LAST UPDATED ON MAY 15, 2004

COVER GALLERY THE STORY This gallery keeps growing on and on. So, be sure to return to this page frequently to check it out. Everyone who is looking for Donna Summer records in offline stores or in online music shops has probably come across with at least one of these weird albums credited to her. These albums have different titles (Shout It Out, Na Na Hey Hey, Funstreet, I Love To Dance, and even "Live"!! and many, many others), different covers and even different record labels. But don't be fooled: they all have the same track listing (only the order of songs may vary). The way it has continuously been released may mean it has a good reception by general public. But why these albums aren't included in any official Donna Summer discography? By the way, is this an actual Donna record? On this page I have gathered some information about these series, including a collection of their different covers. Check out the COVERS GALLERY at left and THE FULL STORY about this "series" below. And the answer to the question above: NONE of the CDs from the "Shout It Out" series is an actual Donna Summer solo album. Now, on to the story. The picture above is the cover of the rare "Nice to See You" single (with "Do What Mother Do" on B Side), released in Germany in 1974. The recent rising of this single ended an old discussion among fans regarding the origins of the tracks on the "Shout It Out" CDs. Some fans used to think the songs were sort of outakes from studio sessions Donna had taken part as a free-lancer singer in her early days in Europe. Now it's proved that she really was a member of a short-lived group called "VEIT MARVOS RED POINT ORCHESTRA". Both songs from the single above are included on the "SHOUT IT OUT" albums series. I've been told (since I don't own the vynil single) that the song on Side A is similar to the latter CDs but with a little different sounding, and the one on Side B is radically different, with a male lead vocal, totally different and with a more rockish sound. There apparently was an album by 1974 too, also titled "Nice to See You", but this has yet to be conffirmed. It was first released as the album we're used today in the early 80's (probably 1983) under the title "DONNA SUMMER AND OTHER FRIENDS". However, the original recording is dated from the early 70's, just some years after Donna had landed in Germany to play a role in Haare (Hair) and pretty before her meeting with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, who would help her to make history on the bubbling Disco scene. The album version that rose up in the 80's (and all the subsequent editions) is actually a compilation of several songs done different persons. Donna is only occasionally heard singing alone. Fans who have taken the time to analysis the album concluded that the only song with a solo performance by Donna is "Funstreet". On other tracks, her voice (originally meant to be in the backing vocals) was remixed in studio in order to sound more accentuated than the others. The result is very bad and just doesn't make justice to Donna's outstanding talent. The year of 1984 saw the first one of an endless sequence of re-releases of this album, now, under the title "SUMMERNIGHT". In 1989, it was re-released under its most commom incarnation title: SHOUT IT OUT (both on CD and vinyl formats). Since then, the album has been released under titles like:  I LOVE TO DANCE, NA NA HEY HEY, NICE TO SEE YOU and many others. Up until 2000, the album used to have 2 slightly different versions. As reported by Cathy Hawkins, "an original version and then a remixed version that was updated to make it a bit more palatable to the 80s listeners. There's no real way to know which version of the CD you are buying until it's playing in your CD player, but the remixed songs are longer than the originals. The track lists and running times are as follows:  NON-REMIXED VERSION - Fun Street (5:12) Little Marie (2:57) Shout It Out (3:37) They Can't Take Away Our Music (6:27) Back Off Boogaloo (3:43) Jeannie (3:50) Nice To See You (3:35) Na Na Hey Hey (3:50) Do What Mother Do (4:05) Total time .... 37:16  REMIXED VERSION - Na Na Hey Hey (6:00) They Can't Take Away Our Music (6:11) Jeannie (5:09) Little Marie (6:10) Shout It Out (6:05) Fun Street (5:40) Back Off Boogaloo (5:31) Nice To See You (5:43) Do What Mother Do (5:51) Total time .... 52:20"  In 2000, Cleopatra Records (?) released the only really different version of all "Shout It Out" series entitled "REMIXED AND EARLY GREATS", which, as the first part of the title suggests, contained true new remixes of some songs. Unfortunately, the second part of the title ("Early Greats") isn't true. Songs on any of the "Shout It Out" series records are poorly produced. Crediting the album to Donna Summer is obviously a way to cash in on her popularity, since, as reported above, the songs are performed by several different persons. All LPs and CDs were never released by any famous company (like Universal or Sony, for instance). On the contrary, only obscure labels have done it (Boom, Perfect, Intertape, Blue Moon, That's Disco, etc), what leads to the conclusion that Donna doesn't have any influence over such releasings. If she had, I'm sure she'll never give the authorization to it. In fact, as someone has already said, this is not a collection to be recommended to the lover of good music. As for records colectors, it's going to probably just takes up space.    Thanks to Dieter (in Germany) and Rick Pierce (in the US) for their contributions.  This page was inspired on Warner "HiwayRunner"'s "Nice To See You" gallery (currently discontinued)