Donna Summer: On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I & II, 1979

You want an Imperial Phase? I'll show you an Imperial Phase

In October 1979, Donna Summer, then riding one of the hottest chart streaks the charts had ever seen, released the double greatest hits album On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I & II. The following month, she notched these chart milestones:
-She became the first female artist with 5 top 10 singles in one year on 11/3.
-She became the first female artist with 5 top 5 singles in one year on 11/17 — including locking down 2 of top 3 for the 2nd time.
-She became the first female artist with 3 #1 singles in a calendar year on 11/24.

As if that weren’t enough, the first week of January 1980, On the Radio hit #1 on the Billboard album chart, making Summer the first artist of any gender to top the chart with three consecutive double albums, following 1978’s Live and More and 1979’s Bad Girls. Chew on that for a moment; Summer topped the pop album chart with a double live, double studio album, and double hits. That’s power. That’s an Imperial Phase.

On the Radio the album featured two songs that had never been on a Summer album: the title track, recorded for the Jodie Foster film Foxes, and the Barbra Streisand duet “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough),” which was on the verge of topping the Hot 100. (It was her third #1 of ‘79 as referenced above.) Here’s the magnificent 11:44 12” version, because if you’re going to listen to this diva summit disco fantasia, why wouldn’t you listen to the 12” version?

The rest of On the Radio featured, as it said, not one but two volumes of Summer’s greatest hits of the 1970s, running from 1975’s “Love to Love You Baby” up to the then-present. Almost every track here topped the Dance/Disco chart, and many of them were big pop hits as well; a full five featured from her most recent album, the #1 Bad Girls. Additionally, sides 1-3 were lightly mixed together for maximum dancing pleasure — and what pleasure they offer.

This double album is the only evidence anyone should need of Summer’s late ‘70s dominance, not just in chart terms but artistically. So many of the singles collected here are simply titanic, from the world-changing “I Feel Love” (on which Summer and collaborators Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte kinda created techno) to the genius rock-disco hybrid of “Hot Stuff.” She even almost makes “MacArthur Park” make sense! Her voice, of course, impresses throughout: she was a technically brilliant, yet still emotional singer, who could also belt any time that was required.

Most of these songs are even better in their extended versions; On the Radio largely uses edits, in order to fit 16 songs across four sides of vinyl. But even hearing these songs truncated in this context makes a fine argument for Summer as one of the most important artists of the ‘70s. She’d continue to have here-and-there hits in the ‘80s, and in chart terms was strictly a dancefloor diva from the ‘90s until her death in 2012, but in the ‘70s she was nigh on untouchable. One of the greatest vocalists of all time making some of the greatest records of all time — check the resume: besides those I’ve already mentioned there’s “Love to Love You Baby,” “Bad Girls,” “Last Dance”… she even makes a ‘40s/disco fusion work on “I Remember Yesterday”! — means that On the Radio should have a place on anyone’s Mount Olympus of records. This is an awe-inspiring overview of Summer’s Imperial Phase, and is pure listening pleasure to boot. What a goddess.