History Music / DonnaSummer

* ''Music/BadGirls'' (1979). Certified platinum. Her best-selling album overall, and called her best.

* ButNotTooBlack: {{Averted|Trope}}, possibly due to her gaining fame in the {{Blaxploitation}} era.

* ''Lady of the Night'' (1974). Two of the song of the albums were modest hits.
* ''Love to Love You Baby'' (1975). Her break-through album, a certified gold album. The album was named after its major song, which became an international hit.

* ''Music/BadGirls'' (1979). Certified platinum. Her best selling album overall, and called her best.

* ''All Systems Go'' (1987). A single song from the album, "Dinner with Gershwin", became a significant hit. Most of of the other songs were considered forgettable, resulting in the album becoming a commercial and critical flop.

* ''Mistaken Identity'' (1991). A commercial flop. A single song of this album, "When Love Cries", became a notable ContemporaryRAndB hit.

* ConceptAlbum: Donna made a few of these during the Seventies and Eighties. ''Four Seasons of Love'' was a short album detailing the stages of a love affair like the changing of seasons, ''I Remember Yesterday'' is an homage to music though the ages to the present and future, and ''Once Upon a Time'' [[CinderellaPlot tells a modern version of the Cinderella story]].
* DownerEnding: "Hostage", from the pre-disco album ''Lady of the Night'', is sung from the point of view of a woman whose husband is kidnapped. Things go FromBadToWorse and by the end of the song she's a widow.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Donna might be known as the queen of disco, but you would never know it listening to her first album, 1974's ''Lady of the Night''. This debut was much more of a rural feeling folk pop record, with some light influences from country of all genres. It wasn't until the followup album, ''Love to Love You Baby'', when her true musical direction was born.

* FemaleEmpowermentSong: "She Works Hard for the Money" praises a woman who works for tips, is needed and cared for by her customers and wonders why some people have everything. The song's chorus is "She works hard for the money so you better treat her right." The song doesn't specify her line of work, but in the MusicVideo of the song she's a harried waitress.

* ''All Systems Go'' (1987). A single song from the album, ''Dinner with Gershwin'', became a significant hit. Most of of the other songs were considered forgettable, resulting in the album becoming a commercial and critical flop.
* ''Another Place and Time'' (1989). A {{Europop}}-style album, a commercial and critical comeback. Certified golden in the United Kingdom, with several of its songs topping the charts across Europe. Curiously, the album underperformed in North America.
* ''Mistaken Identity'' (1991). A commercial flop. A single song of this album, ''When Love Cries'', became a notable ContemporaryRAndB hit.

[=LaDonna=] Gaines was born in UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} and originally trained as a gospel singer before becoming successful in RAndB and {{Pop}} as well. Her big break came when she met producers Music/GiorgioMoroder and Pete Bellotte, who managed her for the rest of TheSeventies, and recorded the single "Love to Love You Baby" (1975). She made several concept albums before reaching her peak with ''Bad Girls'' (1979), a double album that mixed RockAndRoll, {{Funk}}, {{Blues}}, {{Soul}} and ElectronicMusic to massive success. She soon broke from {{Disco}}.

->''"Mommy, what's wrong with the lady on the record? [[TheImmodestOrgasm Why is she moaning?]] Is she hurt?"''

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: "Starting Over Again," a tearjerker ballad she co-wrote with her husband, Bruce Sudano, after reflecting on the divorce of Sudano's parents after 30 years of marriage and what became of them. She recorded her own version as an album track and performed it in concert, but never released her own version as a single because she felt she could never top Music/DollyParton's hit version. In any case, the song is a rare ballad and far different for the disco diva known for high-energy dance songs.

* RearrangeTheSong: Her signature song, ''Love to Love You Baby'' was more or less inspired by ''Je t'aime... moi non plus''(literally meaning ''I Love You... Me Neither''), which was originally performed by Creator/JaneBirkin and her then-lover Music/SergeGainsbourg. A 1969 controversial, but internationally-famous French pop song.

* RearrangeTheSong: Her signature song, ''Love to Love You Baby'' was more or less inspired by ''Je t'aime... moi non plus''(literally meaning ''I Love You... Me Neither''), which was originally performed by British singer and actress Jane Birkin and her then-husband Music/SergeGainsbourg. A 1969 controversial, but internationally-famous French pop song.

* ConceptAlbum: Donna made a few of these during the Seventies and Eighties. ''Four Seasons of Love'' was a short album detailing the stages of a love affair like the changing of seasons, ''I Remember Yesterday'' is an homage to music though the ages to the present and future, and "Once Upon a Time" as a whole tells a modern version of the Cinderella story.