Dancing on the Ceiling is the third solo studio album by American singer Lionel Richie, released on August 5, 1986.

Lionel Richie had risen to prominence as a member of the Commodores during the late 1970s, but after tensions arose in the band, he left in 1982.

His first two solo albums, Lionel Richie (1982) and Can't Slow Down (1983), were runaway successes: Lionel Richie sold 4 million copies, while Can't Slow Down sold 10 million copies, and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

[5] However, Richie found that he did not "want to do those songs" owing to the social conditions he saw, and as such he began rewriting it "to express what [he] felt the world was boxing itself into".

[5] Ultimately, the album's title was changed to Dancing on the Ceiling, as the titular song was Richie's next single.

[10] He especially praised the track "Say You, Say Me", but found "Ballerina Girl" a "virtual anthology of Richie's worst saccharine excesses".

[10] Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn found that "We Are the World" had left Richie "with a deeper sense of social purpose, and his attempts to infuse that sense into his traditional approach brings a tension to the new album that makes Dancing on the Ceiling his most satisfying collection.

[8] Meanwhile, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic retrospectively gave Dancing on the Ceiling four out of five stars, summarizing that, overall, the album was "a solid, enjoyable affair".

He considered, however, it a "comedown" after Richie's previous albums, with its songs generally longer than necessary and the lyrics mixing "silliness ... and sappiness".

[14] Following the success of Dancing on the Ceiling, Richie withdrew almost entirely from the music industry for six years, a move which Steve Huey of AllMusic suggests was "quitting while he was ahead".