t/s: diana ross vs donna summer

if you allow the Supremes in, Diana wins this one in a merciless bloodbath

a bloodbath I tell you

Replicants are like any other machine. They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem.

If we're counting the Supremes, the sequence from "Where Did Our Love Go?" to "Love Child" is as fabulous as the one from "Love to Love You, Baby" to "She Works Hard for the Money."

Rhetorically you've got it workin' here but I don't really see how you've made a case for this, beyond asserting it boldly - are you faulting Ross for having better taste in material than Donna Summer?

x-post Tim I think you're well aware that the Webb song is rather anomalous within the DS catalogue

As for Donna: "McCarthur Park" and that damn Streisand duet are indeed excrescences.

http://www.musikmarkt-wiesbaden.de/images/BARBRA%20STREISAND%20DONNA%20SUMMER.JPG

*Ashford & Simpson, who gave her their very best at the peak of their talent
*Nile Rodgers
*Bernard Edwards
*Frank Wilson
*Lionel Richie
*Daryl Hall

xpost you are just trying to mesmerize me with pictures of Saint Barbra Of The Shoulder-Baring Era

With the exception of the Chic Organization and A & S, she didn't work with those guys for a whole abum, though.

I think part of what makes Diana Ross such an awesome figure for me is her place in gay history: in the mode of Judy Garland & Liza Minelli & Babs, Ross spends a fair bit of her career acknolwledging her core audience (sometimes gigantic-stage-winkingly as on "I'm Coming Out," sometimes with slightly more code in place a la "It's My Turn"). Donna Summer also knew which side her bread was buttered on, but doesn't seem to have had as much fun with it. I think Ross engaging her public like this (if you accept that that's what she was doing, which naturally you needn't) makes her one of those transcendent pop figures in the mode of Garland or Streisand: somebody whose material is both awesome on its own & rich as social text.

The same is obviously true for Donna Summer's biggest singles, I mean where is DS without Fire Island all-night parties, but I don't hear nearly as much engagement from Summer: rockist vs popist readings of the texts at work here maybe, I dunno

moma is workin this cd honey
gurl...miss was the t..when she came out with this album...I was 9 when it came out...it still wears my pu$$y out!!! ok!!!

both albums are remarkable

But you equated the Supremes' run of singles to Donna Summer's and the transcendence of Diana Ross' style there is why that does not compute for me at all.

I'm merely arguing that Ms Summer recorded more memorable albums AND singles.

I think part of what makes Diana Ross such an awesome figure for me is her place in gay history: in the mode of Judy Garland & Liza Minelli & Babs, Ross spends a fair bit of her career acknolwledging her core audience (sometimes gigantic-stage-winkingly as on "I'm Coming Out," sometimes with slightly more code in place a la "It's My Turn"). Donna Summer also knew which side her bread was buttered on, but doesn't seem to have had as much fun with it. I think Ross engaging her public like this

Now this is OTM. Don't forget Diana's early '80s Aerobics Triology. As for Summer, she seems too grouded to ever record mere camp gestures or sops to her audience; and commercial expediency has thankfully led her to renounce her fag-bashing and record a run of club-only singles.

But you equated the Supremes' run of singles to Donna Summer's and the transcendence of Diana Ross' style there is why that does not compute for me at all.

Can you rephrase this?

http://www.michael-jackson-trader.com/items/largeitempics/172.jpg

"mere"?

I thought that would get your attention.

That post-dates the period in question!

I know! I just couldn't resist that cover.

(Album covers shouldn't be that unsettling.)

Wha? Sorry, I don't hear that at all - and I used to own those two songs practically side-by-side on an 8-track tape 25+ years ago! (Now, if you said "Especially 'Last Dance'"...)

Again, great thread. Wish I had something to offer aside from my opinions...

I'm one confused puppy, aren't I? Anyway, my heart votes Donna.

But...

