Customer Reviews

Love to Love You Baby

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

`Love to love you baby' was Donna Summer's US debut in 1975, her real debut, `Lady of the night' was released in Europe in 1974. However, where the latter comprised European styled folk/rock/pop compositions, `Love to love you baby' featured Summer's new sleek, sexy disco style.

The title track was groundbreaking in many ways; it was stretched to a 16 minute plus track at the request of label boss Neil Bogart which filled out one side of the LP (and thus was born the 12" extended dance remix), featured a consistent throbbing beat, featured lots of steamy moans and groans (prompting an instant ban on the BBC, years before more risqué acts like Madonna et all) with Summer cooing in a falsetto, and a distinctive funky bassline. The single sold a million copies earning Summer the first of 10 gold (and 2 platinum) singles, hit #2 in the US and #4 in the UK, and was a smash just about everywhere else.

Covered numerous times (No doubt, Bronski beat, Tom Tom Club) and more recently sampled by Beyoncé in her hit single `Naughty girl', and TLC in `I'm good at being bad'.

The album itself was certified gold in just 12 days in the US.

The other side featured a variety of dreamy sensual songs like the piano ballad `Full of emptiness' (present in two brief versions), the mid tempo funky blues of `Need-a-man blues' with wah wah guitar, the sea shore sound filled breezy piano/string ballad `Whispering waves' featuring a vulnerable falsetto performance from Summer.

Final track `Pandora's box' was the only track hinting to `Lady of the night'; a piano folk rocker a-la Elton John with Donna belting out fervently in her full vocals, no falsetto here.

Our vinyl copy of the album (when I was a kid) had as a bonus track the dramatic kidnap drama `The hostage' which is available on the `Lady of the night CD.

This was the album that set the glitter ball spinning, and kindled the spark that ignited thousands of dancefloors all over the world. Great news, this CD has been remastered and is part of the 3 CD box set 'Chronicles'.

Aaah, love to love you bay-bee!!

Donna's first USA album was and will always be most notable for the full 17 minute orgasmic symphony of Love to Love You Baby.
This song would start her career YET, it would be her later Disco/Pop crossover songs that would launch her into superstardom.

The title track filled all of side 1, and the sad part is many people did not bother to listen to side 2. Side 2 is very similar to the work Donna did on her first ever album, Lady of The Night (released in Europe), and all of the tracks here are winners. The side starts and finishes with Full of Emptiness, and includes Need A Man Blues (later covered by The Bronski Beat), Whispering Waves, and the great folk song Pandora's Box.

Listen to the entire release and Love To Love It!

The only reason to purchase this CD is for the nearly 17 minute version of "Love To Love You Baby". Yup, it reaks of mid-seventies disco, but isn't that the point? It was the first of it's kind and somewhat of a collector's item. The other five songs seem like dated fillers, but the title track is great music, produced at a time when dicso could be listened to as well as danced to. A real band with no synthesizers! Great memories!

For her second album, Donna & producer Georgio Moroder decided to jump on the bandwagon of what would later become Disco music, and honesty, nobody did it better than Donna. This is the album which launched her career here in the States (her first LP, 'Lady Of The Night' was never released here), but is not her best offering by far. The title song, showcased here in it's full-length 16+ version has earned it's place as the epitome of the Disco classic, unfortunately it outshines the rest of the album. Thia, now, is the only way to get the full length "Love To Love You Baby", but if you're looking for a good Donna Summer album, well, this isn't it.

FIRST OF ALL, I WOULD LIKE TO CORRECT ANOTHER REVIEWER ABOUT ONE OF THE SONGS ON THE ALBUM. SEEMS HE DIDN'T LISTEN TO, OR UNDERSTAND THE LYRICS TO WHISPERING WAVES. IT IS NOT ABOUT HER IMAGINING THINGS ON THE BEACH, ITS ABOUT HER LONGING FOR A LOVER WHO ABANDONED HER SUDDENLY, WITH NO WARNING.

WHEN THIS ALBUM WAS RELEASED, I WAS 16, AND AMAZED TO FIND THAT THE WHOLE ALBUM STOOD UP, NOT JUST THE TITLE CUT. GEORGIO MORODER USED TO PRODUCE MANY SONGS FOR DONNA, AND FOR DISCO EVEN, SOME OF THE MOVEMENTS WERE QUITE INTRICATE. SADLY, FOR ME AT LEAST, DONNA NEVER MATCHED THE INTENSITY, ARTISTRY AND DELIVERY FEATURED IN THIS DEBUT VINYL. SHE MADE A COUPLE MORE "O-K" SONGS, BUT THIS RELEASE IS THE FLAGSHIP. TAKE IT FROM A GUY WHO HAS BUMPED, BOOGIED, AND STEPPED TO THE SONGS ON THIS ALBUM IN CHICAGOLAND WITH HIS WIFE OF 25 YEARS, SINCE WE WERE TEENAGERS WHEN IT WAS RELEASED. NUFF SAID.

