Dance on Sunday

Dance on Sunday is the second studio album by Terrain grime artist DJ Crow, released on July 21, 2010 on Music Industry. It was recorded over a period of 1 year and 7 months, beginning in August 2008 and ending in March 2010. Crow's debut album Crow - The Hard Times (2007) was released three years before the follow-up, which was considered as a musical break by the public - however not officially. Over the course of the years, Crow had been producing for other artists, while displaying his new soulful production skills.

The album production was held almost entirely by DJ Crow, along with his previous collaboraters TrillBron and Yusei, while featuring limited muscial appearances. Only rappers Omar Grest and Young Wade appear as featured artists on the entire album, as DJ Crow wanted an almost-entirely solo project. Diverging from the short-but-legendary debut, Crow's lyrics on the album concern themes of family, self-consciousness, materialism, and personal struggles. The album was promoted with three singles, "Another Level", "Demolition" and "Delight" - all of which receieved commercial success.

The album debuted at number one on the UnitedTerra Albums Chart and Club Penguin Albums Chart, while receiving fairly postive feedback from overseas in the USA - peaking at number twelve. The album sold 441,000 in it's first week, proving to be a massive commercial success. Upon its release, Dance on Sunday received general acclaim from music critics and earned Crow several accolades. It is DJ Crow's second best-selling album after his fourth album Today's Declaration (2013). The album is known for it's length, running for 80 minutes, it's use of skits, samples, unique production, story-telling vibes and it's unusually-but-famous lengthy outro.

Background
It was revealed by the DJ at the Night Club, in September 2009 on a "DJ Digital Nyt" that he would be recording another album in December 2009, and will release sometime in Summer 2010. The previous name for the album was Dance on Friday, but was changed because producer Yusei had made a song called "Dance on Sunday" before the name was revealed, and Crow thought Sunday would sound better. In interviews, the label "Music Industry" said that they were going to be distributing the album, and Cadence said that she would be featured on the album, including "Young Wade" and "Omar Grest" - Grest who would be producing some tracks, along with Yusei, but most of them are produced by Crow himself.

Crow said that there would be a range of 3-6 singles released from the album, releasing early on iceTunes for digital download, and then in stores some weeks later, but he decided to release the singles for CD single and digital download the same day. On February 21, 2010, DJ Crow made an appearance on TBC Radio 1, celebrating his chart success for "Could've Been You" - and performed the single live in the studio for the first time, also revealing singles such as "Another Level" and "Delight". By May 2010, Crow had finished the album, but producer Omar Grest had made some last-minute adjustments to the tracks he produced, which took another week, but Crow liked the new changes. Then in June 2010, more production information was released, as saying that there would be twelve official tracks on the album, including iceTunes bonus tracks. Then the album was ready the release under Music Industry.

Because of the record label feud with Crow and the fired producers from November 2009 to February 2010, the album had to be executed properly and quickly. Because of time and the budget limit, only one other professional producer could be hired (Omar Grest), so Crow got back TrillBron and Yusei for his album. More production comes from Crow in this album. After release the album stirred mild controversy - as some lyrics were directed towards individuals such as Aunt Agatha.

Recording
Most of the album's recording sessions took place in Neo Domino City in a private studio called Vects Water Studio, in an effort to avoid leakage of any tracks. Around the time of recording, he was showing a new artist called Willy the Penguin around and how music works. Willy said: "he won't get bothered here, the tracks are gonna rock!" Sessions for the album took place from January to May. A couple of tracks were recorded at Domino Sunset Studios for better recording equipment. No songs managed to leak onto the Internet, luckily. They were released by Crow himself onto WaddleTube and his website.

Crow told TBC Radio 1 when he went there on February 21, 2010 about his selection of producers: "It's not about the songs, it's all about the beat and the producer. If the producer doesn't rock, then the album doesn't work. You don't choose producers that you are close too, you choose to collaborate. Willy needs to get used to this, so I helped him record a track with me." The majority of tracks produced by different producers are even, with Omar Grest, Yusei, TrillBron and DJ Crow himself. Most information was revealed on the TBC Radio 1 session, as revealing recording session dates and other relating information. He expanded on how Young Wade was going to be featured on the track: "You know, it's just rap and rap mixed into different types of rap. My next album might feature him in an even better song too, along with Grest and many new artists to come. I want to give them a chance the feature in songs first, then catch up with the big things."

Recording of the album was disturbed because of the record label feud for a short while. Officially the album's production took place from January to May 2010, with a bit of rushed work. "207 Bars" was actually an improvised track which was written in an hour by Crow and produced with a simple beat the next day.

