Donna Summer may have been referred to as the Queen of Disco, but her Billboard chart hits weren’t confined to the so-called “disco era” of the late 1970s.
While she earned a string of smash singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the ’70s — many produced by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte — she continued to chart hits on into ’80s, ’90s, ’00s and ’10s.
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Summer earned a total of 32 hit singles on the Hot 100 in her lifetime, with 14 of those reaching the top 10. She claimed a top 40 hit every year from 1976 and 1984. And, between 1976 and the end of 1982, she had more top 10 hits — 12 — than any other act.
Her very first entry on the Hot 100 was the epic “Love to Love You Baby” in 1976, which spent two weeks at No. 2. (The 17-minute long song was edited down to a more radio-friendly length of 4:57.)
Her biggest singles include her four No. 1s “MacArthur Park,” “Hot Stuff,” “Bad Girls” and “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” (with Barbra Streisand). On June 30, 1979, when “Hot Stuff” descended 1-2 and “Bad Girls” moved up 5-3, Summer became the first woman to have two singles in the Hot 100’s top three at the same time.
After a successful streak of hits in the late ’70s and very early ’80s, she returned to the Hot 100’s top 10 in 1983 with the No. 3 anthem “She Works Hard For the Money.” She claimed her final top 10 in 1989 with the Stock-Aitken-Waterman-produced “This Time I Know It’s For Real” (No. 7).
Her most recent Hot 100 hit came in 1999 with “I Will Go With You (Con Te Partiro),” which reached No. 79.
While her fortunes on the Hot 100 waned through the past few decades, Summer remained a force on the Billboard Dance/Club Play Songs chart her entire career. Appropriate, for the Queen of Disco.
She notched 14 No. 1s on the chart, including her most recent hit, 2010’s “To Paris With Love.” Her last studio album, 2008’s “Crayons,” spun off three No. 1 Dance/Club Songs hits with “I’m a Fire,” “Stamp Your Feet” and “Fame (The Game).”
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On the Billboard 200 albums chart, she claimed three consecutive No. 1 albums between 1978 and 1980 with “Live and More,” “Bad Girls” and “On the Radio – Greatest Hits Volumes I & II.” She collected further top 20 albums with 1980’s “The Wanderer” (No. 13), 1982’s self-titled set (No. 20), 1983’s “She Works Hard for the Money” (No. 9) and “Crayons” (No. 17).
Donna Summer’s Top 20 Billboard Hot 100 Hits:
Rank – Title – (Year) – Hot 100 Peak Position
1. “Hot Stuff” – 1979 – No. 1 (for 3 weeks)
2. “Bad Girls” – 1979 – No. 1 (5 weeks)
3. “MacArthur Park” – 1979 – No. 1 (3 weeks)
4. “Love to Love You Baby” – 1976 – No. 2
5. “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” (Barbra Streisand/Donna Summer) – 1979 – No. 1 (2 weeks)
6. “Dim All the Lights” – 1979 – No. 2
7. “She Works Hard For the Money” – 1983 – No. 3
8. “Last Dance” – 1978 – No. 3
9. “The Wanderer” – 1980 – No. 3
10. “Heaven Knows” (with Brooklyn Dreams) – 1979 – No. 4
11. “On the Radio” – 1980 – No. 5
12. “I Feel Love” – 1977 – No. 6
13. “This Time I Know It’s For Real” – 1989 – No. 7
14. “Love Is In Control (Finger On the Trigger)” – 1982 – No. 10
15. “There Goes My Baby” – 1984 – No. 21
16. “The Woman In Me” – 1983 – No. 33
17. “Cold Love” – 1981 – No. 33
18. “Spring Affair/Winter Melody” – 1977 – No. 43
19. “Walk Away” – 1980 – No. 36
20. “I Love You” – 1978 – No. 37
Donna Summer’s top Hot 100 hits ranking is based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart. Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least. To ensure equitable representation of the biggest hits from each era, certain time frames were weighted to account for the difference between turnover rates from those years.