The Vinyl of the Day is the double album ‘Bad Girls’ by Donna Summer, 1979. Donna’s enormous talent and voice had brought her great success as the ‘Queen of Disco’, but at the end of the disco era she was having a difficult time and was suffering from depression and drug addiction. Fortunately her family and church brought her out of the dark times, and she decided to show that she was more than just disco - which prompted this very diverse album, where she really showed her range of being able to cover rock, R&B and soul. It was an amazing success, and ‘Bad Girls’ became her most popular record. Originally released as a two-record set, Bad Girls is a concept album about--what else?--S-E-X. The album saw the dynamic duo of Donna and longtime producer Giorgio Morodor incorporating rock influences into their disco motifs and, in turn, influencing dance music for years to come. The two-LP set was divided into four musically consistent sides, with the rock beat of the first side giving way to a more traditional disco sound on the second side, followed by a third side of ballads, and a fourth side with a more electronic, synthesizer-driven sound that recalled her 1977 hit “I Feel Love.” The result was the artistic and commercial peak of her career and, arguably, of disco itself - and we were all really lucky for it. Personally I can never get enough Donna!
From Wikipedia;
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.
The album was certified double platinum for sales in excess of 2 million copies in the U.S. on December 1, 1993 (double albums are certified per disc by the RIAA rather than per complete unit). It also became her second consecutive number-one album in the U.S., also spending three weeks at number one in Canada on the RPM 100 national albums chart. As well as the aforementioned Grammy Award for “Hot Stuff” (Best Female Rock Vocal Performance), the song “Bad Girls” was also nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performanceand Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. “Dim All the Lights” was nominated for Best Disco Recording and the album itself was nominated for Album of the Year.