Compact Disc

150px
The readable surface of a Compact Disc includes a spiral track wound tightly enough to cause light to diffract into a full visible spectrum
Media type	Optical disc
Encoding	Various
Capacity	Typically up to 700 MB (up to 80 minutes audio)
Read mechanism	780 nm wavelength (infrared and red edge) semiconductor laser, 1200 Kb/s (1×)
Write mechanism	1200 Kb/s (1×)
Developed by	Philips, Sony
Usage	Audio and data storage

The Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and play back sound recordings only, but the format was later adapted for storage of data (CD-ROM), write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video Compact Discs (VCD), Super Video Compact Discs (SVCD), PhotoCD, PictureCD, CD-i, and Enhanced CD. Audio CDs and audio CD players have been commercially available since October 1982.

Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimetres (4.7 in) and can hold up to 80 minutes of uncompressed audio or 700 MB (700 × 2²⁰ bytes) of data. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres (2.4 to 3.1 in); they are sometimes used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio or delivering device drivers.

CD-ROMs and CD-Rs remain widely used technologies in the computer industry. The CD and its extensions are successful: in 2004, worldwide sales of CD audio, CD-ROM, and CD-R reached about 30 billion discs. By 2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide.^[1] Compact Discs are increasingly being replaced or supplemented by other forms of digital distribution and storage, such as downloading and flash drives, with audio CD sales dropping nearly 50% from their peak in 2000.^[2]

History[link]

This section may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help clarify the section; suggestions may be found on the talk page. (January 2010)

The Compact Disc is an evolution of LaserDisc technology. Sony first publicly demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in September 1976. In September 1978 they demonstrated an optical digital audio disc with a 150 minute playing time, and with specifications of 44,056 Hz sampling rate, 16-bit linear resolution, cross-interleaved error correction code, that were similar to those of the Compact Disc introduced in 1982. Technical details of Sony's digital audio disc were presented during the 62nd AES Convention, held on March 13–16, 1979, in Brussels.^[3] On March 8, 1979 Philips publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference called "Philips Introduce Compact Disc"^[4] in Eindhoven, Netherlands.^[5] On March 6, 2009, Philips received an IEEE Milestone with the following citation: "On 8 March 1979, N.V. Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken demonstrated for the international press a Compact Disc Audio Player. The demonstration showed that it is possible by using digital optical recording and playback to reproduce audio signals with superb stereo quality. This research at Philips established the technical standard for digital optical recording systems."^[6]

Sony executive Norio Ohga, who later became the CEO and chairman of Sony, was convinced of the format's commercial potential, and pushed further development despite widespread skepticism.^[7] Later in 1979, Sony and Philips Consumer Electronics (Philips) set up a joint task force of engineers to design a new digital audio disc. Led by Kees Schouhamer Immink and Toshitada Doi, the research pushed forward laser and optical disc technology that began independently by Philips and Sony in 1977 and 1975, respectively.^[4] After a year of experimentation and discussion, the task force produced the Red Book, the Compact Disc standard. Philips contributed the general manufacturing process, based on video LaserDisc technology. Philips also contributed eight-to-fourteen modulation (EFM), which offers both a long playing time and a certain resilience to defects such as scratches and fingerprints, while Sony contributed the error-correction method, CIRC. The Compact Disc Story,^[8] told by a former member of the taskforce, gives background information on the many technical decisions made, including the choice of the sampling frequency, playing time, and disc diameter. The task force consisted of around four to eight persons,^[9][10] though according to Philips, the Compact Disc was thus "invented collectively by a large group of people working as a team."^[11]

The first test CD was pressed in Langenhagen near Hannover, Germany, by the Polydor Pressing Operations plant. The disc contained a recording of Richard Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie (in English, An Alpine Symphony), played by the Berlin Philharmonic and conducted by Herbert von Karajan.^[12] The first public demonstration was on the BBC television program Tomorrow's World when The Bee Gees' album Living Eyes (1981) was played.^[13] In August 1982 the real pressing was ready to begin in the new factory, not far from the place where Emile Berliner had produced his first gramophone record 93 years earlier. By now, Deutsche Grammophon, Berliner's company and the publisher of the Strauss recording, had become a part of PolyGram. The first CD to be manufactured at the new factory was The Visitors (1981) by ABBA.^[14] The first album to be released on CD was Billy Joel's 52nd Street, that reached the market alongside Sony's CD player CDP-101 on October 1, 1982 in Japan.^[15] Early the following year on March 2, 1983 CD players and discs (16 titles from CBS Records) were released in the United States and other markets. This event is often seen as the "Big Bang" of the digital audio revolution. The new audio disc was enthusiastically received, especially in the early-adopting classical music and audiophile communities and its handling quality received particular praise. As the price of players gradually came down, the CD began to gain popularity in the larger popular and rock music markets. The first artist to sell a million copies on CD was Dire Straits, with its 1985 album Brothers in Arms.^[16] The first major artist to have his entire catalogue converted to CD was David Bowie, whose 15 studio albums were made available by RCA Records in February 1985, along with four Greatest Hits albums.^[17] In 1988, 400 million CDs were manufactured by 50 pressing plants around the world.^[18]

The CD was planned to be the successor of the gramophone record for playing music, rather than primarily as a data storage medium. From its origins as a musical format, CDs have grown to encompass other applications. In June 1985, the computer readable CD-ROM (read-only memory) and, in 1990, CD-Recordable were introduced, also developed by both Sony and Philips.^[19] The CD's compact format has largely replaced the audio cassette player in new automobile applications, and recordable CDs are an alternative to tape for recording music and copying music albums without defects introduced in compression used in other digital recording methods. Other newer video formats such as DVD and Blu-ray have used the same form factor as CDs, and video players can usually play audio CDs as well. With the advent of the MP3 in the 2000s, the sales of CDs has dropped in seven out of the last eight years. In 2008, large label CD sales dropped 20%,^[20] although independent and DIY music sales may be tracking better according to figures released March 30, 2009.^[21]

Physical details[link]

It has been suggested that Blu-spec CD be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since May 2011.

Diagram of CD layers.
A. A polycarbonate disc layer has the data encoded by using bumps.
B. A shiny layer reflects the laser.
C. A layer of lacquer protects the shiny layer.
D. Artwork is screen printed on the top of the disc.
E. A laser beam reads the CD and is reflected back to a sensor, which converts it into electronic data

A CD is made from 1.2 millimetres (0.047 in) thick, polycarbonate plastic and weighs 15–20 grams.^[22] From the center outward, components are: the center spindle hole (15 mm), the first-transition area (clamping ring), the clamping area (stacking ring), the second-transition area (mirror band), the program (data) area, and the rim. The inner program area occupies a radius from 25 to 58 mm.

A thin layer of aluminium or, more rarely, gold is applied to the surface making it reflective. The metal is protected by a film of lacquer normally spin coated directly on the reflective layer. The label is printed on the lacquer layer, usually by screen printing or offset printing.

CD data is stored as a series of tiny indentations known as "pits", encoded in a spiral track moulded into the top of the polycarbonate layer. The areas between pits are known as "lands". Each pit is approximately 100 nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5 µm in length. The distance between the tracks, the pitch, is 1.6 µm.

Scanning velocity is 1.2–1.4 m/s (constant linear velocity) – equivalent to approximately 500 rpm at the inside of the disc, and approximately 200 rpm at the outside edge. (A disc played from beginning to end slows down during playback.)

The program area is 86.05 cm² and the length of the recordable spiral is (86.05 cm² / 1.6 µm) = 5.38 km. With a scanning speed of 1.2 m/s, the playing time is 74 minutes, or 650 MB of data on a CD-ROM. A disc with data packed slightly more densely is tolerated by most players (though some old ones fail). Using a linear velocity of 1.2 m/s and a track pitch of 1.5 µm yields a playing time of 80 minutes, or a data capacity of 700 MB. Even higher capacities on non-standard discs (up to 99 minutes) are available at least as recordables, but generally the tighter the tracks are squeezed, the worse the compatibility.^{[citation needed]}

A CD is read by focusing a 780 nm wavelength (near infrared) semiconductor laser through the bottom of the polycarbonate layer. The change in height between pits and lands results in a difference in the way the light is reflected. By measuring the intensity change with a photodiode, the data can be read from the disc.

