benny blanco and Selena Gomez

What do you do after striking gold with your first solo album, wrapping your third season starring in a hit series and earning raves for your movie debut? If you're Selena Gomez, you dance. At least, you get the world on its feet with "A Year Without Rain." A follow-up to "Kiss & Tell," Selenas gold-certified Hollywood Records debut CD, "A Year Without Rain" shows Selena and her band, The Scene, in a whole new light, this one pulsating, multicolored and ready for the mirrored ball."I really wanted something that felt good to perform, but had a techno/dance vibe," Selena says. "I wanted something that had meaning and melody, and more empowering lyrics." Thats exactly what she delivers in "A Year Without Rain." Working with top producer/songwriters like Tim James & Antonina Armato, Kevin Rudolf, Toby Gad and Jonas Jeberg, Selena kept to a more quickened tempo, exploring themes of love, freedom and the joy of living for the moment.Selena credits the albums neo-techno leanings to her 2010 platinum-certified single, Naturally," which pointed the way for her. That track "really helped me figure out where I want to be," she says. "Theres a feeling when I perform that song that I love, so when I was going back in the studio, I had a better understanding of where I wanted to be musically."She gets right to it with the opening track, "Round & Round," an upbeat synth-driven song about reaching the limits of indecision in love. The plaintive "A Year Without Rain" may be more subdued, but its beauty impressed Selena enough to make it the title track. "When I got the song, I went through the roof," she recalls. "Everybody has that one person they cant live without. It was exactly what I wanted to say." That goes double for the Spanish version of the song, Selenas first recording in that language. Having turned 18 this year, Selena has matured since making her professional debut at age 7, but girls still wanna have fun, which is what songs like "Spotlight" "Off the Chain" and…