I must say, I kind of enjoyed all her 80s albums more than her 70s albums (which I do love) because her Geffen era gave her a chance to experiment with more styles. The only albums I don't love are from the 90s - "Mistaken Identity" and "Christmas Spirit".
"I prefer fantasy over reality TV - like Fox News" - B.Streisand

jefgg, Donna has so many great albums. The best, in my opinion, are Bad Girls, Once Upon a Time, I Remember Yesterday, The Wanderer and I love her Christmas album, Christmas Spirit.

What are the best Donna Summer studio albums? I usually only buy compilations if the artist is a one hit wonder. And Donna Summer is definitely not one of those.

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Good point about the "Walk Away" compilation looking like a tombstone, and what kind of name is "Walk Away" for a greatest-hits package anyway? Though I must say that is one of my favorite Summer songs, and it should have been a major hit.
I much prefer to have Donna's music in the context and sequencing of the original albums, though I also have many of those compilations because of the remixes, packaging and other flourishes. I love the fact that the songs on the first three sides of the "On the Radio" compilation are mixed, so there's no gap between the tunes. I also think the 12-inch compilation "The Dance Collection" is superb, but I suspect most folks buying that would already have the original albums.

You could be 100% right. They may have released it as separate volumes by the Fall of 1980, when Summer had released 'The Wanderer' and trying to capitalize on that publicity.
Don't forget, just a few months prior (in the Spring of 1980, when Summer went with Geffen) they released 'Walk Away', with the black album cover which (I say
purposely
) looked like 'a tombstone'. It was billed as the 'collector's edititon' and covered her singles from 1977-80. They also released "Walk Away" as a single back then (with no success) a year after it's parent album ("Bad Girls") was released. The album went nowhere, since fans already had all those songs.
I guess they figured one more shot - let's do two single albums of GH ?
"I prefer fantasy over reality TV - like Fox News" - B.Streisand

After thinking about is for a bit, I think it was the double lp for about a year. But I also think sometime around Christmas they broke it up into the silver and gold bordered ones to lower the cost. I don't remember them being full on glossy silver & gold but maybe Casablanca got cheap as the years went on and when they went to budget price lps they just printed white borders. I don't know who makes these kind of decisions (most likely someone at the record co.) but I always said I could do a 100% better job!. All the nice images of Donna from that time, they could have made vol. 1 the original On The Radio cover and the picture from the poster as vol. 2! or even changed the back to a song list and put the back cover artwork from On the Raido (Donna in vintage car) as the cover of vol. 2! It's obvious at Casablanca they only wanted to squeeze every last dollar from her with as little cost as possible!

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned it, but try getting the VH1 DVD/CD compilation. It's a live set she did and she does some of her classics and her voice is perfect, as well as the bad. Sound quality is super.
Donna Summer - VH1 Presents: Live & More Encore!

Though I remember when On The Radio was split up and sold in 2 seperate albums the cover borders were gold and silver, not gray and white.
Now I'm confused so I did a bit of searching
There are sellers on ebay and other auction sites selling these rare vinyl records. Some are still factory sealed, some are not.
Some have BOTH Volume 1 and Volume 2 in the silver (what I called gray) borders. Some have BOTH Volume 1 and Volume 2 in the gold border (which I don't recall at allI just remember there were two different colors, and one was the gray/silver).
Can it be Casablanca released the two separate albums in both borders - making it four different choices for the buyer (S/G; G/S; S/S; G/G)?
Or were there different colored borders/releases in different countries/continents?
OK Beekmanthis is your assignment which may become a 'Mission Impossible!'
One thing is certain
All of them have Volume 1 begin with the 'short version' of 'On The Radio' and end with 'Last Dance'.
All of them have Volume 2 begin with 'MacArthur Park' and end with the long version of 'On The Radio'.
Neither album is/was available on CD.
Paul Ryan's proposal is a budget that goes against the teachings of Jesus.

