available on practically any of her other greatest hits compilations to get these 3 tracks. 2 new songs are produced by her longtime partner, Giorgio Moroder. "That's the Way", written by Moroder and another longtime Summer collaborator, is a nice reggae-flavored song that compliments Summer's career maturity. She's no longer the 20-something or 30-something or 40-something diva singing about lust. It's a bouncy relaxed number about resignation. "I Will Live For Love", penned by Summer herself, is less successful. It's got that "written for a Disney movie" feel of optimism that complements Summer's born-again Christianity. Another sign of a career's stagnation is that both Moroder-produced tracks have nothing particularly innovative about their sound. There is no trademark "Moroder" synthesizer - the tracks are pretty generically produced and arranged.

On the bonus CD is the much talked-about techno number "You're So Beautiful" (not to be confused with Christina's "Beautiful") which is driving hypnotic number. Unfortunately, it's more a piece of technological craftsmanship than anything that showcases Summer's vocals. Anyone could sing that song and it would be exactly the same.

So is the JOURNEY worthwhile for 3 measly tracks? Overall, I was disappointed. Any fan's journey with Donna Summer has been one of heartbreak with precious little in new music. It seems that Summer's career strategy has been to wait long enough until her music has come back around as nostalgia. Perhaps she's run out of steam or perhaps she's well-off enough that she's no longer interested in creating much music, but THE JOURNEY is a good case for music downloads. How many times do we have to buy "Hot Stuff" just to get a new song every couple of years?

Donna, record 3 new records so that you'll have more material for the next 15 years of "Greatest Hits Vol. 2"

Although some fans may be dismayed at yet another Donna Summer compilation, this one is different. Universal has remastered the tracks for the best sounding compilation ever. The standard CD includes 2 new tracks, "That's The Way" and "I Will Live For Love". The limited edition release includes a bonus CD with remastered 12" versions of "I Feel Love" and "This Time I Know It's For Real", as well as a remix of "I Will Live For Love" and the underground hit "You're So Beautiful".

A word to those aforementioned "fans" who feel that they have been ripped off by Ms. Summer - the RECORD LABEL puts out the compilations, not the artist. This is the first time in a decade that Ms. Summer had anything to do with a compilation being released. Universal is to be commended for this remastered gem as well as the remastered Bad Girls which was released this summer. Universal also listened to the fans and included "You're So Beautiful" at the last minute. The success of these two releases will dictate whether Universal remasters the rest of Donna Summer's extensive catalog as well as whether they will re-sign her to a Universal label (she left Sony in the wake of the Mottola departure).