"Crayons": Disco queen Donna Summer is back after 17 years
Donna Summer was dubbed "The Queen of Disco" after a series of hit singles in the 1970s: now the singer pokes fun at that title in a new song included in her first studio album in 17 years.
After raising three daughters, Grammy-winning Summer, 59, returned to the studio to record Crayons, which has a song titled The Queen is Back. It's a hip-hop track (sounds like opening-credit music for the 11 o'clock news) which goes: “So many years ago, on the radio/she crept into your soul/and loved to love you oh-oh.” Within one stanza Summer has sung about herself in the third person and referred to the titles of two of her hit songs. Not bad.
"It's just kind of poking fun at the fact that this 'queen image' has prevailed for so long," Summer, whose other major hits include Hot Stuff" and She Works Hard for the Money, said ahead of the album's release recently.
"It's having fun with it and saying I was out of the picture for a while but she's back," said Summer, who is estimated to have sold more than 130 million albums.
Summer's career was crowned with five Grammy awards including best rock female vocal performance and best dance recording. She co-wrote all 12 songs on her new album.
The songs genre-hop without leaving the pop realm. First single Stomp Your Feet rocks a big room like a hipper Celine Dion anthem; the Latin-flavoured Driving Down Brazil has a breezy, windows-down pulse; and I'm a Fire, the lone electronic dance entry, has "a mellow softness to it that makes it sound unlike a thumping typical dance tune," Summer said.
"It's a box of crayons. Each crayon has a different stroke of colour and each layer brings with it its own identity," she added.
But while Summer's album is hitting a market dominated by singers who "could be my daughters," she said she does not feel any competitive pressure.
"I don't think I need to reinstate my claim as such ... Whatever I get at this point in the game is all icing on the cake," said "The Queen of Disco".
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