Chaos and Disorder (Album)
| Chaos and Disorder | ||||
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| Prince's studio album | ||||
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Publication |
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admission |
May 1993 - April 1996 |
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| Label (s) | Warner Bros. Records | |||
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Format (s) |
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Title (number) |
11 |
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running time |
39:14 |
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| occupation | All songs were produced, arranged, composed and performed by Prince . His band members added the following to the recordings:
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Studio (s) |
Paisley Park Studio ( Chanhassen ) |
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Chaos and Disorder ( English ; "confusion and disorder") is the 18th studio album of the US musician Prince . It was released on July 9, 1996 on the major label Warner Bros. Records , with which Prince had extended his current contract for six more albums to December 31, 1999 in 1992. Due to differences with Warner Bros. Records, however, he had given up his stage name in 1993 and instead carried an unpronounceable symbol as a pseudonym .
The music on the album belongs to the rock music genre . The lyrics are about lust , spirituality and love , among other things . When designing the cover for the album, Prince refers to his quarrel with Warner Bros. Records at the time. Neither he nor the major label did any noteworthy advertising for Chaos and Disorder ; it could not achieve gold or platinum status internationally. Music critics rated the album very differently; either Chaos and Disorder was partly highly praised or partly criticized very negatively. A tour of the album played Prince.
On September 13, 2019 The Prince Estate (dt .: The Princeton published discount ) Chaos and Disorder the first time on record , available in lilac-colored vinyl.
Emergence
Chaos and Disorder was until 1999 the last studio album for the time being that Prince sent to the major label Warner Bros. Records . During this time he had no ambitions to send new songs to the major label. When Prince put Chaos and Disorder together in 1996 , he interrupted the recording of his album Emancipation , which was released in November on the major label EMI .
Prince recorded the eleven songs on the album between May 1993 and April 1996, mostly with his backing band The New Power Generation . He recorded Zannalee in May 1993, and recorded Chaos and Disorder and Right the Wrong on the same day in October 1993. He recorded I Like It There and The Same December in 1994, Dinner with Delores in 1995 and the songs Into the Light and I Will in February 1996. Prince recorded I Rock, Therefore I Am and Had U in March 1996. He recorded all of these songs in his Paisley Park studio in Chanhassen , Minnesota. The time when Dig U Better Dead was recorded is unknown. Prince recorded the songs I Rock, Therefore I Am , Dig U Better Dead and Had U alone.
At the end of March 1996 Prince flew to Miami , Florida, to visit his then-wife Mayte Garcia . He also revised the songs I Like It There and Dinner with Delores in Miami in the South Beach Studios in early April 1996 . Drummer Michael B. and keyboardist Tommy Barbarella support Prince in the recording studio.
When the album Chaos and Disorder was finished, Prince stated that he had oriented himself on the debut album Van Halen from 1978 by the band of the same name . The band recorded their album within a week. “That's what we wanted - spontaneity! We wanted to see how fast we could get an album out, ”said Prince.
On April 21, 1996 - 20 years to the day before his death - Mayte found Garcia Prince lying unconscious on the floor in one of his recording studios in the Paisley Park Studio. Next to him were four empty wine bottles and an empty pill box. Together with her female bodyguard Arlene Mojica, Garcia Prince drove to the Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina , where Mojica had called beforehand. When asked by the doctor whether he had attempted suicide , Prince said no. He had suffered from palpitations in the past few months and wanted to end these complaints by taking alcohol and tablets. Prince was hospitalized, but released himself the following day and was driven back home by Mojica. It was not publicly disclosed whether any stress factors were the cause of the complaints of the then 37-year-old musician.
Prince did very little music promotion for Chaos and Disorder ; he refused to tour the album, gave only two interviews, shot a music video and appeared on US television twice. On July 2, 1996, the recording of the Late Show with David Letterman took place, in which Prince sang the song Dinner with Delores with his backing band The New Power Generation . After finishing the song, Prince shouted "Free TLC!" Into the microphone. He was referring to the band TLC , which was also in a dispute with their record company at the time. Prince's performance aired on July 8th.
Prince made his second appearance on US television on July 9, the day Chaos and Disorder was released . This time he was a guest with his backing band on the Today Show , which was broadcast live at 8:45 am in front of the NBC Studios at Rockefeller Center . He sang the songs Dinner with Delores and Zannalee . At this appearance Prince appeared in public for the last time with the word “ slave ” on his cheek - since 1994, the word mentioned was usually read on his cheek at public appearances. In an interview a week after the performance, Prince said, “I was bitter before, but now I've washed my face. I can just go on now. I am free."
