Love to Love You Baby

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Donna Summer chronology
Love To Love You Baby

Studio album by Donna Summer
Released	1975
Genre	Disco, Pop, Soul, R&B
Length	36:36
Label	Casablanca
Producer(s)	Pete Bellotte
Lady Of The Night (1974)	Love To Love You Baby (1975)	A Love Trilogy (1976)

Love to Love You Baby is the second album by Donna Summer. Her previous album had only been released in selected European countries where she had also had a couple of hit singles. In 1975 she was still a complete unknown in her home country of America. Summer had been working with writing/production team Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte for some time and one day approached them with an idea for a song. Moroder and Bellotte had been helping to develop the new "disco" sound which was just starting to become popular, and turned the song which had begun with Summer's idea into a slowbeat electronic disco track. Their idea for her vocals were that they should be raunchy and sexy, but she was at first unsure if she was capable of this. She was later persuaded to record the track lying on the floor of a pitch dark studio and imagined herself as an actress (Marilyn Monroe to be precise) playing the part of someone in that role. The song was recorded and entitled "Love to Love You." It was released as a single in some European terretories and became a moderate hit.

Moroder sent a recording of the track to Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart in the U.S. Bogart played the song at a party and became fascinated by it, insisting that it be played over and over again. He got in touch with Moroder and came up with the idea that the track should be made longer - possibly as long as twenty minutes. A new version lasting almost seventeen minutes was recorded and the song was renamed "Love to Love You Baby." Bogart was so impressed with the recording that he agreed for Casablanca to distribute Summer's work in the U.S. "Love to Love You Baby" took up the entire first side of Summer's second LP (of the same name), which became her first album to be released internationally. The different record labels that were responsible for distributing Summer's work in different nations (including Casablanca in the US) edited the song and made it her first international single. It became her breakthrough, reaching Number Two on the American Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and was a massive hit in the rest of the world (it made Number Four in the United Kingdom, despite the BBC's refusal to promote it). As a result the album sold relatively well, making the Top 10 in the U.S. and the Top 20 in the U.K.

The title song was controversial in that it allegedly contained over 20 simulated orgasms by Summer. The actual number of "orgasms" is unclear, but the BBC estimate was 23, while Time magazine counted 22.

The other songs on the album had a more pop/soul/R&B feel to them. Side Two consisted of four more original songs, plus a reprise of one of them. Two of the songs, "Full Of Emptiness" and "Whispering Waves" were ballads, while "Need-A-Man Blues" was in a slightly more pop/disco vain, and "Pandora's Box" was more mid-tempo.