Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK
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New Statesman MAY 17, 2012 - by Alice Gribbin

DONNA SUMMER DIES, AGE SIXTY-THREE

The "Queen of Disco" has died of cancer.

Donna Summer, the American singer-songwriter who gained fame during the '70s disco era, has passed away in her Florida home. Summer died at the age of sixty-three after a long cancer battle.

Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines in 1948, Summer began singing as a child in her local Boston church. She went on to become the first ever artist to have three double albums, all in a row, reach the top of the Billboard charts. She won five Grammy Awards over her forty-three-year career and released seventeen studio albums (ten of which, as of today, have gone Gold or Platinum), and is best remembered for her 1977 track I Feel Love.

The song was an immediate hit and continued to be played in the dance clubs, emerging as a gay anthem, in the '80s and '90s. Here's David Bowie recounting when he first heard it:

One day in Berlin... [Brian] Eno came running in and said, "I have heard the sound of the future"... He puts on I Feel Love, by Donna Summer... He said, "This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years." Which was more or less right.


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