Bad Girls and the break from disco

In 1979, Summer released the landmark double-album Bad Girls. Unlike other disco albums, it mixed Rock, Funk, Blues, and Soul into electronic Disco beats. It yielded three consecutive million-selling singles: the back-to-back #1 hits Hot Stuff and Bad Girls, and the #2 hit Dim All The Lights. Bad Girls also became Donna's first #1 song on Billboard's R&B singles chart. With US record sales at an all-time apex in 1979, Summer cashed in considerably with a total of five straight US Gold singles (three of which went on to Platinum status) that year alone. Hot Stuff won Summer a second Grammy, for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Bad Girls became Summer's second #1 album and the most successful one of her entire career, selling nearly three million copies in the US and an estimated ten million worldwide. Once again, Summer's music was years ahead of its time, and elements of Bad Girls would surface in the 1980s from such artists as the Madonna, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics, the late Laura Branigan and many other new wave and techno bands. Donna and Bruce Sudano grew closer during the making of this album and became engaged. During this period, Summer became the first woman ever to have two songs in the top three of Billboard's Hot 100 during the same week, with Bad Girls and Hot Stuff. Just a few months later, she accomplished the same feat again, with No More Tears and Dim All the Lights. During the summer of 1979, she played an astounding eight sold-out nights at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles.

Summer's first compilation album, On The Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes 1 & 2, was a global smash and her third straight #1 US album - also going multi-platinum. With this, Summer became the first artist to have three consecutive number-one double-albums. The album also contained two new tracks - No More Tears (Enough Is Enough), a Platinum-selling #1 duet with Barbra Streisand, and the Grammy-nominated Top Five Gold hit On the Radio, a song written for the film Foxes. The Streisand-Summer duet was Donna's fourth and final #1 Pop hit in the U.S. Afterwards, disagreements and fractions between Summer and Casablanca Records led to her exit from the label in 1980. Summer was given a lucrative offer by David Geffen and became the first artist to be signed to his new Geffen label in 1980. At the time, Summer's record deal was said to be one of the biggest for a female artist. She also became a born again Christian during this time and used her newfound religion as a guiding force within her life.