The pits and lands themselves do not directly represent the zeros and ones of binary data. Instead, non-return-to-zero, inverted encoding is used: a change from pit to land or land to pit indicates a one, while no change indicates a series of zeros. There must be at least two and no more than ten zeros between each one, which is defined by the length of the pit. This in turn is decoded by reversing the eight-to-fourteen modulation used in mastering the disc, and then reversing the Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Coding, finally revealing the raw data stored on the disc.

CDs are susceptible to damage from both normal use and environmental exposure. Pits are much closer to the label side of a disc, enabling defects and contaminants on the clear side to be out of focus during playback. Consequently, CDs are more likely to suffer damage on the label side of the disk. Scratches on the clear side can be repaired by refilling them with similar refractive plastic, or by careful polishing.

Disc shapes and diameters[link]

Comparison of several forms of disk storage showing tracks (not-to-scale); green denotes start and red denotes end.
* Some CD-R(W) and DVD-R(W)/DVD+R(W) recorders operate in ZCLV, CAA or CAV modes.

The digital data on a CD begins at the center of the disc and proceeds toward the edge, which allows adaptation to the different size formats available. Standard CDs are available in two sizes. By far, the most common is 120 millimetres (4.7 in) in diameter, with a 74- or 80-minute audio capacity and a 650 or 700 MB data capacity. This capacity was reportedly specified by Sony executive Norio Ohga so as to be able to contain the entirety of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on one disc.^[7] This diameter has been adopted by subsequent formats, including Super Audio CD, DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc. 80 mm discs ("Mini CDs") were originally designed for CD singles and can hold up to 24 minutes of music or 210 MB of data but never became popular.^{[citation needed]} Today, nearly every single is released on a 120 mm CD, called a Maxi single.^{[citation needed]}

Novelty CDs are also available in numerous shapes and sizes, and are used chiefly for marketing. A common variant is the "business card" CD, a single with portions removed at the top and bottom making the disk resemble a business card.

Logical formats[link]

Audio CD[link]

The logical format of an audio CD (officially Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) is described in a document produced by the format's joint creators, Sony and Philips in 1980. The document is known colloquially as the "Red Book" after the color of its cover. The format is a two-channel 16-bit PCM encoding at a 44.1 kHz sampling rate per channel. Four-channel sound was to be an allowable option within the Red Book format, but has never been implemented. Monaural audio has no existing standard on a Red Book CD; mono-source material thus is usually presented as two identical channels in a standard Red Book stereo track.

44.1 kHz sample rate[link]

The selection of the sample rate was based primarily on the need to reproduce the audible frequency range of 20 Hz – 20 kHz. The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem states that a sampling rate of more than twice the maximum frequency of the signal to be recorded is needed, resulting in a required rate of at least 40 kHz. The exact sampling rate of 44.1 kHz was inherited from a method of converting digital audio into an analog video signal for storage on U-matic video tape, which was the most affordable way to transfer data from the recording studio to the CD manufacturer at the time the CD specification was being developed. The device that converts an analog audio signal into PCM audio, which in turn is changed into an analog video signal is called a PCM adaptor. This technology could store six samples (three samples per stereo channel) in a single horizontal line. A standard NTSC video signal has 245 usable lines per field, and 59.94 fields/s, which works out to be 44,056 samples/s/stereo channel. Similarly, PAL has 294 lines and 50 fields, which gives 44,100 samples/s/stereo channel. This system could store 14-bit samples with some error correction, or 16-bit samples with almost no error correction.

There was a long debate over the use of 14-bit (Philips) or 16-bit (Sony) quantization, and 44,056 or 44,100 samples/s (Sony) or approximately 44,000 samples/s (Philips). When the Sony/Philips task force designed the Compact Disc, Philips had already developed a 14-bit D/A converter, but Sony insisted on 16-bit. In the end, 16 bits and 44.1 kilosamples per second prevailed. Philips found a way to produce 16-bit quality using its 14-bit DAC by using four times oversampling.

Storage capacity and playing time[link]

The partners aimed at a playing time of 60 minutes with a disc diameter of 100 mm (Sony) or 115 mm (Philips).^[9] Sony vice-president Norio Ohga suggested extending the capacity to 74 minutes to accommodate Wilhelm Furtwängler's recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 from the 1951 Bayreuth Festival.^[23][24]

The additional 14-minute playing time subsequently required changing to a 120 mm disc. Kees Immink, Philips' chief engineer, however, denies this, claiming that the increase was motivated by technical considerations, and that even after the increase in size, the Furtwängler recording would not have fit on one of the earliest CDs.^[8][9] According to a Sunday Tribune interview,^[25] the story is slightly more involved. In 1979, Philips owned PolyGram, one of the world's largest distributors of music. PolyGram had set up a large experimental CD plant in Hannover, Germany, which could produce huge numbers of CDs having, of course, a diameter of 115 mm. Sony did not yet have such a facility. If Sony had agreed on the 115-mm disc, Philips would have had a significant competitive edge in the market. Sony decided that something had to be done. The long playing time of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony imposed by Ohga was used to push Philips to accept 120 mm, so that Philips' PolyGram lost its edge on disc fabrication.^[25]

The 74-minute playing time of a CD, which was longer than the 20 minutes per side^[26][27] typical of long-playing (LP) vinyl albums, was often used to the CD's advantage during the early years when CDs and LPs vied for commercial sales. CDs would often be released with one or more bonus tracks, enticing consumers to buy the CD for the extra material. However, attempts to combine double LPs onto one CD occasionally resulted in the opposite situation in which the CD would actually offer fewer tracks than the equivalent LP.

Playing times beyond 74 minutes are achieved by decreasing track pitch beyond the original red book standard. Most players can accommodate the more closely spaced data.^[28] Christian Thielemann's live Deutsche Grammophon recording of Bruckner's Fifth with the Munich Philharmonic in 2004 clocks at 82:34.^[29] The Kirov Orchestra recording of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker conducted by Valery Gergiev and released by Philips/PolyGram Records (catalogue number 462 114) on October 20, 1998, clocks at 81:14.^{[citation needed]} Disc two of Gold (Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Classics 477 743) by Herbert von Karajan clocks in at 81:21.^{[citation needed]} Zubin Mehta's 1975 recording of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the Vienna Philharmonic released on Decca Legends clocks at 81:11.^{[citation needed]} The Mission of Burma compilation album Mission of Burma, released in 1988 by Rykodisc, previously held the record at 80:08.^[30]

Data structure[link]

The smallest entity in a CD is called a frame, which consists of 33 bytes and contains six complete 16-bit stereo samples (two bytes × two channels × six samples = 24 bytes). The other nine bytes consist of eight CIRC error-correction bytes and one subcode byte, used for control and display. Each byte is translated into a 14-bit word using eight-to-fourteen modulation, which alternates with three-bit merging words. In total there are 33 × (14 + 3) = 561 bits. A 27-bit unique synchronization word is added, so that the number of bits in a frame totals 588 (which are decoded to only 192 bits music).

These 588-bit frames are in turn grouped into sectors. Each sector contains 98 frames, totaling 98 × 24 = 2352 bytes of music. The CD is played at a speed of 75 sectors per second, which results in 176,400 bytes per second. Divided by two channels and two bytes per sample, this results in a sample rate of 44,100 samples per second.

For CD-ROM data discs, the physical frame and sector sizes are the same. Since error concealment cannot be applied to non-audio data in case the CIRC error correction fails to recover the user data, a third layer of error correction is defined, reducing the payload to 2048 bytes per sector for the Mode-1 CD-ROM format. To increase the data-rate for Video CD, Mode-2 CD-ROM, the third layer has been omitted, increasing the payload to 2336 user-available bytes per sector, only 16 bytes (for synchronization and header data) less than available in Red-Book audio.