"After further exploration of her 70s music, I learned about a 17-minute version of 'Love to Love you Baby'...SEVENTEEN MINUTES....I've never heard of a remix that long, hence my curiosity. So this album was a MUST HAVE, and it's not on another other Donna compilations (that I know of.) Once I got the CD and heard the remix, I loved it...although I imagined more lyrics and more Donna moaning, but it wasn't....they just added about one or two minutes of Donna moaning and a LOT more instrumentals to the song...still it was NO disappoinment."

I think it would be in J. Ahern's best interest to know that the 16 minute, 48 second version of Love to Love You Baby is NOT a REMIX, but the ORIGINAL.


Ahem...Now, onto my comments about this album.

I'm a youngster, too -- only 26 years old -- and I have an affinity for classic music such as that of Mrs. Summer's (nee Gaines). I came across this song for the first time while cleaning up the living room one day when I was about 11. I played it, and blushed at first because of the suggestiveness of the song, but I was strangely hypnotized by the music and the trance hasn't yet been broken.

I agree with some of the other reviewers when they say that the other songs on the album are a bit second-rate, but I can't help but like Pandora's Box.

All in all, though, LTLYB is a timeless classic.

"Love To Love You Baby" broke the disco craze into the monster that it became. Donna Summer surely was the disco diva. Mega-hits to dance the night away into the wee hours. I remember the first time I heard "Love To Love You Baby". I didn't catch fire immediately. Then I heard it between the smoke and sizzle of some hot, dark and sweaty club. Man did it hit me. Your blood burns through your veins and brain. It goes on and on. This sweaty moaning was too hot and it went on and on and on, and you didn't want it to stop. It was like a drug. This was disco and the 70's. Without Donna Summer disco wouldn't have had the heat and intensity that climaxed into a decade (almost) long love affair. I'll never forget it! ps: the rest of the LP stinks!

I was there. Nothing like "Love to Love You, Baby" (extended) had ever been heard before. And nothing like it since. I don't know that it kicked off the "disco era" (that had been around for awhile), but this song kicked it into the stratosphere overnight. Miss Summer and Mr. Moroder nailed a time in the civilized world that's never been equaled. Remember? A ten-year window in human history where making love was celebrated: post-fem-lib and pre-AIDS. There were other Disco Divas. Gloria Gaynor? "I Will Survive?" Thelma Houston? "Don't Leave Me This Way?" So many.

The extended cut of "Love to Love You, Baby" is worth every penny. It's the "Mona Lisa" of Disco.

But check out "Full of Emptiness." Never heard it before now, 30 years later. Amazing. Deceptively simple (YOU figure out the beat count and let me know: this takes Burt Bacharach and Hal David's slightly off-kilter measures in "Anyone Who Had a Heart" to unprecedented pop levels), endlessly listenable.

Gotta have it.

Back in the 70's,Love 2 Love you baby was themed the "NASTY SONG" Nowadays compared to Madonna and various rap/rock artists "L2L" couldn't hold a candle next to their lyrics.The difference is that "Love 2 Love" is much more tasteful,sexy and not in your face vulgarity.I remember when my mother bought this album back in 75-76 it was very CONTROVERSIAL yet POPULAR and SEXUALLY POWERFUL!This was a song that you can sway and grind to with your man in the discotheques with the lights nice and dim!Anyway I bought this cd because I am a die-hard devoted Donna Summer fan and of course the album is scratched to the max.

This cd has the whole 16min 48 sec version(original) which I enjoy.I also have "L2L" on another compilation but it's about 7 minutes long (what a waste)!You need to hear the original that is offered on this set to get a taste of this SEXY and INTOXICA- TING CLASSIC!!My next favorite which hardly or at all got any radio play was "Whispering Waves".I love how it begins with the sounds of the ocean and throughout the song.Of all songs,it is the slowest and kinda sad yet tranquil,dreamy and very relaxing. When I hear this song, I pictured myself standing by the seashore gazing at the water."Need a man blues" is okay and the rest of them I just bypass.This is highly recommended if you like raw, sexy,good ole disco classics of Donna Summer!Very Enchanting!

What a short-length album with a long lasting impact ! Each song is stylistically different and just as intoxicating as the previous one. From the 16 minutes plus of moans and groans in the title track to the blues-jazz-gospel inflected Pandora's Box, Donna proved she was more (vocally) than just a moaner. With her background training in gospel music and her previous experience in Europe performing in the German-production of the musical Hair she was destined to make it big on her sheer vocal talent. The track Full of Emptiness (even without music videos at that time) comes across as a song sung by a woman who is lonely or broken hearted ; She's drinking her sorrows down at the local dive or bar in solitude. The hauntingly fragile and melancholy drifting sound of Whispering Waves takes the listener to that lonely beach with grey clouds and a fine mist in the air during the early or evening hours. Love to Love You was more than just a fad or disco album;It was also visual !