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The Dance Electric is the first track on André Cymone’s third studio album A.C., and, four weeks before the album’s release, The Dance Electric was released as the album’s first single. This track is the only studio collaboration between Prince and André Cymone during Cymone’s solo career following his departure from Prince’s band. In 2011, an expanded edition of the album was released on CD, including the Edited Version a.k.a. Single Version of the song. In 2013, a long and mostly instrumental version was included on a re-release of the album.
Basic tracking for Prince’s initial version took place on 17 August 1984 (a days before The Screams Of Passion) at the Flying Cloud Drive Warehouse in Eden Prairie, Minnesota (listed on the album as "Paisley Park Recording, Somewhere in Minnesota"). Lisa Coleman, Wendy Melvoin and Jill Jones recorded overdubs the following day, also at the Flying Cloud Drive Warehouse.
Rumors claimed that Bernadette Anderson asked Prince to give a song to her son André because he would have been too proud to ask for it himself. Cymone denied this rumor in a 2024 interview saying:
"My mother wouldn’t do that. (…). He asked me if I wanted to do the song. He said he had a song that he thought would be great for me (…). I was a little afraid to want to get into all that but it was really more my label than me."
André Cymone recorded lead vocal overdubs at Ocean Way Recording, Hollywood, CA, USA, with Prince and his dad John L. Nelson present.
Prince also referred to "the dance electric" in the song God, recorded three days later (see Trivia).
In 2001, a 1986 live version by Prince and the Revolution was included on NPG Ahdio Show # 7, but the track was not available separately.
In 2012, a mostly-instrumental rehearsal version by Prince and the New Power Generation, likely recorded in mid-April 2012, was streamed on drfunkenberry.com to promote the forthcoming Welcome 2 Australia Tour; the site stated that "To begin every week of rehearsal, to get the rust off, Prince and the band jam one song for 30-45 minutes."
In 2017 Prince’s own version (before overdubs by Lisa, Wendy & Jill) was released as the first track on the From The Vault & Previously Unreleased disc of a Deluxe release of Purple Rain.
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