Dance CDs
Every once in a while a Dance CD is released that strikes a chord with the fans, shoots up the album charts, and goes on to become a classic. The artist and the songs gel, the beat is right, the time is right and dance music history is made. Donna Summer's "Bad Girls", "Control" by Janet Jackson, "Forever Your Girl" by Paula Abdul and Madonna's "Ray of Light" are just a few examples.
"Bad Girls" is one of the greatest dance CDs to have come out of the disco era. A progressive fusion of disco with rock, soul, and r&B, it has influenced countless artists since including Anastacia, Gloria Estefan, and Madonna. 
Another enormously influential dance CD is Janet Jackson's "Control". Released in 1986, "Control" crafted a new sound by blending funk and disco with rap, r&b, new jack swing and other musical styles.
Though not as innovative as "Control", "Forever Your Girl" by Paula Abdul more than compensated by helping define the "dance sound" of the late Eighties/early Nineties. The album spawned four #1 singles, namley "Straight Up", the title track, "Cold Hearted" and "Opposites Attract" and sold an eventual 17 million copies worldwide. "Ray of Light", "Forever Your Girl", "Control", and "Bad Girls" belong to an exclusive club of CDs that changed the face of dance music. Every year new CDs, like Rihanna's "Good Girls Gone Bad", Mariah Carey's "E=MC2", Britney Spears' "Blackout", and Madonna's "Hard Candy" join that club and take their place in dance music history.
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Another multi-platinum selling CD that changed dance music is Madonna's "Ray of Light". Reminiscent of the groundbreaking work of Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder years earlier, Madonna and her collaborator William Orbit created a CD filled with trancy, ambient sounds that redefined commercial dance music.
