Donna Summer On The Radio

This album is a terrific compilation of Donna Summer's greatest hits. The album has primarily the disco songs that made her a smash success such as "Love To Love You Baby," "Hot Stuff," "Bad Girls," "Last Dance," and "Dim All The Lights." You also get her classic duet with Barbra Streisand, "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough);" and a group called Brooklyn Dreams helped Donna out on background vocals for "Heaven Knows." There are twenty (yes, twenty) songs on this single CD, so you don't get many 12" extended versions of the songs. To compensate for that loss, however, there is a second bonus CD included inside the jewel case with remixes of some great songs including "Hot Stuff," "I Feel Love," and "You're So Beautiful."

Donna Summer's contribution to Universal's mid-priced 20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection series is a decent, concise look at the queen of disco's career, including such natural choices as "Love to Love You Baby," "I Feel Love," "Bad Girls," "Hot Stuff," and "On the Radio," as well as early-'80s hits like "She Works Hard for the Money" and "Love Is in Control." 1995's Endless Summer remains the best single-disc introduction, since it covers more territory, presents a more rounded look, and includes many other singles that charted, but this works perfectly for those who want to stick to the basics.

Ladonna Gaines moved from her hometown of Boston to live and work in Munich in 1968, appearing in the musicals Hair and Porgy and Bess. It was during her time here that she met her husband Helmut Summer, their marriage giving her the opportunity to change her name to Donna Summer. Her first big hit was Love to Love You Baby which became an international smash and featured her sighing vocal over a disco beat. I Feel Love was her next major success and along with her screen debut in the awful disco film Thank God it’s Friday, which gained her an Oscar for the song Last Dance, she was now recognised as the true diva of disco. The ‘70s also saw her release the hits MacArthur Park, Hot Stuff, Bad Girls and No More Tears (Enough is Enough) with Barbra Streisand.