"Frame"[link]

For the Red Book stereo audio CD, the time format is commonly measured in minutes, seconds and frames (mm:ss:ff), where one frame corresponds to one sector, or 1/75th of a second of stereo sound. In this context, the term frame is erroneously applied in editing applications and does not denote the physical frame described above. In editing and extracting, the frame is the smallest addressable time interval for an audio CD, meaning that track start and end positions can only be defined in 1/75 second steps.

Logical structure[link]

The largest entity on a CD is called a track. A CD can contain up to 99 tracks (including a data track for mixed mode discs). Each track can in turn have up to 100 indexes, though players which handle this feature are rarely found outside of pro audio, particularly radio broadcasting. The vast majority of songs are recorded under index 1, with the pre-gap being index 0. Sometimes hidden tracks are placed at the end of the last track of the disc, often using index 2 or 3. This is also the case with some discs offering "101 sound effects", with 100 and 101 being indexed as two and three on track 99. The index, if used, is occasionally put on the track listing as a decimal part of the track number, such as 99.2 or 99.3. (Information Society's Hack was one of very few CD releases to do this, following a release with an equally obscure CD+G feature.) The track and index structure of the CD carried forward to the DVD as title and chapter, respectively.

Manufacturing tolerances[link]

Current manufacturing processes allow an audio CD to contain up to 80 minutes (variable from one replication plant to another) without requiring the content creator to sign a waiver releasing the plant owner from responsibility if the CD produced is marginally or entirely unreadable by some playback equipment. Thus, in current practice, maximum CD playing time has crept higher by reducing minimum engineering tolerances; by and large, this has not unacceptably reduced reliability.

CD-Text[link]

CD-Text is an extension of the Red Book specification for audio CD that allows for storage of additional text information (e.g., album name, song name, artist) on a standards-compliant audio CD. The information is stored either in the lead-in area of the CD, where there is roughly five kilobytes of space available, or in the subcode channels R to W on the disc, which can store about 31 megabytes.

CD + Graphics[link]

Compact Disc + Graphics (CD+G) is a special audio Compact Disc that contains graphics data in addition to the audio data on the disc. The disc can be played on a regular audio CD player, but when played on a special CD+G player, can output a graphics signal (typically, the CD+G player is hooked up to a television set or a computer monitor); these graphics are almost exclusively used to display lyrics on a television set for karaoke performers to sing along with. The CD+G format takes advantage of the channels R through W. These six bits store the graphics information.

CD + Extended Graphics[link]

Compact Disc + Extended Graphics (CD+EG, also known as CD+XG) is an improved variant of the Compact Disc + Graphics (CD+G) format. Like CD+G, CD+EG utilizes basic CD-ROM features to display text and video information in addition to the music being played. This extra data is stored in subcode channels R-W. Very few, if any, CD+EG discs have been published.

Super Audio CD[link]

Super Audio CD (SACD) is a high-resolution read-only optical audio disc format that was designed to provide higher fidelity digital audio reproduction than the Red Book. Introduced in 1999, it was developed by Sony and Philips, the same companies that created the Red Book. SACD was in a format war with DVD-Audio, but neither has replaced audio CDs.

Titles in the SACD format can be issued as hybrid discs; these discs contain the SACD audio stream as well as a standard audio CD layer which is playable in standard CD players, thus making them backward compatible.

CD-MIDI[link]

CD-MIDI is a format used to store music-performance data which upon playback is performed by electronic instruments that synthesize the audio. Hence, unlike Red Book, these recordings are not audio.

CD-ROM[link]

For the first few years of its existence, the CD was a medium used purely for audio. However, in 1985 the Yellow Book CD-ROM standard was established by Sony and Philips, which defined a non-volatile optical data computer data storage medium using the same physical format as audio Compact Discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive.

Video CD (VCD)[link]

Video CD (VCD, View CD, and Compact Disc digital video) is a standard digital format for storing video media on a CD. VCDs are playable in dedicated VCD players, most modern DVD-Video players, personal computers, and some video game consoles.

The VCD standard was created in 1993 by Sony, Philips, Matsushita, and JVC and is referred to as the White Book standard.

Overall picture quality is intended to be comparable to VHS video. Poorly compressed VCD video can sometimes be lower quality than VHS video, but VCD exhibits block artifacts rather than analog noise, and does not deteriorate further with each use, which may be preferable.

352x240 (or SIF) resolution was chosen because it is half the vertical, and half the horizontal resolution of NTSC video. 352x288 is similarly one quarter PAL/SECAM resolution. This approximates the (overall) resolution of an analog VHS tape, which, although it has double the number of (vertical) scan lines, has a much lower horizontal resolution.

Super Video CD[link]

Super Video CD (Super Video Compact Disc or SVCD) is a format used for storing video media on standard Compact Discs. SVCD was intended as a successor to VCD and an alternative to DVD-Video, and falls somewhere between both in terms of technical capability and picture quality.

SVCD has two-thirds the resolution of DVD, and over 2.7 times the resolution of VCD. One CD-R disc can hold up to 60 minutes of standard quality SVCD-format video. While no specific limit on SVCD video length is mandated by the specification, one must lower the video bit rate, and therefore quality, to accommodate very long videos. It is usually difficult to fit much more than 100 minutes of video onto one SVCD without incurring significant quality loss, and many hardware players are unable to play video with an instantaneous bit rate lower than 300 to 600 kilobits per second.

Photo CD[link]

Photo CD is a system designed by Kodak for digitizing and storing photos on a CD. Launched in 1992, the discs were designed to hold nearly 100 high quality images, scanned prints and slides using special proprietary encoding. Photo CDs are defined in the Beige Book and conform to the CD-ROM XA and CD-i Bridge specifications as well. They are intended to play on CD-i players, Photo CD players and any computer with the suitable software irrespective of the operating system. The images can also be printed out on photographic paper with a special Kodak machine. This format is not to be confused with Kodak Picture CD, which is a consumer product in CD-ROM format.

CD-i[link]

The Philips "Green Book" specifies the standard for interactive multimedia Compact Discs designed for CD-i players (1993). This format is unusual because it hides the initial tracks which contains the software and data files used by CD-i players by omitting the tracks from the disc's TOC (table of contents). This causes audio CD players to skip the CD-i data tracks. This is different from the CD-i Ready format, which puts CD-i software and data into the pregap of track 1. CD-i was the leading format of its time but was supplanted by the politics of competition. Philips Interactive Media lead the way in producing breakthrough titles, including the first interactive coloring book, Sesame Street Disc and children's programs, Groliers and Comptoms encyclopedias and many more pathbreaking programs.

Enhanced CD[link]

Enhanced CD, also known as CD Extra and CD Plus, is a certification mark of the Recording Industry Association of America for various technologies that combine audio and computer data for use in both Compact Disc and CD-ROM players.

The primary data formats for Enhanced Compact Disc's are mixed mode (Yellow Book/Red Book), CD-i, hidden track, and multisession (Blue Book).

VinylDisc[link]

VinylDisc is the hybrid of a standard Audio CD and the vinyl record. The vinyl layer on the disc's label side can hold approximately three minutes of music.

Bootable CD[link]

A bootable CD, or Live CD, is a CD that can be used to boot a computer system. The CD can contain an operating system installer (e.g. Windows 2000, Windows XP), or even a full usable operating system, very common in the Linux world, with most distributions, like Ubuntu or Fedora offering fully usable Live CDs.

Manufacture[link]

Replicated CDs are mass-produced initially using a hydraulic press. Small granules of heated raw polycarbonate plastic are fed into the press. A screw forces the liquefied plastic into the mold cavity. The mold closes with a metal stamper in contact with the disc surface. The plastic is allowed to cool and harden. Once opened, the disc substrate is removed from the mold by a robotic arm, and a 15 mm diameter center hole (called a stacking ring) is created. The time it takes to "stamp" one CD, is usually 2 to 3 seconds.

This method produces the clear plastic blank part of the disc. After a metallic reflecting layer (usually aluminum, but sometimes gold or other metal) is applied to the clear blank substrate, the disc goes under a UV light for curing and it is ready to go to press. To prepare to press a CD, a glass master is made, using a high-powered laser on a device similar to a CD writer. The glass master is a positive image of the desired CD surface (with the desired microscopic pits and lands). After testing, it is used to make a die by pressing it against a metal disc.

