Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' Was Named Best Dance Song Ever by Billboard
If you like to dance, you probably have a few songs that automatically get your body moving. No matter the era of music, there have been songs designed to fill up dancefloors.
Cutting down all those dance songs to a top 100 list is a daunting task, but one Billboard set out to accomplish in 2025. A total of 13 staff writers came together to whittle down the vast dance music catalog to 100 "essential" tracks.
At the top of the list was a 1977 hit by the "Queen of Disco."
Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" named "Best Dance Song of All Time"
Summer, born Donna Adrian Gaines, had already hit No. 1 on the Billboard Dance chart and No. 2 on the Hot 100 with 1975's "Love to Love You Baby" when she dropped her fifth studio album, "I Remember Yesterday" in May 1977.
Two months later, Summer officially released "I Feel Love" as a single, and the song quickly became a disco dancefloor anthem.
"History (and this list) tells us that dance music - in the literal, platonic sense - existed before "I Feel Love." But dance music, as we know it today - the heaving, the sweat, the communing, the ecstasy (pun intended), the cultural shorthand and culture unto itself, and to some, even a religion - that, arguably, was realized in the spring of 1977, when Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, and Pete Bellotte recorded "I Feel Love," Billboard wrote.
It should also be noted that three years before Billboard slotted "I Feel Love" at No. 1 on its list of the top dance songs ever, Rolling Stonedid the same. Not too shabby.
How did "I Feel Love" perform commercially?
In total, "I Feel Love" cracked the top 10 of 10 different charts internationally:
- US Billboard Dance: No. 1
- Australian Top 100: No. 1
- Dutch Single Top 100: No. 1
- United Kingdom singles chart: No. 1
- New Zealand: No. 2
- Germany: No. 3
- Canada: No. 4
- US Billboard Hot 100: No. 6
- US Billboard R&B: No. 9
- Irish Singles Chart: No. 9
Summer would go on to score several more iconic dance hits, including "Last Dance," "MacArthur Park," "Bad Girls" and "Heaven Knows," but "I Feel Love" is the one that left an indelible mark on dance and pop music.
In 1977, acclaimed English songwriter Brian Eno famously presented David Bowie with a brand new 7" copy of "I Feel Love" and predicted it would "change the sound of club music for the next 15 years."
As others have noted, he was too modest. The impact of the song is still felt to this day.
This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 11, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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This story was originally published May 11, 2026 at 2:59 PM.