The PopCulteer
May 19, 2023

Saturday, May 20th, HBO premieres a new documentary about the legendary singer, Donna Summers, just days after the eleventh anniversary of her passing.

Love to Love You, Donna Summer is an in-depth look at the iconic artist as her voice and artistry takes her from the avant-garde music scene in Germany, to the glitter and bright lights of dance clubs in New York. A deeply personal portrait of Summer on and off stage, the film features a wealth of photographs and never-before-seen home video footage – often shot by Summer herself. Through a rich window into the surprising range of her artistry, from songwriting to painting, Love to Love You, Donna Summer explores the highs and lows of a life lived on the global stage.

The documentary was directed by Oscar and Emmy-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams and Summer’s own daughter, Brooklyn Sudano, and it debuts tomorrow on HBO and the soon-to-be-renamed, HBO Max.

In honor of this new documentary, Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, Mel Larch presents her second tribute to Donna Summer on the Disco Showcase, MIRRORBALL. The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

Mel first paid tribute to the Queen of Disco, Donna Summer, back on the fifteenth edition of MIRRORBALL and this week she goes back to the well and brings you another solid hour of dance classics from the woman who was the female voice of the Disco era. Rather than simply rerun that earlier episode, Mel decided to put together an all-new collection, with no songs duplicated from her previous tribute.

Donna Summer was the first artist to get the MIRRORBALL spotlight with a solo show, and she created so much iconic Disco music that it was easy to put together a second tribute show. Who knows, maybe someday Mel will grace us with a third tribute to Ms. Summer.

Check out the playlist…

MIRRORBALL 076
Donna Summer Tribute #2

“With Your Love”
“Walk Away”
“Spring Affair”
“Journey To The Center of Your Heart”
“Try Me, I Know We Can Make It”
“Take Me”
“Could It Be Magic”
“Happily Ever After”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays throughout the following week, Saturday at 9 PM, Sunday at 11 PM, Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM.

Friday and Saturday evenings at 9 PM, this week you’ll get a mini-marathon with the new MIRRORBALL followed by an encore of the previous tribute to Ms. Summer and a show devoted to the soundtrack of her movie debut, Thank God It’s Friday.

At 3 PM we bring you an encore of a classic episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat from April, 2017.  This was another show where Sydney Fileen educated the masses on the finer points of New Wave history.  Rather than send you to a link, we’ll just re-post the playlist here…

BEC 020
Oingo Boingo  “Private Life”
Missing Persons  “Hello, I Love You”
INXS  “Need You Tonight”
Vivabeat  “Man From China”
Go West  “We Close Our Eyes”
Fad Gadget  “Back To Nature”
Erasure  “The Circus”
The Clash  “Straight To Hell”
Toyah  “Blue Meaning”
Ultravox  “Rockwrock”
Fear  “Let’s Have A War”
Biizarre Leidenschnatt  “Plasticpuppen”
The Nerves  “TV Adverts”
Stiff Little Fingers  “Nobody’s Heroes (Live)”
Blitz  “Youth” Mi Sex  “21-20”
Yoko Ono  “Move On Fast”
The Cure  “10:15 Saturday Night”
The Distributors  “T.V. Me”
Kraftwerk  “Tour De France”
Simple Minds  “Someone Somewhere In Summertime”
Ian Dury and the Blockheads  “What A Waste”
The Saints  “Know Your Product”
Aerial  “Cold War Love”
Siouxsie and the Banshees  “Suburban Relapse”
Berlin  “Sex (I’m A)” (extended version)
Blue Me  “Berlin”
The Jam  “Going Underground”
Generation X  “King Rocker
Yellow Magic Orchestra  “Cosmic Surfin’”

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat is produced at Haversham Recording Institute in London, and can be heard every Friday at 3 PM, with replays Saturday afternoon, Monday at 7 AM, Tuesday at 8 PM, Wednesday at Noon and Thursday at 10 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Two classic episodes can also be heard every Sunday, starting at 10 AM.

And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back every day for fresh content because it makes you metaphorically larger than the average human.