Donna Summer - Four Seasons Of Love (2013) [Hi-Res]

One is inclined to resist this package of self-conscious stardom concepts -- the LP version sported its own 1977 calendar featuring La Summer dressed up as winter, spring, summer, and Marilyn Monroe vamping on the subway grating (fall, presumably), and the four "seasonal" dancey suites promise more and say less than the typical Summer intimate "touch-me" would deliver without any hype. Fortunately, the music has a mind of its own. The rhythms push and go poof as delicately as ever; the horn section mutes and jazzes the melody; the beats stop, run, and stop again whenever they damn please; and Summer expresses private rapture in falsetto as she smooches, oohs, and ahs onto the mix like lipstick traces. Oh, rapture indeed. ~ Michael Freedberg