The die is a negative image of the glass master: typically, several are made, depending on the number of pressing mills that are to make the CD. The die then goes into a press and the physical image is transferred to the blank CD, leaving a final positive image on the disc. A small amount of lacquer is applied as a ring around the center of the disc, and rapid spinning spreads it evenly over the surface. Edge protection lacquer is applied before the disc is finished. The disc can then be printed and packed.

Manufactured CDs that are sold in stores are sealed via a process called "polywrapping" or shrink wrapping.

Recordable CD[link]

700 MB CD-R next to a mechanical pencil

Recordable Compact Discs, CD-Rs, are injection molded with a "blank" data spiral. A photosensitive dye is then applied, after which the discs are metalized and lacquer-coated. The write laser of the CD recorder changes the color of the dye to allow the read laser of a standard CD player to see the data, just as it would with a standard stamped disc. The resulting discs can be read by most CD-ROM drives and played in most audio CD players.

CD-R recordings are designed to be permanent. Over time the dye's physical characteristics may change, however, causing read errors and data loss until the reading device cannot recover with error correction methods. The design life is from 20 to 100 years, depending on the quality of the discs, the quality of the writing drive, and storage conditions. However, testing has demonstrated such degradation of some discs in as little as 18 months under normal storage conditions.^[31][32] This failure is known as CD rot. CD-Rs follow the Orange Book standard.

Recordable audio CD[link]

The recordable audio CD is designed to be used in a consumer audio CD recorder. These consumer audio CD recorders use SCMS (Serial Copy Management System), an early form of digital rights management (DRM), to conform to the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act). The Recordable Audio CD is typically somewhat more expensive than CD-R due to (a) lower volume and (b) a 3% AHRA royalty used to compensate the music industry for the making of a copy.^[33]

High-capacity recordable CD[link]

A higher density recording format that can hold:

• 98.5 minutes of audio on a 12 cm (5 in) disc (compared to about 80 minutes for Red Book audio).
• 30 minutes of audio on an 8 cm (3 in) disc (compared to about 24 minutes for Red Book audio).

ReWritable CD[link]

CD-RW is a re-recordable medium that uses a metallic alloy instead of a dye. The write laser in this case is used to heat and alter the properties (amorphous vs. crystalline) of the alloy, and hence change its reflectivity. A CD-RW does not have as great a difference in reflectivity as a pressed CD or a CD-R, and so many earlier CD audio players cannot read CD-RW discs, although most later CD audio players and stand-alone DVD players can. CD-RWs follow the Orange Book standard.

High-speed ReWritable CD[link]

Due to technical limitations, the original ReWritable CD could be written no faster than 4x speed. High Speed ReWritable CD has a different design that permits writing at speeds ranging from 4x to 12x.

Original CD-RW drives can only write to original ReWritable CDs. High Speed CD-RW drives can typically write to both original ReWritable CDs and High Speed ReWritable CDs. Both types of CD-RW discs can be read in most CD drives.

Higher speed CD-RW discs, Ultra Speed (16x to 24x write speed) and Ultra Speed+ (32x write speed), are now available.

ReWritable Audio CD[link]

The ReWritable Audio CD is designed to be used in a consumer audio CD recorder, which won't (without modification) accept standard CD-RW discs. These consumer audio CD recorders use the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS), an early form of digital rights management (DRM), to conform to the United States' Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA). The ReWritable Audio CD is typically somewhat more expensive than CD-RW due to (a) lower volume and (b) a 3% AHRA royalty used to compensate the music industry for the making of a copy.^[33]

Copy protection[link]

The Red Book audio specification, except for a simple 'anti-copy' bit in the subcode, does not include any copy protection mechanism. Starting in early 2002, attempts were made by record companies to market "copy-protected" non-standard Compact Discs, which cannot be ripped, or copied, to hard drives or easily converted to MP3s. One major drawback to these copy-protected discs is that most will not play on either computer CD-ROM drives, or some standalone CD players that use CD-ROM mechanisms. Philips has stated that such discs are not permitted to bear the trademarked Compact Disc Digital Audio logo because they violate the Red Book specifications. Numerous copy-protection systems have been countered by readily available, often free, software.

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Ecma International. Standard ECMA-130: Data Interchange on Read-only 120 mm Optical Data Disks (CD-ROM), 2nd edition (June 1996).
• Pohlmann, Kenneth C. (1992). The Compact Disc Handbook. Middleton, Wisconsin: A-R Editions. ISBN 0-89579-300-8.
• Peek, Hans et al. (2009) Origins and Successors of the Compact Disc. Springer Science+Business Media B.V. ISBN 978-1-4020-9552-8.
• Hans B. Peek, "The emergence of the compact disc", IEEE Communications Magazine, Jan. 2010, pp. 10–17.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Compact Disc

• Video How Compact Discs are Manufactured
• CD-Recordable FAQ Exhaustive basics on CDs
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Donna Summer
Donna Summer at a recording studio in 1977
Background information
Birth name	LaDonna Adrian Gaines
Also known as	Donna Gaines
Born	(1948-12-31)December 31, 1948 Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Died	May 17, 2012(2012-05-17) (aged 63) Englewood, Florida, U.S.
Genres	Pop, disco, dance-pop, rock
Occupations	Singer, songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, piano
Years active	1969–2012
Labels	Oasis, Casablanca (1975–80), Geffen (1980–88), Atlantic (1988–91), Mercury (1994–96), Warner-Elektra-Atlantic (1980–91), Epic (1999–2001), Burgundy (2006–12)
Associated acts	Giorgio Moroder, Brooklyn Dreams

LaDonna Adrian Gaines (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012),^[1] known by the stage name Donna Summer, was an American singer and songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the late 1970s. She had a mezzo-soprano vocal range, and was a five-time Grammy Award winner. Summer was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the United States Billboard chart, and she also charted four number-one singles in the United States within a 13-month period.

Born into a devoutly Christian lower middle class African American family in Boston, Massachusetts, Summer first became involved with singing through church choir groups before joining a number of bands influenced by the Motown Sound. Influenced by the counterculture of the 1960s, she became the front singer of a psychedelic rock band named Crow and moved to New York City. Joining a touring version of the musical Hair, she spent several years living in West Germany, where she married Helmut Sommer, whose surname she adopted as her stage name.

Returning to the United States, Summer co-wrote the song "Love to Love You Baby" with Pete Bellotte; music producer Giorgio Moroder convinced her to sing it herself, and it was released to mass commercial success in 1975, particularly on the disco scene. Over the following years, Summer followed this success with a string of other disco hits, such as "I Feel Love", "MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff" and "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)". Becoming known as the "Queen of Disco", she regularly appeared at the Studio 54 club in New York City, while her music gained a particularly large following within the gay community, for whom she became a gay icon. Struggling with drug addiction and depression, she subsequently became a born-again Christian.^[2]

Diagnosed with lung cancer, Summer died in May 2012, at her home on Manasota Key in Englewood, Florida, after a battle with the disease. She was posthumously described as the "undisputed queen of the Seventies disco boom" who reached the status of "one of the world's leading female singers."^[2] Her work with Moroder, particularly "I Feel Love", has also been described as "really the start of electronic dance" music, by Moroder himself.^[3]

Early life[link]

Summer was born LaDonna Adrian Gaines on December 31, 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts, to her parents, Andrew and Mary Gaines, and was one of seven children.^[4] She and her family were raised in the Boston neighborhood of Mission Hill. Her father, Andrew Gaines, was a butcher, and her mother Mary, was a schoolteacher.^[5] Summer's mother later recalled that from the time she could talk, Summer would often sing: "She literally loved to sing. She used to go through the house singing, singing. She sang for breakfast and for lunch and for supper."^[5]

Summer's performance debut occurred at church when she was ten years old, when she replaced a vocalist who had failed to show up.^[5] Her priest invited Summer to perform, judging from her small frame and speaking voice that she would be an "amusing spectacle", but instead Summer's voice recalled a voice older than her years and frame.^[5] Summer herself recalled that as she sang, "I started crying, everybody else started crying. It was quite an amazing moment in my life and at some point after I heard my voice came out I felt like God was saying to me 'Donna, you're going to be very, very famous' and I knew from that day on that I would be famous."^[5]

