Bad Girls | ||||
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Studio album by Donna Summer | ||||
Released | April 25, 1979 | |||
Recorded | December 1978 — March 1979 | |||
Genre | Disco, Italo Disco | |||
Length | 71:27 | |||
Label | Casablanca | |||
Producer | ||||
Donna Summer chronology | ||||
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Singles from Bad Girls | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | |
Robert Christgau | A− |
PopMatters | favorable |
Q | |
Rolling Stone | favourable 1979 |
Rolling Stone | 2003 |
Virgin Encyclopedia | |
Yahoo! Music | favorable |
Bad Girls is the seventh studio album by American singer and songwriter Donna Summer, released in April 25, 1979 on Casablanca Records. Originally issued as a double album. Bad Girls became the best-selling album of Summer's career. The album spent 6 weeks at the top of Billboards Hot 200 albums in 1979.
Since the release of her breakthrough album which contained the sexually suggestive "Love to Love You Baby", Summer had been nicknamed "the First Lady of Love" in the press and her record label wanted her to keep this image, despite the fact that she was never truly comfortable with it. Several years later, Summer became addicted to prescription medication and reportedly suffered a mental breakdown at her California home in 1979; shortly afterwards, one of her sisters and backing vocalists in her band took her to a church in Los Angeles and Summer reconnected with her faith. Upon her recovery, Summer set to work on her new album with long-time partners Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, as well as various others she had not worked with before. By this time, although disco music was still popular, other styles such as punk and heavy metal were also doing well on the charts, so the team decided to incorporate a rockier sound into some of the songs. Other songs had a more soul/R&B feel to them, and in all it was probably Summer's most diverse album to date. The fusion of rock and disco was particularly evident, and synthesizers were used to augment the sound for a more electronic and dance oriented electro music in the first two songs on the album - "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls", which also became the first two singles to be released from the album. Both were huge hits and made number one on the American singles chart. The former also won Summer a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and became popular again in the 1990s when it was featured in The Full Monty and again in the film The Martian. "Dim All the Lights" was the third single and also became a huge hit, peaking at number two in the U.S.