'just' diana vs. donna it's tight (i'm gonna lean donna cuz i like the drama and bleeding heart plus i've never seen diana sing live)('i feel love' > 'upside down' but man i might well take 'love hangover' and 'i'm coming...out' over any donna)(i think donna cold generally > diana cold, and donna hot definitely > diana hot and donna dramatic stop the tears >>>>>>>> diana who never could sell that for me really), but throw supremes in and yeah it's a bloodbath (kinda curious how people go on diana ross vs. paul mccartney)(uh, ROSS).

Love that phrase and may have to steal it sometime!

Now I will resume listening to "Knockin' Da Boots."

Now I will resume listening to "Knockin' Da Boots."

No one, I noticed, has mentioned the Mahogany theme.

But upthread I wrote:

& the theme from Mahogany which pretty much defines the 70s all by its lonesome

Can you explain how it "defines the 70s"?

Everyone knows that Donna Summer wins, now.

Even though I think I voted for Diana when this thread came up a few years ago. Donna Summer wins. What a relief.

This thing just kills me every time, I can't stop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FYI5KLzyQE

Further evidence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cPIT_T3mYU

God I love Diana's voice, but god, god, god.

Point me to even one You Tube clip that matches even
half of these Summer clips.

Summer is the fucking queen, get out of the WAY. She beats the best elemetary school teacher you ever had. Forget about it.

<i>As for Donna: "McCarthur Park" and that damn Streisand duet are indeed excrescences.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, June 23, 2006 5:30 PM (10 months ago) Bookmark Link</i>

horror of horrors! Macarthur Park an excrescence? Macarthur Park is the one thing that might, just possibly, edge Donna ahead of Dianna for me. The 12" version ideally, and there's one album where she strings it out for about 19 minutes, in with "Heaven Knows" and a few others. Love that.

Diana probably still wins, though.

I sort of agree with Frank Kogan's post about not being able to identify what it is about Diana Ross's voice you like. With Donna its all there, and its evident, and it lends incredible depth to a song such as "I feel love" which in someone else's hands would have been..less amazing, somehow. And yet its impossible to imagine Donna delivering "Baby, where did our love go" (good wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Did_Our_Love_Go) or "Its Time to Break Down" and getting away with it. Diana's versions feel like definitive versions, and I'm sure its not only due to historical factors.

Does the key to Diana actually lie in this lightness of touch? The sugariness is there, but kept to a minimum, and there's a certain coldness which allows some of the phenomenal material she had to come through. The delivery in later stuff, the likes of "Chain Reaction", seems warmer, which is why, glorious piece of campery that it is, it doesn't quite touch her earlier stuff.

I've never actually thought about why I like her before, though, so am prepared for this theory to be DESTROYED.

I haven't heard the Streisand duet in a gazillion years...I have no idea if I would like it now or want to puke..."Enough Is Enough". Wish me well.

Anyway, there is no reason not to credit Diana with Upside Down and being a doe-eyed good looking woman, too. But still Donna Summer is going to muscle her right out of the competition, love.

I detest "enough is enough", but that's more down to personal reasons than anything else. Although I still think I'd dislike it without those reasons.

I suspect Diana could sing a credible version of "Dinner with Gershwin."

I don't think she can handle "This Time I Know It's For Real," which is, in my opinion, the most powerful S/A/W production (second only to "You Spin Me 'Round"). Marcello recently argued that Donna imbues this throwaway with earned wisdom.

goodness me... surely not over "The Only Way Is Up" by Yazz..?

"This time I know its for real" would probably appeal if I heard it now, as it is, I can't strip it of the context I heard it in, and how I was feeling at the time. "Dinner with Gershwin" on the other hand.. I don't get the love. What is it that appeals?

I got a near-mint vinyl copy of Swept Away which I am presently spinning - oh GOD it's wonderful

gatefold? hell yes

It's gotta be Donna and her muscly mountain of hits!