Gloria Gaynor - Stateside Career

Stateside Career

In 1980 and again in 1981, Gaynor released two disco albums which were virtually ignored in the United States due to the backlash against disco, which began late in 1979. The album's singles barely registered on Urban contemporary radio, where disco music remained popular. In 1982, having looked into a wide variety of faiths and religious movements, she became a Christian and began to distance herself from a past she considered to be sinful. She would not release an album in 1982. In 1983, she released an album entitled Gloria Gaynor, in which she rejected disco for mid-tempo R&B and Pop style songs. The album contained a patriotic song called "America" as well as a new version of "I Will Survive". In this new version of "I Will Survive", she changed the lyrics of the song in order to advertise her new conversion to Christianity. The words "It took all the strength I had not to fall apart" were changed to "Only the Lord could give me strength not to fall apart". The album was not a success in the Pop, Dance or Urban markets. This move proved to be a turn off to all other than her devoted fans.

Gaynor would achieve her final success in the '80s with the release of her album I Am Gloria Gaynor in 1984. This was mainly due to the song "I Am What I Am", which became a hit at dance clubs, and then on the Club Play chart in late 1983/early 1984. "I Am What I Am" made Gaynor a gay icon. However, her career went into sharp decline following this hit. She mainly made her living outside of the US where there was never any disco backlash. Her 1986 album, The Power of Gloria Gaynor, was almost entirely composed of cover versions of other songs that were popular at the time. The album was ignored, becoming a commercial failure.