Gloria Gaynor’s girl-power anthem “I Will Survive” topped the charts 30 years ago next year, and as the anniversary approaches, the disco queen is preparing a new version. “It’ll be a modern recording with the original arrangement,” she said at the City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage Gala. No big-shot producers, no fancy effects, just musicians in the studio with state-of-the-art equipment. “Years ago, you got the spontaneous creativity that happened between live musicians,” she said. “You cannot get that from machines or producers working on their computers.” So why redo it? “Thirty years later, everything sounds better,” she said. Will fans notice the difference? “They’ll know they like it better,” she said. “It’s like the difference between an old television and HDTV.”

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Jada Yuan
• Table of Contents: Aug 18, 2008 issue of New York | Subscribe!