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Crayons | 
| Artist: Donna Summer
Label: SonyBMG
Category: Music
List Price: £16.99
Buy New: £11.98
You Save: £5.01 (29%)
New (17) Used (1) from £8.94
Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 11043
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 886973072523
EAN: 0886973072523
ASIN: B00198HE42
Release Date: June 23, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Stamp Your Feet | | • | Mr. Music | | • | Crayons (Featuring Ziggy Marley) | | • | The Queen Is Back | | • | Fame (The Game) | | • | Sand On My Feet | | • | Drivin' Down Brazil | | • | I'm A Fire | | • | Slide Over Backwards | | • | Science Of Love | | • | Be Myself Again | | • | Bring Down The Reign | | • | It's Only Love |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
A New Vintage October 25, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
A fine wine can take years to reach it's best in the bottle.
So too a fine voice.
We have known that Ms Summer ( Nee Gaines ) has been in possession
of such an instrument for some thirty years.
An instrument always long on power but somewhat wanting in the
emotional expression department.
My last memory of her involves a somewhat drunken night in a New York
bar of doubtful repute, dancing my paws sore to 'Con Te Partiro' with a
wide-eyed Latino beauty whose dark gaze betrayed ignoble intentions with
regard to my black leather jeans. ( Yes - Even The Wolf has lived a little ! )
Warm memories then and a welcome return.
'Crayons' delivers a highly varied palette during the course of it's generous
thirteen tracks. Rock, R&B, Latin, Soulful Ballad and Hip Hop all get a look in.
The writing is strong, the musicianship and production remaining always
on Ms Summer's side.
The voice has never (ever) sounded better. For perhaps the first time there
is a real sense of this great artist loosening up and truly enjoying herself.
Listen to 'Slide Over Backwards' ! It's difficult to believe it really is our heroine !
'Be Myself Again' is a glorious performance by any standard. A great torchsong
beautifully sung. The warm bloom and expressiveness in her voice has hardly
been bettered in her long career.
Riches aplenty elsewhere on this splendid release.
With it's raucous cheerleader refrain 'Stamp Your Feet' is a worthy opener.
'The Queen Is Back' sounds like a woman reclaiming her territory
with sassy confidence.
'Sand On My Feet' finds yet another new dimension in this recreated being's voice.
Gorgeous !!
'Science Of Love', with its' driving synth and drums, provides yet another opportunity
for personal innovation.
'Drivin' Down Brazil' and its' lilting samba rhythm adds yet more spice to
an already mouthwatering experience.
An album to savour and to treasure.
Ms Summer's Epiphany !
Long May She Reign !
Highly Recommended.
 A mixed effort from Ms Summer August 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Donna Summer, known for disco classics such as `I Feel Love' & `Love To Love You Baby' returns to the 2008 music scene with a new release, titled Crayons.
The title of this album sums up the approach of this effort from Ms Summer, a multi-coloured and varied collection of different musical styles that opens up with the dance/pop tracks Stamp Your Feet and Mr. Music. Ziggy Marley (son of Bob) teams up with Donna for the title track with its light pop-reggae sound. The Queen Is Back is a highlight of the album, with Donna clearly stating lyrically she's returned with this big beat sounding track.
Other tracks covering the musical kaleidoscope include the acoustic sound of Sand On My Feet; the Bossa Nova influenced Drivin' Down Brazil, the return of the dance sound with a Latin twist on I'm A Fire, a decent blues sounding effort Slide Over Backwards and the ballad Be Myself Again. Another highlight of the album is Bring Down The Reign with an African rhythmic feel. The euro-dance sound of It's Only Love ends the set.
It's good to see Donna Summer back recording after such a long period and credit is due that the songs are original compositions, however it's attempt to cover various styles of music in my opinion appears to make the album a bit too crowded.
Crayons
Donna is on fire! August 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've been a Donna Summer fan since the 1970s so I awaited this album with much excitement. It might have been too much to expect Donna's first new studio album in 17 years to live up to expectations..... but it does and them some.