Prince later described the mood of the album as "loud and rough" and "dark and unhappy", comparable to that of 1987 when he withdrew the Black album .
Content of the contract
Originally, Prince had extended his current contract with Warner Bros. Records for six more albums to December 31, 1999 on August 31, 1992 . This contract included the three previously released albums Love Symbol (1992), Come (1994) and The Gold Experience (1995). So there were still three more albums missing, but Prince wanted to prevent this. The Black Album (1994) and the soundtrack Girl 6 (1996) for the movie of the same name by director Spike Lee were not part of the Warner contract.
On April 26, 1996 - five days after his hospitalization - Prince met with executives at Warner Bros. Records in Los Angeles , California to amend the 1992 Warner contract. During the negotiations at that time he was assisted by the lawyer L. Londell McMillan (* 1966). A severance payment agreement was worked out together, in which Prince was able to get out of the contract with Warner Bros. Records after two and not as previously agreed after three studio albums. Warner signed the severance payment agreement only on the condition that Prince waived advance payments for the two outstanding albums. In addition, from now on he received fewer royalties for the songs he had recorded for Warner Bros. Records than the originally negotiated contract of 1992 provided. The rights to the masters of the songs that Prince recorded for Warner Bros. Records, he did not get then, but only in 2014. Furthermore, Prince had to give his consent not to insult Warner Bros. Records in public or to insult. Apart from the two outstanding studio albums, Prince also had to deliver two greatest hits albums.
Immediately after signing the deal on April 26th, Prince gave Warner Bros. Records two studio albums, Chaos and Disorder and The Vault… Old Friends 4 Sale - released in 1999 - as pending albums. He presented both albums with already completed artwork and with a final tracklist so that Warner could no longer exert any influence. Various Warner executives were furious at this fact; "He gave the impression: Either you take this or you can take me," said one of the Warner employees. The prevailing sentiment at Warner Bros. Records was that Prince was deliberately sending the company weaker material, thus fulfilling his current contract in a half-hearted manner.
Bob Merlies, then Vice President of Warner Bros. Records, reacted calmly and later told the Los Angeles Times that Prince could “get a deal with another record company. If he's happier elsewhere, we don't want to have a fight with him anymore. ”Merlis also said:“ He wants to release more albums than our contract includes; he wants a different contract, one that leads to the opposite of good business practices. In the end, we agreed that our and his ideas did not match. ”Prince was finally under contract until December 31, 1999 with Warner Bros. Records.
Design of the cover
Prince's quarrel with Warner Bros. Records at the time is also reflected in the cover design of the album's booklet . Together with art director and photographer Steve Parke, Prince designed various photomontages using a personal computer and electrophotography . Parke said the cover and booklet of Chaos and Disorder were deliberately designed as it was published.
On the front of the booklet you can see a record splintered by a shoe sole print . Prince's eye with a tear is present on the record label. A total of seven photos can be seen in the inner cover; one picture shows a syringe filled with dollar bills. Blood drips from the tip of the needle and lands on a tape that is stored on a shelf with master tapes . Another picture shows a heart lying in a toilet. Awards , gold records , guitars and a safe can be seen on five other pictures . There is also a matchbox with burned matches on the inside cover, the matchbox bears the name “chaos and disorder” in red letters. A Bible with the initials "PRN" - standing for "Prince Rogers Nelson" - can be seen on the right side of the inner cover.
Burning roses and a razor blade can be seen on the back of the booklet. In addition, the phrase "Originally Intended 4 private use only, this compilation serves as the load-original material recorded by O (+> 4 warner brothers records" (is English intended for "originally for private use, this compilation serves as the last original material, read the O (+> recorded for Warner Brothers Records ”).
music
The music on the album is mainly to be assigned to the genre of rock music and overall sounds rough and recorded spontaneously. Elaborated arrangements and music production are sparse, synthesizers are hardly used on the album. Sound effects can only be heard in the songs Chaos and Disorder , Right the Wrong and Zannalee . Apart from rock music, there are two songs from the dance-pop genre, I Rock, Therefore I Am and Dig U Better Dead , that Prince recorded with a drum computer .
In the lyrics of the title track Chaos and Disorder , Prince deals with how social morals change to negative. I Like It There belongs to the genre of 1960s pop-rock . In the lyrics of Dinner with Delores , Prince describes an encounter with a sexually unfilled woman. Musically, he uses a jazz- inspired melody , paired with gentle guitar playing. The Same December is about cryptic theology and the lyrics of Right the Wrong criticize the bad treatment of the Indians .