Yea i guess I am the same generation as you pvd, cause I remember all that too! Though I remember when On The Radio was split up and sold in 2 seperate albums the cover borders were gold and silver, not gray and white. I also have the poster that came with the double album. She was in a white outfit and (ironically) smoking a cigarette through a holder! One thing I noticed on the poster and album (and you can google images "Donna Summer on the radio poster" and see it) was that Donna must have been barefoot because the shoes look like they were added later and look "cartoon-ish"!
I wonder what was up with BOTH Neil Bogart and David Geffen. I have never really heard any negative stories about Donna from any Hollywood people except these two! (Although she had trouble with producers SAW and no follow-up to Another Place.. happened). I think Donna loved to write songs and wanted to sing those songs. She only seemed to come into conflict when it was about her music and image. I've only heard nice things about Donna by others. In fact, Donna worked with Neil's son on her last album Crayons and his wife, Joyce Bogart wrote a lovely tribute to Donna after she died. It seemed like some men wanted to control her and her "Sex Goddess-ness!". Strange since isn't Geffen gay? lol I never heard the "tombstone cover" story but that makes perfect sense knowing the cover of Walk Away (that was always one of my fav cuts from Bad Girls). I know he was insisting she owed him more music and Casablanca/Mercury/Polygram/Universal Music sure re470leased more "Hits" collections than we needed! lol Karma hit both Bogart and Geffen Bogart with the Walk Away mess and Geffen with his shelving Rainbow and the Quincy album and then Donna scoring her biggest 80's hit (She Works Hard..) for her old label the following year! HA!

Thanks so much for sharing! I'm 33, but grew up listening to Donna's songs, especially from the She Works Hard for the Money album, which my older sister owned on vinyl and I still treasure very dearly.
Over the years, once I started to go dancing at nightclubs and such, I began to know more of her work, and loved all of her songs. Every Saturday night (I'm talking about late '90s, early '00s) the nightclub I used to go to would play "Bad Girls", "Hot Stuff" and "I Feel Love", which was my most favorite given its ethereal, hypnotic atmosphere. I haven't gone to dance in a few months, but I'm sure most nightclubs around here are still playing his songs even more often now, after her passing.
As for the compilations, I first thought of getting "Greatest Hits -'On The Radio' - Volumes 1 & 2", but I noticed that it includes edit versions more than anything else, just like "The Journey". I think I might purchase both in a near future because of its beautiful art-covers though!
Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop

OK - this is trivia for the old folks like me who were a teenager when most of her 70s music was out (I think Beekham is from my generation? : ) )
"Greatest Hits -'On The Radio' - Volumes 1 & 2" was first released as the double LP (though oddly no gatefold cover like 'Bad Girls' or 'Live and More'). It was the beautiful purple/fuchia art-deco cover and released in November, 1979 (in time to capitalize on 'No More Tears' and the Christmas season). Trivia
The inside of the album jacket contained a wall-size poster of Summer. It was about three feet long and two feet wide. It was an out-take from the photo session. I still have mine (though with a few rips in the creases and tape marks over it) tucked inside the jacket cover.
The album was later released as 2 separate records in December 1979/January 1980. The original cover photo was cropped, and "Greatest Hits On the Radio Volume 1" had (I believe) a white border around it, while "Greatest Hits On The Radio Volume 2" had a gray border around it. Volume 1 had most of her hits from 1975 - 1977 with the single edit of 'On The Radio', while Volume 2 had 1978-1979 hits, with the extended version of 'On The Radio'.
I never bought the two separate vinyl records, so I don't know if they used the full edits of the songs or the shortened edits like on the double LP (beckham, anyone - any info?). Though they were more moderately priced than a double LP, I don't think the separate editions sold as well as the double LP. I remember seeing them in stores until the mid 80s, when the CD revolution began. To my knowledge, the separate volumes were never released on CD.
Also, when Summer left Casablanca for Geffen in early 1980, Neil Bogart was none too happy and had something planned to steal Summer's thunder away from Geffen. When she released the highly anticipated album 'The Wanderer' in October 1980, as well as the title track as the first single that same month, Bogart released another hits package from Summer called "Walk Away: 1977-1980 Collector's Edition".2000 It was a dreary black cover with gold lettering, and became known (purposely) as 'The Tombstone Cover' since this is exactly what it looked like (it was a subtle hint from Bogart to let Summer know her career was 'dead' without him at the helm and she 'walked away' from her contract with Casablanca). It contained Summer's hits from 1977-1980, with the extended versions (unlike the previous 'GHOTR-V1&2') of most of her songs, including the single 'Walk Away' from her 'Bad Girls' LP.
'Walk Away' didn't do well at all on the singles chart ( I think it peaked in the 60s), as 'The Wanderer' rose to #3. The album 'Walk Away' didn't do that well either, I believe just grazing the Hot 100 albums, while 'The Wanderer' peaked at #13.
You could say this ploy by Bogart completely backfired on him.
Paul Ryan's proposal is a budget that goes against the teachings of Jesus.