I have to admire Donna for standing by her principles and insisting on doing an album of new contempory music rather than going down the covers album road that so many other artists of her era have gone down. Donna has co-written all of the tracks on this album and many of them could be hit singles given the right push by a record company. Tracks like 'Stamp Your Feet', 'The Queen is Back','I'm A Fire' and 'Drivin Down Brazil' would sit very comfortably next to her classic hits from the 1970s and 1980s.
Donna has already taken this album into the Billboard top 20 and has once again topped the billboard dance chart at the age of 59! This album deserves to be a big success the world over and fans from the past should have no hesitation in adding it to their collections.
Buy with confidence!
AT LAST - Donna Summer's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 July 9, 2008
13 out of 19 found this review helpful
Oh, hold on a minute... this is an album of new material. That just sounds like a greatest hits collection.
Well, I'm sure that, by now, most listeners already know the story behind that. Suffice to say that among this palette of varied - some might say conflicting - styles, the big, seven-minute disco workout I'm A Fire is worth the investment on it's own. But I'm getting ahead of myself - here's a track-by track-breakdown:
STAMP YOUR FEET From the opening whoa-oahs, there's no doubt that Donna's back in business with a radio-friendly belter of an "encouragement song" (as the lady herself describes it). The production signals a relentlessly modern approach, and boy, is this what's delivered over the next hour or so.
I LOVE MUSIC Kicks off all high-octane R'n'B in the style of Usher or Justin Trousersnake, and when she tells us, "I've got my iPod" in the opening line, it's hard not to wonder whether she's not just angling for a high-profile product ensdorsement. But it wins you over with its exhuberence. Perhaps moreso than...
CRAYONS, with it's nevertheless great lyric about celebrating diversity and a pleasant enough guest vocal from Ziggy Marley. Its skittering raggaeton vibe (think Rihanna's 'Pon De Replay) might be an already discarded flavour, but if you think Donna's already had one double espresso too many, she cranks up the pace even more on...
THE QUEEN IS BACK. "She wants a Toblerone". What the hell is THAT opening line all about? OK, I know she's singing something else, but it does sound uncannily like that. This rocking, tongue-in-cheek number seems based on a theme tune for a boxing flick like Rocky 6 or something, and you do get the sense that she's been limbering up in the gym for another sparring session with the `Industry'. Time for a bit of a rest between rounds? You've got to be kidding.
FAME rocks it out even more, with a jaded lyric about... well, the clue's in the title. Naturally, you're going to be put in mind of David Bowie's eponymous hit; then your mind might wander to Tina Turner's cover of Bowie's "1984", with which it has more common, musically. Then it might hit you that Crayons is a comeback album on a par with Tina Turner's Private Dancer. And THEN, the actual songs just get a whole lot better, starting with...
SAND ON MY FEET A mid-tempo ballad in which Donna enjoys a seaside holiday with her hubby, to the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar. Nice - you could imagine Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson or Pink singing this... then feel all warm and fuzzy that Donna Summer decided to come out of "retirement" to co-write and record it herself.
DRIVING DOWN BRAZIL is a bit of a story song, and Summer knows how to tell a story - this time to a playful bossanova beat. One of the real highlights of the album and, although it probably won't be single, it should be.
I'M A FIRE - That voice! Reminiscent of her disco monsters of the Seventies and Eighties, the slick production is nevertheless very much of the Noughties (naughties?), and hits the bullseye in the same way as a contemporary production/remixing team like The Freemasons, when they use a reliable, warmly-voiced industry pro like Siedah Garrett. Donna teases us with the line, "Can you feel it? Do I need to say it? Can't you just feel it?" before the track morphs into an even more infectious latin stomper, skipping through some holiday Spanish, but in a soaring vocal deilvery which even talents as great as La India and the estimable Liz Torres could take pointers from. I've heard some remixes of this track, and most of them have tended to follow the tedious, dated, bangbangbang, Victor Calderone/Junior Vasquez-style tweaking of the US gay circuit party (nightmare!). This original mix (by Sebastion Arocha Morton, I think) is as near to perfection as we're likely to get, but I wouldn't mind hearing some UK mixes, all the same.
