She Works Hard for the Money is the eleventh studio album by Donna Summer, released on June 13, 1983. It was her most successful album of the decade, and its title track became one of the biggest hits of her career.
Background and releases
After emerging on Casablanca Records as the foremost female star of the disco era of the 1970s, Summer in 1980 had sued for release from Casablanca to sign with David Geffen as the inaugural artist for his Geffen label where her recordings were a comparatively modest success: also Summer and David Geffen developed a contentious relationship evidenced by Summer's 1981 album I'm a Rainbow being shelved and the singer being forced by Geffen to leave her longtime producer Giorgio Moroder to record the 1982 album Donna Summer with Quincy Jones. Recent litigation had determined that Summer still owed Casablanca Records an album. Donna decided to go with Michael Omartian as producer to fulfill the contract. PolyGram issued these tracks on the Mercury label as She Works Hard for the Money with the title cut issued as advance single on May 10, 1983: the "She Works Hard for the Money" single became Summer's biggest hit since 1979 with a #3 peak on the Hot 100 in Billboard where it also spent three weeks at #1 on the R&B chart with this success impelling its parent album, released June 13, 1983, to #9. She Works Hard for the Money was more pop/dance oriented than the two precedent Donna Summer albums, but also contained some soulful ballads, including "Love Has a Mind of Its Own", a duet with gospel singer Matthew Ward. It also contained a reggae-styled song called "Unconditional Love" which featured vocals by young black British group Musical Youth. Lyrically, the album dealt with subjects such as social injustice, Jesus Christ and missing children. Many fans saw the album as a "return to form" for Summer – she was once again presented as a strong, powerful woman very much in control. During the 1970s, Summer's management had worked hard to portray her as a powerful, sexual fantasy figure to the point where they had become too involved in her personal life. Since the disco era, Summer had experimented with different genres including new wave and rock, and some felt she had got a little "lost" in trying to find her musical place in the new decade. She Works Hard for the Money was universally acclaimed by music reviews and the album had helped establish her place as a 1980s pop/dance diva. Summer was credited with writing or co-writing every track on the album, mostly alongside Michael Omartian, who was also the album's producer. It became her first Top 10 album in the U.S. since 1979 and produced a massively successful hit single in the form of the title track. The sleeve of the single and album pictured Summer as a waitress who "works hard for the money" and the song was a tribute to "the working woman". The reverse side of the album also features Onetta Johnson, a bathroom attendant who worked at the iconic Los Angeles restaurant Chasen's whom Summer had encountered in the ladies' room and was the inspiration for the song itself. It was accompanied by a high-profile music video which became heavily promoted on MTV, soon after the breakthrough of Michael Jackson's success on the channel, leading the way for other black artists to be played. The song shot to Number 3 on the Hot 100 American singles chart, making it her biggest hit there since "The Wanderer" three years previously. The song was also given a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Several more singles were released from the album. The aforementioned "Unconditional Love" gave Summer her fourteenth UK Top 20 hit and peaked at #9 on the U.S. R&B chart. "Stop, Look and Listen" peaked at #57 on the UK Music Chart. The soulful duet "Love Has a Mind of Its Own" with Matthew Ward peaked at #70 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #35 on the Billboard R&B Hits chart. The song "He's a Rebel" gained Summer the Grammy award for Best Inspirational Performance, her first win since 1980. The album's closing ballad "I Do Believe " was featured in the Netflix original seriesStranger Things 2 in 2017.