Summer later attended Boston's Jeremiah E. Burke High School, where she performed in school musicals and was considered popular.^[5] She was also something of a troublemaker, skipping home to attend parties, circumventing her parents' strict curfew.^[5] In 1967, just weeks before graduation, Summer left for New York where she was a member of the blues-rock band, Crow. After they were passed by every record label, they agreed to break up. Summer stayed in New York and auditioned for a role in the counterculture musical, Hair. When Melba Moore was cast in the part, Summer agreed to take the role in the Munich production of the show. She moved to Munich, Germany after getting her parents' reluctant approval.^[5]

Summer eventually became fluent in German, singing various songs in German. She participated in the musicals Ich Bin Ich (the German version of The Me Nobody Knows), Godspell and Show Boat. Within three years, she moved to Vienna, Austria and joined the Vienna Volksoper. She briefly toured with an ensemble vocal group called FamilyTree, the creation of producer Guenter "Yogi" Lauke. In 1968, Summer released (as Donna Gaines) on Polydor her first single, a German version of the title Aquarius from the musical Hair, followed in 1971 by a second single, a cover of The Jaynetts' "Sally Go 'Round the Roses", from a one-off European deal with Decca Records.^[6] In 1972, she issued the single, "If You Walkin' Alone" on Philips Records.^[6]

In 1973, she married Austrian actor Helmuth Sommer and had a daughter, Mimi, the same year. Citing marital problems caused by her affair with German artist (and future live-in boyfriend) Peter Mühldorfer, she divorced Helmuth. She kept his last name, but Anglicized it to "Summer". She provided backing vocals on producer-keyboardist Veit Marvos on his 1972 Ariola Records release, Nice to See You, credited as "Gayn Pierre". Several subsequent singles included Summer performing with the group, but she often denied singing on any of the Marvos releases. The name "Gayn Pierre" was also used by Donna while performing in Godspell with Helmuth Sommer during 1972.^[6]

Music career[link]

1974–1979: Initial success[link]

While singing background in a recording session at Munich's Musicland Studios for Three Dog Night, Summer met German-based producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. The trio forged a working partnership and began collaborating on songs together starting in 1974. A demo tape of Summer's work with Moroder and Bellotte led to a deal with the European-distributed label, Groovy Records. The label issued Summer's first album, Lady of the Night. The album became a hit success in selected countries with two songs, "The Hostage" and "Lady of the Night", reaching the top of the charts in countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium.

In mid-1975, while working on another album, Summer passed on an idea for a song that Moroder was working on for another artist in the then-nascent disco sound, writing part of the song and labeling it as "Love to Love You". Summer would later say that she had imagined how Marilyn Monroe would sing this song and demonstrated how she felt Monroe would've approached it. Prior to recording the song and to get into the mood, she requested Moroder to turn off the lights while they sat on a sofa with him inducing her moans and groans. Moroder liked what he heard after hearing its playback and felt Summer's song should be released. The song was then sent to Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart in hopes of getting an American release. Bogart informed Summer and Moroder he would release the song (now called "Love to Love You Baby") but requested that Moroder produce a longer version for discothèques. Moroder, Bellotte, and Summer returned with a 17 minute version and Casablanca signed Summer and released the single in November 1975. The shorter version of the single was promoted to radio stations while clubs regularly played the 17 minute version (the longer version would also appear on the album). Casablanca became one of the first record labels to popularize the 12" single format.

By early 1976, "Love to Love You Baby" had reached No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, while the parent album of the same name sold over a million copies. The song generated controversy due to Summer's moans and groans and some American and European radio stations, including the BBC, refused to play it.^[7] "Love to Love You Baby" found chart success in several European countries, and made the Top 5 in the United Kingdom despite the BBC ban. Other upcoming singles included "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It", US No. 80; "Could It Be Magic", US No. 52; "Spring Affair", US No. 58; and "Winter Melody", US No. 43. The subsequent albums Love Trilogy and Four Seasons of Love both went gold in the US.

In 1977, Summer released the concept album I Remember Yesterday. This album, again co-produced by Moroder and Bellotte, included her second top ten single, "I Feel Love", which reached number six in the US and number one in the UK. Another concept album, also released in 1977, was Once Upon a Time, a double album which told of a modern-day Cinderella "rags to riches" story through the elements of orchestral disco and ballads. This album would also attain gold status. In 1978, Summer released her version of the Jimmy Webb ballad, "MacArthur Park", which became her first US number one hit. The song was featured on Summer's first live album, Live and More, which also became her first album to hit number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, and went platinum selling over a million copies. Other studio tracks included the top ten hit, "Heaven Knows", which featured the group Brooklyn Dreams accompanying her on background and Joe "Bean" Esposito singing alongside her on the verses. Summer would later be romantically involved with Brooklyn Dreams singer Bruce Sudano and the couple married two years after the song's release. Also in 1978, Summer acted in the film, Thank God It's Friday, playing a singer determined to perform at a hot disco club. The film met modest success, but a song from the film, titled "Last Dance", reached number three on the Hot 100 and resulted in Summer winning her first Grammy Award. Its writer, Paul Jabara, won an Academy Award for the composition.

In 1979, Summer performed at the world-televised Music for UNICEF Concert, joining contemporaries such as Abba, Olivia Newton-John, the Bee Gees, Andy Gibb, Rod Stewart, John Denver, Earth, Wind & Fire, Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson for an hour's TV special that raised funds and awareness for the world's children. Artists donated royalties of certain songs, some in perpetuity, to benefit the cause.

[edit] 1979–1980: Bad Girls and the break from disco

Summer began work on her next project with Moroder and Bellotte, Bad Girls, an album that had been in production for nearly two years. Summer based the whole concept on prostitution (revisiting the theme for 1974's Lady of the Night), even dressing as a hooker herself on the cover art.

The album became a huge success, spawning the number one hits "Hot Stuff" and the title track and the number two "Dim All the Lights". With "MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls", and the Barbra Streisand duet "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)", Summer achieved four number one hits within a thirteen month period. Those aforementioned songs, along with "Heaven Knows", "Last Dance", "Dim All the Lights", and "On the Radio" (from her upcoming double-album) would give her eight US Top 5 singles within a two year period. "Hot Stuff" later won her a second Grammy in the Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, the first time the category was included. That year, Summer played eight sold-out nights at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles.

Summer released On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I & II, her first (international) greatest hits set in 1979. The double album reached number one in the United States, becoming her third consecutive number one album. A new song from the compilation, "On the Radio", reached the US top five, selling over a million copies in the United States alone.

1980–1985: Continued success[link]

After the release of the On the Radio hits album, Summer wanted to branch out into other musical styles in addition to disco, which led to tensions between her and Casablanca Records as Casablanca wanted her to continue to record in the disco format while Summer wanted to sing more rock and pop-based music. Sensing that they could no longer come to terms, Summer and the label parted ways in 1980, and she signed with Geffen Records, the new label started by David Geffen.

Summer's first Geffen album, The Wanderer, featured an eclectic mixture of sounds similar to Bad Girls but with only little emphasis on Summer's past disco success, instead, bringing elements of rock, rockabilly, new wave and gospel music. The album continued Summer's streak of gold albums with the title track peaking at No. 3 in the US, though its follow-up singles, "Cold Love" and "Who Do You Think You're Foolin'" were only modestly received.

When Summer presented Geffen with her projected second album, I'm a Rainbow, the label disapproved of its production sensing Moroder's sound had grown stale and advised Summer to change producers, leading to an argument between the artist and the label. Eventually, Moroder and Bellotte and Summer agreed to part ways with Geffen hiring top R&B and pop producer Quincy Jones to produce Summer's next album, the eponymously titled Donna Summer, released in 1982 and which took over six months to record, which was unusual for Summer's recordings. Among its releases included the top ten hit, "Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)", and the more moderately received "State of Independence" (No. 41 pop) and "The Woman in Me" (No. 33 pop). Problems then increased between Summer and Geffen Records after they were notified by Polygram Records, Summer's former label Casablanca was by then a wholly owned subsidiary, that she needed to deliver them one more album to fulfill her contract with them.

