The Donna Summer

The Donna Summer Anthology is a double compilation album by the American singer Donna Summer, released by Polygram Records in 1993. The compilation featured the majority of Summer's best known songs right from the start of her success to the present day. Summer had originally made her name during the disco era in the 1970s and in the decade that followed had experimented with different styles. Most of the tracks on this compilation are the original album versions of the songs, which were sometimes edited down for their release as a single. Included for the first time are two remixed tracks from her then previously unreleased I'm a Rainbow album, which had been recorded in 1981 but had been shelved by her record company at the time.

Gold is one of Donna Summer's greatest hits compilations. Donna Summer's entry in Universal Music's two-disc compilation series Gold is more or less a re-release of 1993's The Donna Summer Anthology, with the most noticeable differences being the cover art and that Gold includes four of her 1990s Club and R&B hits, which came out after the Anthology. Also, other 1980s European hits, such as "Dinner With Gershwin", and the 7 inch remix of "Love's About to Change My Heart", that were not included on the Anthology, are present here.

This limited edition CD box set collates the six subsequent albums originally released on Geffen Records and Atlantic Records (‘The Wanderer’, ‘Donna Summer’, ‘Cats Without Claws’, ‘All Systems Go’, ‘Another Place And Time’ and ‘Mistaken Identity’), as well as the ‘initially shelved’ 1981 album (‘I’m A Rainbow’) that was first released in its entirety in 1996. Also included within the box are six individual postcards, produced from Family approved photographs from Donna Summer’s archives, stylised to compliment the CD outer box.

It's September 1981 and it's matter of weeks away from the release of I'm A Rainbow, the second album Donna Summer had recorded for Geffen Records, which had been produced by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. At the time that the album was being recorded, the musical landscape had changed and production techniques were developing further. Geffen also wanted a more R&B-influenced album, despite the album having a more R&B feel than The Wanderer had done. The songs and their lyrical content were very strong and Donna's voice had never sounded better, which was always a tough comparison against previous albums. A decision was taken by the label to withdraw I'm A Rainbow just prior to it's release.