Welcome to the Dollhouse

Welcome to the Dollhouse is the second studio album by American girl group Danity Kane. It was released by Bad Boy Records and Atlantic Records on March 18, 2008 in the US and March 25, 2008 in Canada. Danity Kane recorded the album in under five weeks, while filming the second season of Making the Band 4 with fellow label mates Day26 and Donnie Klang first in New York City, New York, then in Miami, Florida. As with their self-titled debut album, Bad Boy consulted a wide range of producers to work with the band on the album, including The Stereotypes, The Runners and Flex & Hated as well as previous collaborators such as Bryan Michael Cox, Danja, and inhouse producer Mario Winans. The album earned a largely mixed reception by music critics, many of whom were divided on the question whether Welcome to the Dollhouse was superior to 2006's Danity Kane. It became the band's second consecutive album to debut atop the US Billboard 200, with first weeks sales of 236,000 copies. Spawning the US top ten single "Damaged," the album was eventually certified Gold by Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The group intended to open for Janet Jackson's Rock Witchu Tour for promotion, but label conflicts forced them to withdraw. Welcome to the Dollhouse was Danity Kane's last album released before the group broke up in early 2009, and it was also their final album to be released as a quintet. Production For this album, all of the girls had written and/or produced some kind of song, that they thought was suitable for their second effort. As mentioned in interviews, Danity Kane has stated that they came up with the name of the album when they all had brought in their own material into the studio to see which tracks would make the cut. They also expressed, that it felt as if they were in a music box, hence getting the name, Welcome to the Dollhouse. Each of the girls, also, were given chances to co-write a handful of the tracks that are on the record. Singles The album's lead single, "Damaged," was chosen through an online fan poll. In January 2008, Danity Kane had posted a bulletin on their respective MySpace page, expressing that they were giving their fans the chance to choose their newest single. Fans were given two choices, "Damaged" and "Pretty Boy". Of the two choices, "Damaged" dominated the poll by a vast majority, and thus, became the lead single from Welcome to the Dollhouse.