Singles
The first single, "Could've Been You" was released on February 16, 2010 on CD and digital download and features Cadence. It charted number 3 on the UTR Singles Chart and number 2 in the USA Singles Chart - it had managed to get a number 1 on the CP Singles Chart though. It is one of the most successful singles of the album although it had not managed a number 1 in the home country. "Another Level" was released next on June 7, 2010 on digital download and two days later on CD singles and was then available in stores. The single failed to reach the the Top 10 in the UnitedTerra as it charted number 18 - it had also charted number 23 in the USA and number 9 in Club Penguin. Crow originally planned to feature someone in the single but had decided to go solo on the record. The third and last single, "Delight" was released on August 9, 2010 and is the most successful single of the album. It gained a number 1 spot in many countries and is DJ Crow's third number 1 in UnitedTerra. It features Omar Grest and Young Wade with rap verses.

Track listing
All songs written by Crow Smith.

Commercial performance
Dance on Sunday debuted at number 2 on the UnitedTerra Albums Chart, selling 290,000 in it's first week - it released on Wednesday, July 21, 2010 and debuted on the charts on Sunday, July 25, 2010. This was the third highest first week sales of 2010. In it's second week, it had climbed one place to number 1, selling another 147,200 units, before dropping in it's third week. It became Crow's second UTR number one album, breaking the record of many Terrain hip hop stars. After four weeks sales, totaling over 1,003,000 units. During the whole month and the next month in August 2010, the album stayed in the Top 40, selling over 90,000 units every week. Many times the album rose up a couple of places, stayed as a non-mover, and would return down, repeating the process almost every week of September 2010. Dance on Sunday made the Top 10 of almost every chart, not including the Pengolian Albums Chart, where it's highest charting was number 14. The album went double-Platinum in Club Penguin, not going double-Platinum anywhere, but Platinum in other places where the album went number 1. Crow stated: "It's very surprising, my second studio album going number 1 again, it's amazing! It just can't be luck, it's thanking my fans that did it."

The album was the 3rd best selling album of 2010 in the UTR, selling over 2.21 million copies in 4 months, the album is now at over 2 million sold and still in the Top 40. Other albums that were more successful included Rockhopper's debut album.

Critical response
Upon its release, Dance on Sunday received generally positive reviews from most music critics, based on an aggregate score of 71/100 from the Penguin Official Music Charts. Ratings similar to out-of-one-hundred include the local magazine, "MusicWeekly", gave the album a 80/100. Magazines and music critics that gave the album an out-of-ten rating ranged from 6 to ten ratings. Critics gave stars from 3 to 5 stars. Ratings were all similar to those listed, and many loved the album. Websites gave a written review, describing the details of the album and if the writer of the review liked it or not, and gave certain ratings. Many written reviews described the success of the album, going Platinum and number 1 on almost every chart. Many critics gave negative reviews on the chart success, saying that "it was just luck", and "wouldn't be as lucky next time." Though many fans disagreed with those kind of comments.

Going into more detail onto the negative reviews, critics said that DJ Crow used the micro-blogging site, Chitter, to tell everyone to buy the album and he would do things such as follow them, give out free download links for the album tracks and re-cheep them. These rumours had started at the end of July by website critics. Crow had gone onto TBC Radio 1 again on July 25, 2010 to record a cover for a song. He also had a chat with Rafindra York, mentioning those rumours on him forcing others to buy his album. He spoke about it and denied those rumours:

"All these rumours, about Chitter and me, they're all lies. I would cheep things like "Hey guys, my album comes out on July 21 - be sure to buy it!" - that wouldn't be manipulating penguins to buy my albums, would it? I don't know what critic said that, but it is not true. I sell my albums fairly..."

- DJ Crow

The Penguin Times of Club Penguin certainly gave a good review, giving chart status & everything. Other minor website critics and newspaper complained about the un-proper use of Emalfs - saying that they weren't cleared out of some of the tracks properly. Crow said: "The ones that don't have the Emalfs cleared out are the illegal copies of the songs. My songs are cleared of them, and have two versions - the cleared version, and the normal version."

Release party
In July 21, 2010, the date of the release of the album, Crow threw a party, and there were many artists in it, such as Meaghan, Tim and Tom, Katy Spitz, and of course, Cadence - along with friends and close ones such as Dancing Penguin, Ninjinian, Mayor Crepsley, Yusei, who helped produce the album. Omar Grest appeared at the party too.

Concept
The music genre consists of Terrain grime and dance. His music concept and style didn't change much from Crow - The Hard Times, although there were more additions of dance. The music was mostly produced by Yusei, and some pieces were composed by DJ Crow himself. It was mostly music created with beats more than instruments, which is a change from Crow's debut album, Crow - The Hard Times, which mostly had instruments playing besides beats. The original producers had decided to have Crow go mainstream - disturbing Crow's genre and concept of the album. If Crow went mainstream with the album, critics declared that the album wouldn't be as successful as it has been and would mainly have R&B and 'typical' hip-hop songs.

Production and guests
The most guest appearances were from Cadence. She was invited onto DJ Crow's second album like his debut album to help her with promotion, production and for more sales. The production had been set up by Yusei, where he had used a private "Music Industry" studio to record the tracks.