DONNA SUMMER : Crayons

Part of us still can’t get over the fact that it’s been the better part of two decades since Ms Summer released her last album of original material!
Part of us still wishes the heady Stock-Aitken-Waterman days of “This Time I Know It’s For Real” and “Love’s About To Change My Heart” never really came to an end.
Part of us knows we’re getting old!
However, pOp moves on, and so it seems has Donna Summer.
The new album is very polished, very now.
Though the track “I’m A Fire” in it’s various remixed guises has been doing the rounds in the clubs for the better part of three months, the first official radio single from the album is “Stamp Your Feet”, a limited edition remix single of which has been made available in the US.
And while it lyrically celebrates Donna’s return to the world of pOp (“I’ve been ‘round so many times before”), musically it fails to break new ground, sounding more like a direct copy of Nelly Furtado’s 2006 hit “Say It Right”.
There are other musical comparisons to be made here – the title track sounds suspiciously like Gia Farrell’s feel-good Happy Feet single “Hit Me Up”.
“The Queen Is Back” borrows from the sounds of JT, “Fame” is trademark Janet Jackson, “Drivin’ Down Brazil” could’ve been ripped from Emma Bunton’s startlingly good album “Free Me”.
Could Ms.Summer have had spies planted in studios around the world to find out “what the kids were into these days”?
Crayons is a pretty strong release from someone who knows what makes music great, but you do come away feeling that you might just have heard it all before from different vocalists.