Sonic the Hedgehog Music Title Card
The Sonic Dance Powers are a rather interesting but unusual concept.
These CDs have nothing at all to do with any Sonic games, or even, really Sonic himself. They are compilations of popular music (from the time) with Sonic applied to the cover.

In the 1990s, Sonic was really popular in Europe. Sega decided to capitalize and put together many sets of popular music, as 'dance hits' CDs. Each CD has many energetic songs by different artists and bands. The CDs sometimes had bonus items on them like mini video clips or pictures. There were 8 of these made, and they are from the Netherlands. They were also released in the UK and Belgium. But you could import them to other EU countries too. (Thanks SegaFreak!)
These are not that easy to get ahold of.The cover art also tends to be mostly unique and official, so they're still interesting to collect. Photos for this page are all donated by Alessandro. tyro@genion.de

Sonic Music Page 1 * Sonic Gear Main Page * Sonic Music Page 3 * Sonic Music Page 4
Sonic Dance Power Volume 1 CD Cover Sonic Dance Power Volume 1
This first one arrived around the time of Sonic Triple Trouble for the Game Gear. To help with the game's popularity as you can see with the cover, Knuckles and Knack/Fang the Sniper are all making an appearance in somewhat-unique art, while Sonic snowboards. The top describes it as "30 Super Energetic Dance Hits". The little black boxes list some of the top groups appearing on the CD, like Scatman, Whigfield, Corona, N-Trance, Me C My, and 740 Boyz.
Sonic Dance 2 Eurodance Hits of the 90s Sonic Dance 2
(Note the lack of the word "Power".)
Soon after the first one, they followed up with another. Here, the drink sippin' Sonic stock art is on the beach while Knuckles is riding a jet ski. It actually looks like they've stolen a head off of the 'standard' Knuckles stock art and re-used it here. This one has music by Scooter, Telus, Herbie, Mr Jack, 740 Boyz, Knockabout, and Cat Decor. (Cat Decor?) There are likely more artists, which will be listed if someone submits track lists.
Alternate Cover Dance Power 2
Interestingly, Sonic Dance Power 2 was made. It's exactly the same as the one above, however, the word "Power" has been added and it's cover is almost identical to Dance Power 1, instead! All they seem to have changed is adding a "II" to the title and changing around the artist-names that appear in the black blocks. This likely resulted in this version of 2 being confused with 1, unfortunately. There are 20 tracks on this as well, which are listed below, along with their artists. Track listing and CD cover shot discovered by: Mondane.
Captain Hollywood Project Flying High (3:46) 2 T.O.F. Funk It Up (3:18) 3 Interactive Forever Young (3:40) 4 DJ BoBo Love Is All Around (4:04) 5 E-Type This Is The Way (3:54) 6 T-Spoon Mercedez Benz (3:16)Featuring - Jean Shy 7 20 Fingers Lick It (3:33) 8 Scooter Move Your Ass (3:58) 9 Kathy Sledge Another Star (4:35) 10 Nicki French Total Eclipse Of The Heart (3:51) 11 Groove Head Watch Me Now (3:22) 12 Flip Da Scrip Throw Your Hand In The Air '95 (4:04) 13 ICE MC Mega Mix (incl. Take Away the Colour) (4:14) 14 Love Happy Message of Love (3:58) 15 Zig & Zag Them Girls (3:47) 16 Cabballero Dancing With Tears In My Eyes (4:11) 17 Bit Machine Somebody Real (3:25) Featuring - Daisy Dee 18 Dance 2 Trance Warrior (4:13) 19-A DJ Paul Elstak* Life Is Like A Dance (3:31) Producer - Addy van der Zwan , Koen Groeneveld 19-B DJ Paul* Play My Game (3:31) 20 Rednex Sonic Mega Mix '95 (4:31)
Sonic Dance Power CD 3 Sonic Dance Power 3
The cover to this one is almost the same as the one before, but without the extra strange dark island in the background. You can see a trend a little bit here, with the various covers re-using art or altering things to make the cover for the next album. People included on this one are Bobby Brown, Living Joy, Dr. Paul Elestar, Whigfield, Scooter, Technohead, DJ Bobo and Haddaway.
Sonic Dance Power 4 Compilation CD 1995 Sonic Dance Power 4
This is from 1995, and has "20 Dance Hits". This cover gets a bit strange with Sonic flying on a stealthy looking jet board while Knuckles holds onto a string. There's a message from Sega in the top corner, but you can't read it.

The groups featured on this one are Faithless, The Original, La Bouche, 740 Boyz, Corona, De'Lacy, Haddaway, Scatman John, and Alex Party.