Summer delivered the album, She Works Hard for the Money, and Polygram released it on its Mercury imprint in 1983. The title song became a hit reaching number three on the US Hot 100, and would provide Summer with a Grammy nomination. The album also featured the reggae-flavored UK Top 20 hit "Unconditional Love", which featured the British group Musical Youth who were riding high from the success of their single "Pass the Dutchie". The third US single, "Love Has A Mind of Its Own", reached the top forty of the Billboard R&B chart. The album itself was certified gold.

In late 1984, with her obligation to Polygram complete, Summer returned on Geffen Records with her next release. Geffen, wanting to keep the momentum going, enlisted She Works Hard for the Money's producer Michael Omartian to produce Cats Without Claws. The album, however, was not as successful as She Works Hard for the Money and failed to attain gold status in the US, becoming her first album since her 1974 debut not to do so. It did include a moderate hit in The Drifters cover "There Goes My Baby", which peaked at No. 21. Jellybean Benitez remixed two of the songs for the album that were released as 12" singles for club play "Eyes" & "I'm Free".

On January 19, 1985, she sang at the nationally-televised 50th Presidential Inaugural Gala, the day before the second inauguration of Ronald Reagan. She was introduced by Merv Griffin.

Controversy over alleged anti-gay comments[link]

In the mid 1980s, Summer was embroiled in a controversy. She had allegedly made anti-gay remarks regarding the then-relatively new disease, AIDS, which as a result had a significantly negative impact on her career. Summer, by this time a born-again Christian, was alleged to have said that AIDS was a punishment from God for the immoral lifestyles of homosexuals. ^[8][9] However, she denied that she had ever made any such comment and, in a letter to the AIDS campaign group ACT UP in 1989, she said that it was "a terrible misunderstanding. I was unknowingly protected by those around me from the bad press and hate letters... If I have caused you pain, forgive me." She went on to apologize for the delay in refuting the rumours and closed her letter with Bible quotes (from Chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians).^[10]

Also in 1989, Summer told The Advocate magazine that "A couple of the people I write with are gay, and they have been ever since I met them. What people want to do with their bodies is their personal preference."^[11] A couple of years later she filed a lawsuit against New York magazine when it reprinted the rumours as fact just as she was about to release her album Mistaken Identity in 1991.^[12] According to a Biography television program dedicated to Summer in which she participated in 1995, the lawsuit was settled out of court though neither side was able to divulge any details.^[13][14]

1987–1989: Continued success in Europe[link]

In 1987, Summer returned with the album All Systems Go, which did not sell well, becoming her second consecutive album not to achieve gold status. It featured the single "Dinner with Gershwin" (written by Brenda Russell), which was only a minor US hit, though it peaked at No. 13 in the UK. The album's title track, "All Systems Go", was released only in the UK where it peaked at No. 54.

For Summer's next album, Geffen Records hired the British hit production team of Stock Aitken Waterman (or SAW), who had enjoyed incredible success by writing and producing for such acts as Kylie Minogue, Dead or Alive, Bananarama, and Rick Astley among others. However, Geffen decided not to release the album, entitled Another Place and Time, and Summer and Geffen Records parted ways in 1988. The album was released in Europe in March 1989 on Warner Bros. Records, which had been Summer's label in Europe since 1982. The single "This Time I Know It's for Real" had become a top ten hit in several countries in Europe, prompting the Warner Bros. subsidiary company Atlantic Records to sign Summer in the US and pick up the album for a North American release soon after. The single peaked at No. 7 on the Hot 100 in the US, and became her twelfth gold single there. It was also Summer's final Top 40 hit on the American pop charts, though she scored two more UK hits from the album, "I Don't Wanna Get Hurt" (UK No. 7) and "Love's About to Change My Heart" (UK No. 20).

[edit] 1990–1999: Mistaken Identity, acting, and Live & More Encore

In 1990, a Warner compliation, The Best of Donna Summer, was released. The album went gold after the song "State of Independence" had been re-released there to promote the album. The following year, Summer emerged with the album, Mistaken Identity, which included elements of R&B as well as new jack swing. While the album itself failed to become a success, the song "When Love Cries" continued her success on the R&B charts, reaching No. 18. In 1992, Summer embarked on a world tour to promote the album and later that year received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1993, Polygram issued the two-disc set, The Donna Summer Anthology, which included 34 tracks of all of Summer's material with Casablanca and Mercury while also including songs from her tenures with Atlantic and Geffen.

Summer signed with Mercury/Polygram that same year and in 1994, issued the the Christmas album, Christmas Spirit which included renditions of classic Christmas songs such as "O Holy Night" and "Joy To The World", while also including Summer-penned songs as well. Another hits collection, Endless Summer: Greatest Hits, was released, featuring eighteen songs, that were single cuts of the songs differentiating from the Anthology set where fuller length recordings were featured. In 1992, she reunited with Giorgio Moroder recording the dance song, "Carry On", which later won Summer the first Grammy given to anyone in its dance category. The 1995 dance tune "Melody of Love (Wanna Be Loved)" went number-one on the dance charts in the U.S. while becoming a top 30 hit in the UK, peaking at number 21.

During this time, Summer was offered a guest role on the sitcom Family Matters as Steve Urkel's (Jaleel White) Aunt Oona. She made a second appearance in 1997. In 1998, Summer received a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording, being the first to do so, after a remixed version of her 1992 collaboration with Giorgio Moroder, "Carry On", was released in 1997. In 1999, Summer taped a live television special for VH1 titled Donna Summer – Live and More Encore, producing the second highest ratings that year for the network, after their annual Divas special. A CD of the event was released by Epic Records and featured two studio recordings, "I Will Go with You (Con te partirò)" and "Love Is the Healer", both of which reached number one on the US dance charts.

[edit] 2000–2009: Later recordings and Crayons

Summer performing at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 2009

In 2000, Summer participated in VH-1's third annual Divas special, dedicated to Diana Ross, though Summer sung mostly her own material for the show. In 2003, Summer issued her autobiography, Ordinary Girl: The Journey and that same year released a best-of set titled The Journey: The Very Best of Donna Summer. In 2004, Summer was inducted to the Dance Music Hall of Fame alongside the Bee Gees and Barry Gibb as an artist. Her classic song, "I Feel Love", was also inducted that night. In 2004 and 2005, Summer's success on the dance charts continued with the songs "You're So Beautiful" and "I Got Your Love".

Summer, in a 2008 interview with The Daily Telegraph, claimed that one month before the September 11 Attacks she had a premonition that they would occur. Summer was living in Manhattan at the time of the attacks. In the same interview she said for a period of time after the attacks she was so depressed she was unable to leave her bedroom and left her blinds closed.^[15]

In 2008, Summer released her first studio album of fully original material in 17 years, entitled Crayons. Released on the Sony BMG label Burgundy Records, it peaked at No. 17 on the United States Top 200 Album Chart (her highest placing on the chart since 1983), and achieved modest international success. The songs "I'm a Fire", "Stamp Your Feet", and "Fame (The Game)" reached number one on the United States Billboard Dance Chart. The ballad "Sand on My Feet" was released to adult contemporary stations and reached number thirty on that chart. While commenting on the album, Summer said "I wanted this album to have a lot of different directions on it. I did not want it to be any one baby. I just wanted it to be a sampler of flavors and influences from all over the world. There's a touch of this, a little smidgeon of that, a dash of something else...like when you're cooking." On the song "The Queen Is Back", Summer reveals her wry and witty self-awareness of her musical legacy and her public persona. "I'm making fun of myself," she admits. "There's irony, it's poking fun at the idea of being called a queen. That's a title that has followed me, followed me, and followed me. We were sitting and writing and that title kept popping up in my mind and I'm thinking, 'Am I supposed to write this? Is this too arrogant to write?' But people call me 'the queen,' so I guess it's ok to refer to myself as what everybody else refers to me as. We started writing the song and thought it was kind of cute and funny." Summer wrote "The Queen Is Back" and "Mr. Music" with J. R. Rotem and Evan Bogart, the son of Casablanca Records founder, Neil Bogart.