Well, thank you for such a nice, detailed answer! The CDs are arriving in about 10-12 days, and I'm eagerly waiting for them! Donna was such a wonderful artist, and I'd love to own everything she did in the '70s and early '80s. Too bad that her I'm a Rainbow album got out of print. My most favorite song of hers is in it: Romeo, just like another that I love: Melanie.
I guess I'll have to end up buying I Remember Yesterday from iTunes, even though I'm from the "old school" and prefer to own the material thing, I mean the CD, and don't want to buy one that is used, LOL.
I just hope that some DVD including all of her videos will be released some time, as well. I've been watching them on YouTube, but I'd love to see them in HD and on TV!
Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop

Many of Donna's songs seem to have an odd fade-out because (as you will discover when you listen to her wonderful albums in full) they were mixed to be an album side of non-stop music for dancing! I have the 3 disc import you spoke about and none of the fade outs distract that much from the music itself, you will enjoy it.
I also love the others you chose. Her first 2 albums (Love To Love You Baby and A Love Trilogy) each featured one side with a 16-17 minute song on side one and filler (good filler) on side 2. Though Love Trilogy has the edge with Could It Be Magic (still, Pandora's Box from her first lp is a fav of mine). Her 3rd lp Four Seasons Of Love was the first concept album she did.. very good! You should buy her 4th album I Remember Yesterday since you like the 2 songs from it and would hear them in the long mix. The first side (I Remember Yesterday, Love's Unkind and Back In Love Again) is supposed to be a throw-back to music from the 40's, 50's and 60's respectably But I'll go one step further side 2, in my eyes, continues though the decades (strange since this was 1977). Black Lady is very 70's sounding and reminds me of the stuff Cher would do (Dark Lady, Half-Breed) or a make a good Chicago song. Take Me has that Brit-Pop 80's sound like Erasure and ABC. One of her best ballads, Can't We Just Sit Down(and Talk It Over) would fit right in with the power ballads of the 90's like Gloria Estefan and Celine Dion, Last but not least (duh) comes the legendary last track, I Feel Love which seemed take us through the next millennium and beyond!!! You MUST buy I Remember Yesterday too! It's available on itunes for $7.99!
Bad Girls and Once Upon A Time are similar in song sequence, with Bad Girls having a more rock sound (her first time recording in L.A.) and Once.. sounding more synth like earlier stuff she re2000corded in Europe. Both are A+ to me!
The Dance Collection is somewhat repeated on the disc 2 of Bad Girls deluxe edition. I read somewhere there are acutally 2 versions of MacArthur Park Suite. One where I read the song One Of A Kind hand claps section was replaced by a longer version of another track (maybe someone else knows more). Either way, the time listed on my Dance collection was 17:47 and the time itunes shows for the version on Bad Girls deluxe is 17:35.The rest looks exactly the same, I would just download the track With You Love from the Dance Collection from itunes for .99 cents and you won't need to buy the whole cd.

I've always adored Donna, but the only of her albums I own is "She Works Hard for the Money" on vinyl. After her passing, I've been listening sistematically to her songs on YouTube and realized how wonderful an artist she was. I found so many incredible songs, so I just ordered some of her albums on CD from Amazon.
I've read that some of her early work hasn't been remastered, then I thought it would be better starting by some compilation which has good sound quality. After reading reviews from users, I decided to go for "The Ultimate Collection", which seems to be about to get out of print and, according to I've read, contains the amazing full-lenght version of "Love to Love You Baby".
However, I'm a bit worried after reading that it has some odd fade-out at the end of two of my favorite songs: "I Remember Yesterday" and "Love's Unkind". I just hope they're not too drastic or noticeable. I would have ordered the "I Remember Yesterday" album, but it got out of print and a new copy from an external seller is truly overpriced. (By the way, why the extended version of "Love's Unkind" hasn't been released on CD? I was surprised that even the album contains only the 4 mins version. It's a great song, and I'd love to have it with a nice sound quality).
Finally, I couldn't helped ordering "A Love Trilogy", "Four Seasons of Love", the deluxe edition of "Bad Girls" and "Once Upon a Time", as well, since these albums contain so many beautiful songs that are not included on any compilation. I was about to order "The Dance Collection", but then realized that it contains almost the same songs as the second disc of the special edition of "Bad Girls", except for "With Your Love", or am I wrong?
Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop

