Welcome to the Dance is the fifth studio album by all-female German pop group No Angels, released by Polydor and Universal Music Domestic throughout German-speaking Europe on 11 September 2009.

The band's second post-reunion effort following their reformation as a quartet in 2007, it was written, produced and recorded in Berlin, Los Angeles, and New York City between the years of 2008 and 2009, featuring production by Nasri, Hakim Bell, Bill Blast, Adam Messinger, and Aaron Pearce, among others.

[8] From all four regular single releases, leading single "Goodbye to Yesterday" emerged as the album's only top ten hit,[5] and although both the group members and record company Universal Music felt increasing discontent and uncertainty about the direction of the project by summer 2007,[9] it was not until the band's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade, Serbia, the quartet hit an all-time career low, following their performance with the German ESC entry "Disappear", which finished 23rd out of the 25 countries that participated in the final voting in May 2008.

[10] As a direct consequence, planned recordings for the band's next studio album during the summer were indefinitely delayed,[11] and the group went on a two-month hiatus to rethink and analyze the past year.

[13] Most of Welcome to the Dance was written and recorded during five separate studio sessions in Los Angeles and New York City in the United States, and Berlin and Rastede in Germany between August 2008 and March 2009.

[18] In October 2008, No Angels returned to the United States for additional recording sessions in New Jersey and New York City, where producers and writers Hakim Bell, Akene "The Champ" Dunkley, Bill Blast, and M'Jestie got involved into the project.

[19] In addition, the band worked with writer Chel Hill and Karriem Mack and Shaun Owens of production team Soul Diggaz during their US sojourn.

[20] After another session in Berlin in early December,[21] the band re-teamed with all three main production teams for a two-week stint at Peter Patzer's Bekeeg Studios in Rastede near Oldenburg in January 2010.

[23] The rest of the album was wrapped at the Hansa Studios in Berlin in February 2009, where Pearce and Atweh wrote and recorded the last tracks with the band, including songs such as "Dance-Aholic".

[26] The album's second track was written by Arnthor Birgisson and Savan Kotecha and deals with the circumstances of a love-hate relationship that the song's protagonist compares to a thunderstorm she feels stuck in.

[27] A beat-driven piano ballad about a broken relationship, it features leading vocals by Sandy Mölling while Lucy Diakovska appears as a backing vocalist only.

[6] "Dance-Aholic", an up-tempo anthem about the joy of nightclub dance, was created the day after the aftershow party of the 2009 ECHO Awards where band members Benaissa and Wahls had impressed producers Atweh and Pearce with their dance-craziness.

[17] Seventh track "Shut Your Mouth" was one of the first songs the band wrote with Evan "Kidd" Bogart and his The Writing Camp collective during the album's first creative session in Los Angeles, California in August 2008.

[17] The result of a guitar jam session with Adam Messinger and Nasri, it revolves around the facets of a new-found affection, and has been noted as a musical contrast to the highly synthesized and electronic sound of the album due to its acoustic flair and singer-songwriter style.

Written by Tiyon Mack, Chad Roper, Le'che Martin, a demo of the composition, initially produced by Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, was to be recorded by some unknown artist before it was eventually handed over to Aaron Pearce.

[9] Welcome to the Dance received generally mixed reviews from music critics, many of whom praised the band for their courage to breakaway from their pop rock sounds on previous releases but found the material uneven.

"[36] Lifestyle magazine In Touch felt that "although the 14 songs sound pop in the usual manner, new impulses come from driving beats that lead away from the ballad mentality of past years.

"[26] Pooltrax felt that the album was only partially answering expectations,[38] and although they were persuaded that the band had not made the most out of it, they complimented No Angels for their songwriting and the corresponding results which they compared to a "whiff of Rihanna".

[41] On 3 July 2009, No Angels made their first appearance in four months at the Sankt Pölten Stadtfest in Lower Austria, where they held their first official press conference after Benaissa's April 2009 arrest and performed both old tracks and five news songs from the upcoming album, including "Derailed", "Shut Your Mouth", "Tool Old", "Young Love" and "One Life".