On December 11, 2009, Summer performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, in honor of United States President Barack Obama. She was backed by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.

2010–2012: Final recordings[link]

In August 2010, she released the single "To Paris With Love", co-written with Bruce Roberts and produced by Peter Stengaard. In October 2010, the single reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Dance Chart (it would be her last charted single). Also that month, Summer appeared in the PBS Television Special Hitman Returns: David Foster and Friends. In it, Summer performed with Seal on a medley of the songs "Unbreak My Heart / Crazy / On the Radio", before Summer closed the show with "Last Dance".^[16]

On July 29, 2010, Summer gave an interview with Allvoices.com, wherein she was asked if she would consider doing an album of standards. She replied:

I actually am, probably in September. I will begin work on a standards album. I will probably do an all-out dance album and a standards album. I'm gonna do both, and we will release them however were gonna release them. We are not sure which is going first.^[17]

On September 15, 2010, Summer appeared as a guest celebrity singing alongside rising star Prince Poppycock on the television show America's Got Talent.

On October 16, 2010, she performed at a benefit concert at the Phoenix Symphony.^[18]

On June 6, 2011, Summer was a guest judge on the show, Platinum Hit in week two titled, "Dance Floor Royalty". Platinum Hit is a reality competition series on Bravo launched in 2011, in which 12 singer-songwriters compete through innovative songwriting challenges that test their creativity, patience and drive. Every episode features a different topic, from a dance track to a love ballad, that requires the contestants to write and perform lyrics from a multiple of genres, for a cash prize of $100,000, a publishing deal with songwriting collective The Writing Camp, and a recording deal with RCA/Jive label.

In July 2011, Summer was working at Paramount Recording Studios in Los Angeles with her nephew, the rapper and producer O'Mega Red. Together they worked on a track titled "Angel".

Personal life[link]

LaDonna Gaines was one of seven children born and raised in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood, living on the first floor of a three-decker home. Following her move to Austria in 1971, she met and fell in love with actor Helmuth Sommer while the two were acting in Godspell. In 1973, the couple married^[19] and that year Gaines gave birth to her first child, daughter Mimi Sommer. In 1975, the couple divorced.^[19] Gaines took her husband's last name, translated to English, as her stage name.

In 1978, while working on the hit track, "Heaven Knows" which featured Brooklyn Dreams member Joe "Bean" Esposito on vocals, Summer met fellow member Bruce Sudano. Within a few months, Summer and Sudano became a couple. They married on July 16, 1980. In 1981, Summer gave birth to another daughter (her first child with Sudano), Brooklyn Sudano, named after Sudano's group. In 1982, Summer and Sudano had their second child, Amanda Sudano. (Brooklyn would grow up to star in the hit ABC production My Wife and Kids.)

In 1995, Summer and her family moved from Sherman Oaks, California to Nashville,^[20] where she took time out from show business to focus on painting, a hobby she began back in the 1980s. Also during 1995, Summer's beloved mother, Mary Gaines, died of lung cancer. Her father, Andrew Gaines, died in 2004 of natural causes.

Death and aftermath[link]

Death[link]

Summer died on the morning of May 17, 2012, at her home in Englewood, Florida at the age of 63.^[21][22] She had been diagnosed with lung cancer not related to smoking,^[23][24] reportedly being a non-smoker. She believed she contracted the illness by inhaling toxic particles following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York.^[25][26] Summer is survived by her husband Bruce Sudano, their daughters Brooklyn and Amanda, as well as her daughter Mimi from a previous marriage. Her funeral was held in Nashville, Tennessee on May 23, 2012.^[27] Her body was buried in Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee.^[28]

Reactions[link]

Donna Summer's memorial made by fans in the Castro District, San Francisco

Singers and music industry professionals around the world reacted to Donna Summer's death.^[29][30] Gloria Gaynor, a famous disco performer during the late 1970s,^[31] said that she was "deeply saddened" and that Donna was "a fine lady and human being." Gaynor said she was devastated by the death of her longtime friend, and that she had not known about Summer's cancer.^[32] Harry Wayne Casey of KC and the Sunshine Band said he and Donna "ran in the same circles and are part of the same generation."^[30] Liza Minnelli said, "She was a queen, the queen of disco, and we will be dancing to her music forever." She said that her "thoughts and prayers are with her family always."^[30] Dolly Parton said, "Donna, like Whitney, had one of the greatest voices ever. I loved her records. She was the disco queen, and will remain so. I knew her and found her to be one of the most likable and fun people ever. She will be missed and remembered."^[30] Janet Jackson wrote that Donna "changed the world of music with her beautiful voice and incredible talent."^[30] Barbra Streisand wrote: "I loved doing the duet with her. She had an amazing voice and was so talented. . . It's so sad."^[30] Quincy Jones wrote that Donna's voice was "the heartbeat and soundtrack of a decade."^[30] Aretha Franklin said, "It's so shocking to hear about the passing of Donna Summer. In the 70s, she reigned over the disco era and kept the disco jumping. Who will forget 'Last Dance.' A fine performer and a very nice person."^[33] Chaka Khan said: "Donna and I had a friendship for over 30 years. She is one of the few black women I could speak German with and she is one of the few friends I had in this business."^[33] Gloria Estefan wrote that "It's the end of an era," and posted a photo of herself with Summer.^[33] Elton John said, "I'm so sad. This woman was the queen of disco and so much more. Her records sound as good today as they ever did. That she has never been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a total disgrace, especially when I see the second-rate talent that has been inducted. She is a great friend to me and to the Elton John AIDS Foundation and I will miss her greatly."^[34]

United States President Barack Obama said: "Michelle and I were saddened to hear about the passing of Donna Summer. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Donna truly was the 'Queen of Disco.' Her voice was unforgettable, and the music industry has lost a legend far too soon. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Donna's family and her dedicated fans."^[30][35]

Donna Summer was honored at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards ceremony.^[36][37] Singer Natasha Bedingfield honored Summer, calling her "a remarkable woman who brought so much light, and who inspired many women, including myself through her music. And if we can remember her through her music, this will never really be the last dance." After her statement, she began to sing the "Last Dance", Summer's song that received an Academy Award.^[37] As she sang the song, photos of Summer were displayed on a screen overhead.^[37] Many fans of Summer noticed and were unsatisfied that the Summer's tribute was cut off, supposedly for commercial benefits.^[37]

Fans paid a tribute to Donna by leaving flowers and memorabilia on her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[38] A few days after her death, her album sales increased by a 3,277 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Billboard reported that the week before she died, Summer sold about 1,000 albums. After her death, that number increased to 26,000.^[39]

Funeral[link]

Summer's funeral service was held in the Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee on the afternoon of May 23, 2012.^[27][40][41] The exact location and time of the service was kept secret.^[42] Several hundred of Summer's friends and family appeared at the singer's funeral, according to CNN.^[41] The funeral was a private ceremony^[41] and cameras were not allowed inside the church.^[41] TMZ obtained a copy of Summer's funeral program.^[43][44][45] The program includes a Proverb dedicated to Summer about a "wife of noble character".^[44] According to the program, Pastor Tim Johnson started the service and welcomed the guests.^[44] Afterward, Ricky Gaines, who is a relative of Summer's, gave a speech.^[44] Summer's sisters: Linda Gaines Lotman, Mary Ellen Bernard, Dara Bernard, and Jenette Yancey, performed "We've Come This Far By Faith."^[44] Mary Ellen Bernard performed "Because of Whose You Are".^[44] After that, Rick Dohler, the husband of one of Summer's daughters, gave a speech. Next, Pastor Tim Johnson spoke, again.^[44] The service was closed by David Foster and Natalie Grant performing "The Prayer".^[41][44] Guests left the church, entered their cars, and followed the black hearse with Summer's body to the Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens cemetery in Nashville, where she was buried.^[28][44] Other guests included Giorgio Moroder, who produced several of Summer's hits, and singer Tony Orlando.^[41]

Awards and recognition[link]

Cover versions by other artists[link]

"I Feel Love" has been sampled several times. The song was sampled by artists such as David Guetta, Darren Hayes, Whitney Houston, Madonna, Bette Midler, Moby, Moloko, Mylo, Stuart Price, Diana Ross, Britney Spears, and Robbie Williams. Italian company Gucci used a special version of it in the "Flora" perfume advertising, filmed by Chris Cunningham. "I Feel Love" has been covered onstage by Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' John Frusciante, Kylie Minogue, Blondie, Basement Jaxx, and Finnish progressive rock band Kingston Wall. Venus Hum with Blue Man Group also performed this song with Japanese singer Kumi Koda for their album The Complex, and in 2006, Tracy Bonham stood in for Hum on the Blue Man Group tour, performing the song. Bronski Beat and Marc Almond released the track as a duet with an added bridge section and titled it "I Feel Love/Johnny Remember Me", reaching number 3 in the UK charts in April 1985. In 1992 U.K. alterna-pop group Curve recorded a version for the NME's 40th anniversary compilation Ruby Trax, which became an instant underground classic.