GOLD is also the closest collection to the 2 disc Donna Summer Anthology which is actually the best collection of hers ever released and the closest we've come to a box set (rarities and unreleased material).
I'm a little sad that there have been no rush jobs by now. Universal Music owns most (if not all) of the classic albums. I've read Donna herself owned the rights to the last couple of releases. One thing that impressed me is that itunes now has her first "first" album Lady Of The Night available since her death. I saw a story online that the week after her death her sales were up over 3000%!!! Amazing considering the fact her first 8 releases are in print along with a few collctions, but much of her most sought after albums still reamain out of print. I hit the local Best Buy that Thursday and they only had 1 copy of Crayons and 3 copies of the collection The Journey. I'm sure they were gone that day.

I like the GOLD collection because it collects all her post-1991 singles/bonus tracks that were added to her previous greatest hits packages.

With the exception of the title track, I really didn't like "On The Radio" 1&2, they were shortened, and the best parts the song were cut out, which I think had more to do with it being released in the early eighties, as they were getting rid of disco, and so I could feel the sentiment with this album, and I just didn't like it, the tracks sounded heavy, not smooth like the album the versions or the ones on her Anthology album in 93, I ended up reselling my copy to a used music store.

The problem with "Greatest Hits - On The Radio - Volumes 1 & 2" is that the songs are edited down in such a way that at times it's not enjoyable (they don't even use the radio edits on some hits - like 'Bad Girls'). The reason they did this was to include as many songs as possible on one side of vinyl.***
As for Summer's Geffen catalog (1980-82/1984-87) and Atlantic recordings (1989-91), she bought back her catalog in the late 90s'/early 00sand it is now in the hands of her 'estate'. The only songs which she had licensed out to her 'compilation' packages over the past decade were her 'singles'. Apparently, there are NO PLANS for the estate to re-release the Geffen and Atlantic works any time soon. (Which is a pity, since there are so many songs which have leaked out over the years - "Sometimes Like Butterflies" and "Tearin' Down These Walls" and deserve a CD release as 'bonus' tracks on the albums they were recorded for back then).
If anyone is looking to buy 'Bad Girls' invest the money (about $25) for the 2003 release: "Bad Girls : Deluxe Edition". There are no 'bonus tracks' from the recordings (except for the 'demo' of Bad Girls from 1978), but disc two also has the extended 'No More Tears' as well as other 12" singles included.
***Trivia: "Greatest Hits - On the Radio - Volumes 1 & 2" was just that. What I mean is, when it was released Summer had radio hits as well as club hits. On this collection, she included her radio hits (actually, radio 'singles' since not all were big hits) only, and left off some of her big club hits such as 'Down Deep Inside' and 'With Your Love'.
'Down Deep Inside' was added to 'Live & More' on CD, and 'With Your Love' can be found on the 1987 (now OOP) CD 'The Dance Collection'.
Paul Ryan's proposal is a budget that goes against the teachings of Jesus.

Honestly there are too many great tracks that could easily have been singles which have never featured on any of the compilations.
My advice: as a primer, buy Bad Girls, listen right through it a handful of times and if you're hooked then see how many tracks are on it that you wouldn't get anywhere else!
Then head in this direction: Once Upon a Time (1977), Donna Summer (1982), Love to Love You Baby (1976), A Love Trilogy (1976), I Remember Yesterday (1977), Four Seasons of Love (1976)

I had not thought about it that way, but the Anthology has been the best one I have had so far. But I agree with you, with her passing there has to be something great planned, another song that I loved and should be included in that definitive collection is "I Got Your Love" that beat is cool.

I have Anthology but I hate to say this, but since Donna Summer's passing, I'm sure the record company is working on a definitive collection. I would wait. I do have to agree with what others have said. Donna also had some great "non-single" songs. Example: The Dance Collection has With Your Love & Walk Away, which are great songs. Once Upon a Time has Faster & Faster & few other good songs & Love Trilogy has Wasted and Come With Me (which I love). Hope that helps!

Her 1993 two disc anthology is one of the best I have had the pleasure of owning, great pictures, liner notes, and the songs are released in the format that they were when they first came out, the "12 single versions and the way one songs interacts with the other is cool. It is currently out-of-print, but Amazon.com has used versions of this disc you can get for a fairly reasonable price.

I agree - Donna was an excellent rock and roller. She never got the credit, although she won a Grammy for Best Rock Female Vocal for "Hot Stuff". "Cold Love" is awesome.