Sonic Dance Power 5 w/bonus Video CD Sonic Dance Power 5
Now with more Backstreet Boys? (Sonic+Backstreet=?) This is billed as a "TV-CD" which must be somewhat like a  VCD which is what they made up before you could burn DVDs on your PC at home. It has a bonus video clip on it, as well as all the songs.
This cover is getting stranger still, with Jet-Ski Knuckles (why are they so obsessed with him on these things?) a somewhat mutated running classic stock art, now with bean-body and noodle arms, and then a really AoStH looking Robotnik in the background looking appropriatly demented.
Artists on this CD include Bakstreet Boys, Skree-Lo, Double Vision, Dune, DJ Paul Elstak, and Nakatomi.
Sonic Dance Power 7 Europe Dance Tracks CD Sonic Dance Power 6- TV-CD
At least Knuckles got off that Jet Ski. Now he's on the beach stepping on a tiny black and white checkered ball (why), with Sonic who is rollerblading on a checkered path while wearing headphones, sunglasses, and pointing with two fingers at nothing. Ok. The edge says "The Supersonic Hit"
This time, they've given a partial track list with:
DJ Paul Elstak- The Promised Land, Captain Jack- Captain Jack, The Party Animals- Hava Naquila, T-Spoon- Hitmix 96, The Prodigy- Firestarter, Coolio- 1234, Tokyo Ghetto Pussy- To Another Galaxy.
Sonic Dance Power 7 CD Cover Sonic Dance Power 7
Another "TV-CD" that doesn't say what the multimedia content may be. Sonic and Knuckles are both flying 'Superman Style' on the cover among bubbles with a partial track listing in them. This one says "20 SUPER Dance Hits".
These include Naka Tomi- Sing Remix, Backstreet Ft. Dr Dre- No Diggity, Mr. President- Coco Jamboo, Scooter IM- Raving, R-MB-Dreaming, Faithless- Insomnia, Backstreet Boys - Quit Playing Games & Sonic Hit Mix. (Did the Backstreets actually do something Sonic related? Or is it just a title?
Sonic Dance Power 8 CD Cover Here's Sonic Dance Power 8 (VIII)
This was made in 1997, but was it the final Dance Power? You can certainly tell it was a Europe (likely even Sonic the Comic related / inspired by) artist doing the art here, as Sonic has a very "STC" look to his spikes, tiny ears & face. What's his hand doing though? One is at quite an odd angle. Then, you have Robotnick squeezed into a super small egg o matic chasing him in the background. The resolution here isn't enough to be able to read the track list/highlights off the front. Photo discovered by: SonicMario87
CDs often have a bit of different art on the CD itself, aside from what's on the jewel case paper cover & the Dance Powers are no exception. 8 has a simplified color rendition of the "Sonic the Comic" looking UK art on its disk, while the other has the Japanese 3-point-stance Sonic for Sega PC. All photos in this area & owned by Hedgy
Dance Power CD Interiors & Cases Take a look inside...with even more scenes from inside the Dance Power jewel cases & their CDs. (The exteriors are all seen here above on this same page) Sonic Dance Power Disk Photos
With DP 6, you get a hidden 'pointing Robotnick' from the AoStH style show (he's under the CD) & a Sonic portrait/side view on the CD itself. There's a forward facing Sonic art for Power 7, & the odd but frequentely-used in the UK-only CG classic Sonic where his spikes are kind of strange but very distinct.
Sonic Dance Power CD art photos The right side has Power 5's mostly yellow disk where the art is a Sonic face but also a little confusing, the 'hidden' Sonic & Knuckles art that's beneath the CD, winking face CD in full/normal color & the cropped S&K logo that's on Dance Power 3. The small text you see are the artists featured, and the last one has an ad on the back of the pamphlet there. All photos in this area & owned by Hedgy
Sonic Dance Powers 8 Cds Here are various Sonic Dance Power CDs all lined up...
However, there's one of these that's not like the others, and it's the one at the bottom right corner. It is labeled "Sonic Dance" but it's style seems a little different, and there's no word 'power' in there either. Is this part of the set of them, or is it something else with a similar name?

There also seems to be a sticker on there, black, applied to the outside that may be covering some element of the cover. It says "Pure Energy and Sega" but the rest is too hard to read because this is all the larger the older photo is.

You can write in for credit if you know what the deal is with this last disk seen here.

Sweden Arcade-Tv-CD Sonic Dance Something from Sweden!
This is a CD released by "Arcade TV-CD". It seems to be released specifically for Sweden, which is a little unusual. Don't mind that blue dot there it 's a sales sticker they just put it in a poorly place on the outside of the case. The songs included are technically 'eurodance', but some of them aren't really the most appropriate?
Like all the rest, these don't seem to be chosen FOR Sonic or have any sort of theme going with them, it seems they are just popular songs of the time by popular artists.
The cover looks like a bit of a variation on Dance Power 1's, but it's much more simplified with just Sonic vs. Fang Knack from the Game Gear art.