Post by Anthony on Feb 12, 2014 1:09:55 GMT -5
It always bores me whenever journalists write about how Madonna was the "first" to do something or how "innovative" she was. 
Glad this article is a change to that. It mentions that musically, Donna Summer was doing things before Madonna and Kylie Minogue.
She was re-inventing herself, infusing different genres with dance music, using current music trends to her advantage to experiment with other genres as well.
Fortune Favors the Brave: Madonna and Kylie Minogue Pick Up Donna Summer's Torch and Run With It
Glad this article is a change to that. It mentions that musically, Donna Summer was doing things before Madonna and Kylie Minogue.
She was re-inventing herself, infusing different genres with dance music, using current music trends to her advantage to experiment with other genres as well.
Fortune Favors the Brave: Madonna and Kylie Minogue Pick Up Donna Summer's Torch and Run With It
Call it an “ordained” cultural shift (“Disco sucks!”), but when Donna Summer offered her eighth record, her Geffen debut The Wanderer (1980), it hinted at an earlier revolution. With I Remember Yesterday (1977), Summer’s view into the pop niche, defined as dramatic, stylistic switches per album, had been realized. Often recalled as the home of “I Feel Love”, the remaining material like the titular song, “Love’s Unkind” and “Can We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over)” suggested that “disco” or “dance” wasn’t the only springboard for the modern pop singer.
The Wanderer’s use of rock, synth and gospel further challenged the “pop equals four-on-the-floor” rule; Summer spent the remainder of the ‘80s trying on various sonics. She crafted the transformative pop model with The Wanderer; all other pop vocalists trailed this breakthrough. Her two descendants, Madonna. and Kylie Minogue, are the brightest examples of revising the model, but retaining its core principles: change and music.
In the way that Donna Summer’s The Wanderer made use of popular music at the dawn of the ‘80s, Madonna and Minogue did the same. They took advantage of the “global village” music mentality of the ‘90s to prove their mettle outside of dance, but without forsaking it.
The Wanderer’s use of rock, synth and gospel further challenged the “pop equals four-on-the-floor” rule; Summer spent the remainder of the ‘80s trying on various sonics. She crafted the transformative pop model with The Wanderer; all other pop vocalists trailed this breakthrough. Her two descendants, Madonna. and Kylie Minogue, are the brightest examples of revising the model, but retaining its core principles: change and music.
In the way that Donna Summer’s The Wanderer made use of popular music at the dawn of the ‘80s, Madonna and Minogue did the same. They took advantage of the “global village” music mentality of the ‘90s to prove their mettle outside of dance, but without forsaking it.
