Donna Summer

The voice of Donna Summer was not just an instrument: it was a bridge between the blues of her childhood in Boston and the disco that would redefine popular music. From church choirs to her time in psychedelic rock with the band Crow, her sound always sought the sensual without losing its rawness. But it was in Munich, between the stages of the musical Hair and Giorgio Moroder’s studios, where she found her essence: melodies that float over obsessive rhythms, as if the body danced before the mind could even think it. That contrast between the warmth of her register and the coldness of synthesizers marked a turning point in the 70s, when disco didn’t yet have a name but already pulsed in every note of Love to Love You Baby.

Her leap to fame came when Casablanca Records bet on that track in 1975. What in Europe was an underground success exploded in the United States the following year: the single reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became the first major anthem of an artist who, unintentionally, earned the nickname "First Lady of Love." The next three albums —Love to Love You Baby, A Love Trilogy, and Four Seasons of Love— sold millions, but it was I Remember Yesterday (1977) that changed the rules. With I Feel Love, Summer proved that the future of pop wasn’t in the strings of an orchestra, but in the hum of a synthesizer: a bassline that repeats like an eternal heartbeat and a voice that seems to float above it. The track reached the top 10 in the U.S. and number 1 in the U.K., cementing her place in history.