SLIDE OVER BACKWARDS is a backwoods, bluegrass number all huskily and lazily intoned like Macy Gray - or "B.B. Queen"? Donna lives in Tennessee and she's clearly having a bit of fun here, singing as an alter ego called Hattie Mae Blanche Dubois(!) Well, if Tori Amos can do it...
SCIENCE OF LOVE. Rockiest track of the lot and very radio-friendly. Tipped as a future single, but I'd be surprised if it becomes one here in the UK. Her voice is especially strong on it, though.
BE MYSELF AGAIN is a piano-led torch ballad which comes across like the climax of some autobiographical stage show Donna might have penned - perhaps more hardcore fans could illuminate me on that one, if they know something I don't. Ms Summer always had an awesomely mature vocal style, but it just crackles away on this. It might be a bit too melodramatic for some but, if it is a showtune, then it's a Memory or a Don't Cry For Me, Argentina.
BRING DOWN THE REIGN Warm, slightly worthy ballad about the Darfur genocides, featuring a kiddies' choir. It's nice enough, but might have been a bit of a damp squib to close the album, if it hadn't been for...
IT'S ONLY LOVE Lucky European purchasers (and US fans intrepid enough to track down a special edition) get this bonus track, which is another seven-minute disco scorcher. It's not lyrically clever, and I can understand why it was left of the mainstream US release - daytime radio won't understand it at all - but its late-night hedonism will tear up any club set. The vocal is cool, soulful and while it puts me in mind of a Chaka Khan or a Rosie Gaines, it's still unmistakably Donna. Unlike in the US, a huge chunk of the UK population had its DNA chemically altered enough by the three "Summers of Love" in the late 80s for us to lap this up 20 years later. I can think of a few DJs and producers over here who'll be itching to get their mitts on the masters for remixes, too.
So that's it: sorry if I've made comparisons with other vocalists along the way, in order to try to describe the songs - I guess it just demonstrates how Donna Summer has been and still is a template for so many others. At 59, she wears me out at - ahem - let's say 39... and is more in command of her legendary voice than she ever has been. Somebody give the woman a freaking Toblerone - she's earned it.
A perfect SUMMER for the season and the year! July 6, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Even though we're at the halfway point of the year, 2008 may go down as "The Year of the Boomer," what with major releases from "seniors" like Madonna, Sergio Mendes, Al Green, Dolly Parton and septuagenarian Dame Shirley Bassey, all being well-received by critics and fans alike.
To the fray we can now add Donna Summer with "Crayons," a welcome addition to the singer's discography of hits and an ear-friendly hodgepodge for those of us that have loved the singer since "Love to Love You Baby" hit the airwaves three decades ago.
The new release, featuring twelve songs co-written by Summer and a variety of songwriters, allows the singer to poke fun at herself and celebrity ("The Queen is Back" and "Fame-the Game"), as well as hurl herself headlong into contemporary dance grooves with tunes like the tile cut and "Mr. Music." Summer gets a little nostalgic with the retro-disco sound on "I'm a Fire," waxes country with "Slide Over Backwards," and plays with a South American sound with "Drivin' Down Brazil."
The slower, mid-tempo numbers are just as good. "Sand on My Feet," "Science of Love," "Be Myself Again," and "Bring Down the Reign" allow Summer to show her softer yet highly effective vocals, something that she occasionally did on such classics as her concept "Bad Girls" and "Once Upon a Time" albums from the 70's.
Though some may call "Crayons" a comeback, I prefer to think of it as a "rebirth" to her minions of fans worldwide, as well as an "introduction" to the younger listeners that weren't fortunate to have experienced the "Queen of Disco" in her heyday.
Either way, both camps of audiophiles will be pleased with this FIVE-STAR recording.
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