The song constituted the 'future' segment of the album, which represented a stylistic progress through time. The title track of the I Remember Yesterday album represented the 1940s, "Love's Unkind" the 50s, "Back in Love Again" the 60s and the album concluded with the futuristic "I Feel Love". The song reached number one in the UK Singles Chart, number six on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and number nine on the Hot Soul Chart. It quickly became popular in gay dance clubs and was adopted as a gay anthem. "I Feel Love" is ranked #411 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Before "I Feel Love", most disco recordings had been backed by acoustic orchestras although all-electronic music had been produced for decades. Giorgio Moroder's innovative production of this disco-style song, recorded with an entirely synthesized backing track, was influential in the development of disco, electronica, house and techno styles and has even been said to have originated the latter genres.

According to David Bowie, then in the middle of recording of his 'Berlin Trilogy', its impact on the genre's direction was recognized early on:

The album version lasts for almost six minutes. It was extended for release as a 12" maxi-single, the eight-minute version included on the 1989 compilation The Dance Collection: A Compilation of Twelve Inch Singles. The song was slightly edited on the 7" format, the fade-in opening sound reaching maximum volume sooner. A version which fades out at 3:45, before the third verse and final choruses, has been included on a large number of greatest hits packages and other compilations issued by PolyGram, Mercury Records, Universal Music and others, such as 1994's Endless Summer: Greatest Hits and 2003's The Journey: The Very Best of Donna Summer.

In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked "I Feel Love" #411 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The review for the song stated that Moroder and Summer "claimed tomorrow in the name of disco."

Following the track's success, within months Summer and Moroder produced the 11 minute "Now I Need You"/"Working The Midnight Shift" sequence (on Summer's 1977 double album "Once Upon A Time"), which successfully builds on "I Feel Love"'s pioneering ethereal vocals, mechanised beats, sequenced arpeggios and ostinato basslines.

In 1978, disco and high energy pioneer Patrick Cowley created a 15:45 remix of "I Feel Love" which, despite not impressing Moroder, became a popular "underground classic" available only on acetate discs. The remix used loops, keeping the song's bass-line going for extended passages of overdubbed effects and synthesiser parts.

In mid-1980, Cowley's mix was released with the title "I Feel Love / I Feel Megalove" and subtitle "The Patrick Cowley MegaMix", but only on a limited vinyl pressing by the DJ-only subscription service Disconet. Since this pressing was not available to the general public for commercial sale, it became highly sought after by collectors.

In 1982 the mix was released on a commercially available 12" single in the UK market by Casablanca, backed with an 8-minute edited version. With this wider release, "I Feel Love" became a dance floor hit again, five years after its debut. A further-edited 7" single reached #21 on the UK singles chart.

Following 1993's The Donna Summer Anthology and 1994's Endless Summer: Greatest Hits, both released by PolyGram, "I Feel Love" was re-released on the PolyGram sublabel Manifesto in a newly remixed form as a single in 1995, including mixes by Masters At Work and Rollo Armstrong and Sister Bliss of UK remixer/producer team Faithless - and also new vocals by Summer herself. The single became a UK #8 hit, the second time the song had entered the Top 10, and the '95 Radio Edit was later included as a bonus track on PolyGram France's version of the Endless Summer compilation.