"Love to Love You Baby" was sampled in Beyoncé Knowles's "Naughty Girl" and by TLC on their original version of "I'm Good at Being Bad", but was removed by request of Summer on later editions. The song has been covered in portions onstage by Dionne Warwick. Summer's "Starting Over Again" was a number one hit on the Hot Country Songs chart as a single for Dolly Parton in 1980. It also was a top-forty hit for Parton on the Billboard Hot 100. Reba McEntire named her 1995 album after the song, and McEntire's version hit No. 17 on the country singles chart in 1996. McEntire stated in the album's liner notes that her recording of the song was intended as something of a tribute to Summer and Parton, both artists whom she admired. Summer's "On the Radio" was covered by country artist Emmylou Harris for her 1983 album White Shoes. British singer and actress Martine McCutcheon recorded a version that reached number seven in the UK charts in February 2001.

Legacy[link]

According to longtime synthpop/electropop musician Marc Almond, Donna Summer's collaboration with producer Georgio Moroder "changed the face of music".^[46] Giorgio Moroder himself has stated in a BBC Radio 5 Live interview that her song I Feel Love was "really the start of electronic dance".^[3] Summer was the first artist to have three double albums reach No. 1 on Billboard's album chart: Live and More, Bad Girls, and On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I & II. She became a cultural icon, not only as one of the defining voices of the era, but also as an influence on pop divas ranging from Madonna to Beyoncé. Unlike some other stars of disco who faded as the music became less popular in the 1980s and beyond, Summer was able to grow beyond the genre and later segued to a pop-rock sound. She had one of her biggest hits in the 1980s with "She Works Hard For the Money", which became another anthem, this time for women's rights. Although, Summer was never inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame, she was garnered as Queen of Disco. Summer was the first African American woman to be nominated for an MTV Video Music Award. Summer remained a force on the Billboard Dance/Club Play Songs chart all through her career, fitting, for the Queen of Disco. She notched 14 No. 1s on the chart – all the way up through her most recent hit, 2010's "To Paris With Love". Her last studio album, 2008's Crayons, spun off three No. 1 dance/club hits with "I'm a Fire", "Stamp Your Feet", and "Fame (The Game)". In May 2012, it was announced that "I Feel Love" was included in the list of preserved recordings at the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry.^[47]

Concert tours[link]

Discography[link]

• 1974: Lady of the Night
• 1975: Love to Love You Baby
• 1976: A Love Trilogy
• 1976: Four Seasons of Love
• 1977: I Remember Yesterday
• 1977: Once Upon a Time
• 1979: Bad Girls
• 1980: The Wanderer
• 1981: I'm a Rainbow
• 1982: Donna Summer
• 1983: She Works Hard for the Money
• 1984: Cats Without Claws
• 1987: All Systems Go
• 1989: Another Place and Time
• 1991: Mistaken Identity
• 1994: Christmas Spirit
• 2008: Crayons

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Donna Summer

Wikinews has related news: Disco diva Donna Summer dies at 63

	Book: Donna Summer
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• Official website
• Donna Summer at the Internet Movie Database
• Donna Summer collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Donna Summer collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Works by or about Donna Summer in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Bob Marley
Bob Marley performing in concert, circa 1980.
Background information
Birth name	Robert Nesta Marley
Also known as	Tuff Gong
Born	(1945-02-06)6 February 1945 Nine Mile, Saint Ann, Jamaica
Died	11 May 1981(1981-05-11) (aged 36) Miami, Florida, U.S.
Genres	Reggae, ska, rocksteady
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, saxophone, harmonica, percussion
Years active	1962–1981
Labels	Studio One, Upsetter, Tuff Gong
Associated acts	Bob Marley & The Wailers, Wailers Band, The Upsetters, I Threes
Website	bobmarley.com

Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers (1963–1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience.^[1]

Marley's music was heavily influenced by the social issues of his homeland, and he is considered to have given voice to the specific political and cultural nexus of Jamaica.^[2] His best-known hits include "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Could You Be Loved", "Stir It Up", "Get Up Stand Up", "Jamming", "Redemption Song", "One Love" and, "Three Little Birds",^[3] as well as the posthumous releases "Buffalo Soldier" and "Iron Lion Zion". The compilation album Legend (1984), released three years after his death, is reggae's best-selling album, going ten times Platinum which is also known as one Diamond in the U.S.,^[4] and selling 25 million copies worldwide.^[5][6]

Early life and career[link]

Bob Marley was born in the village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica as Nesta Robert Marley.^[7] A Jamaican passport official would later swap his first and middle names.^[8] His father, Norval Sinclair Marley, was a white Jamaican of mixed and English descent whose family came from Sussex, England. Norval was a captain in the Royal Marines,^{[citation needed]} as well as a plantation overseer, when he married Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then 18 years old.^[9] Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips. In 1955, when Bob Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 70.^[10] Marley faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life. He once reflected:

I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't deh pon nobody's side. Me don't deh pon the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me deh pon God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.^[11]

The Bob Marley House in Nine Mile is a home that he shared with his mother during his youth

Although Marley recognised his mixed ancestry, throughout his life and because of his beliefs, he self-identified as a black African, following the ideas of Pan-African leaders. Marley stated that his two biggest influences were the African-centered Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie. A central theme in Bob Marley's message was the repatriation of black people to Zion, which in his view was Ethiopia, or more generally, Africa.^[12] In songs such as "Black Survivor", "Babylon System", and "Blackman Redemption", Marley sings about the struggles of blacks and Africans against oppression from the West or "Babylon".^[13]

Marley and his step brother Bunny Wailer (Bob's mother had a daughter with Bunny's father, younger sister to both of them) started to play music while he was still at school, which he left at the age of 14 to make music with Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafari. At a jam session with Higgs and Livingston, Marley met Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), who had similar musical ambitions.^[14] In 1962, Marley recorded his first two singles, "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", with local music producer Leslie Kong. These songs, released on the Beverley's label under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell,^[15] attracted little attention. The songs were later re-released on the box set Songs of Freedom, a posthumous collection of Marley's work. Marley was also known to use an Epiphone guitar for much of his career.

Bob Marley Epiphone guitar at his birthplace in Nine Mile, Jamaica.

Bob Marley & The Wailers[link]

1963–1974[link]

Marley in concert in 1980, Zurich, Switzerland

In 1963, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith formed a ska and rocksteady group, calling themselves "The Teenagers". They later changed their name to "The Wailing Rudeboys", then to "The Wailing Wailers", at which point they were discovered by record producer Coxsone Dodd, and finally to "The Wailers". By 1966, Braithwaite, Kelso, and Smith had left The Wailers, leaving the core trio of Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, and Peter Tosh.^[16]

In 1966, Marley married Rita Anderson, and moved near his mother's residence in Wilmington, Delaware in the United States for a short time, during which he worked as a DuPont lab assistant and on the assembly line at a Chrysler plant, under the alias Donald Marley.^[17]