Zannalee is from the blues rock genre and the lyrics are about the police being alerted about disturbance of the peace because Prince is having fun with two women named Zannalee and her sister Fendi. The song I Rock, Therefore I Am is from the genre rock- ragga . In the lyrics, Minneapolis-based rappers Scrap D and Steppa Ranks encourage female listeners to show their breasts . Rosie Gaines is a guest singer. Into the Light and I Will contain spiritual messages, the songs flow directly into each other without a break. In the lyrics of Dig U Better Dead , Prince deals with his quarrel with Warner Bros. Records at the time; for example he sings “In one minute you will be in great demand. But if you tell the truth, you are suddenly nothing ”. The song has a touch of techno .
The last song on the album is called Had U , which can be described as a lament . Had U is based on stringed instruments built on distorted guitars and strings . The lyrics have a sarcastic undertone. Prince bitterly portrays a relationship that he describes in only two words. At the beginning of the song he describes his luck, but his feelings turn into an ultimate disappointment during the individual phases, finally he ends with the words Fuck You . This swear word was interpreted by fans and music critics directly on Warner Bros. Records. While Prince called his debut album For You (German: For You ) and sings the lyrics “All this and more is for you” in the title track of the same name, Prince ends on the album Chaos and Disorder with the song Had U (German: Had you ).
List of titles and publications
| No. | song | author | length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chaos and Disorder | Prince | 4:20 |
| 2 | I like it there | Prince | 3:15 |
| 3 | Dinner with Delores | Prince | 2:46 |
| 4th | The Same December | Prince | 3:24 |
| 5 | Right the wrong | Prince | 4:39 |
| 6th | Zannalee | Prince | 2:43 |
| 7th | I Rock, Therefore I Am | Prince | 6:15 |
| 8th | Into the light | Prince | 2:46 |
| 9 | I will | Prince | 3:36 |
| 10 | Dig U Better Dead | Prince | 4:40 |
| 11 | Had U | Prince | 1:26 |
Chaos and Disorder was released on July 9, 1996. The album was released on compact disc and on compact cassette . On September 13, 2019, The Prince Estate released the album on record in exclusively purple vinyl. The CD is also available in a digipak .
Single releases
From the album only Dinner with Delores was released as a single, which was released from June 12, 1996 only in Great Britain, Germany and Japan. Right the Wrong serves as the B-side . In the US, Dinner with Delores was only sent to radio stations, the song was not available for sale as a single.
Music videos
In 1994, two years before Chaos and Disorder was released , Prince produced three music videos for songs from the album: I Like It There , The Same December and Zannalee . The music videos mentioned were not sent to television stations, nor were they used to promote the album Chaos and Disorder . Prince financed the videos at his own expense.
In the music video for I Like It There , Prince performs the song in Paisley Park Studio with bassist Sonny T. and drummer Michael B. During the performance, sculptures of naked bodies can be seen for a short time and the music video is kept in a reddish hue. Prince has the term "slave" on his cheek. When he sings the line “I hope you're digging me too” after 59 seconds, he lifts his middle finger for about a second and points it to the camera.
On November 8, 1994, Prince produced a video for The Same December depicting his conflict at the time with Warner Bros. Records; Keyboardist Morris Hayes plays an executive officer at Paisley Park Studio who forces Prince to sign a record deal in a conference room . The executive office is eventually paid for with money from Prince's briefcase. At the end of the video, however, Prince returns to the conference room with two bodyguards and has the executive officer thrown out of the building of the Paisley Park complex. During the framework action, Prince and his band will perform several times as they perform The Same December in the Paisley Park Studio. On the occasion of the release of the album Chaos and Disorder in 1996, the music video was subtly reworked, with digitally animated records hurling and splintering against walls.
On December 22nd, 1994 Prince produced the music video for the song Zannalee in his Paisley Park Studio, which can be heard in the slightly modified original version. In the video, Prince is chauffeured through Minneapolis to his villa in a black limousine with the twins “Zannalee” and “Fendi” . He invites them to eat, they drink sherry together , watch a movie and then play pool . Then the twins go to his bedroom. Prince follows a little later and finds the twins sleeping in his bed. During the framework action, several film scenes are inserted in which Prince plays with bassist Sonny T. and drummer Michael B. Zannalee in a studio.
It was not until May 20, 1996, that Prince specifically produced Dinner with Delores, a music video for the upcoming album release of Chaos and Disorder . The video was shot in Los Angeles , California, and premiered on the Warner Bros. Records homepage on June 7, 1996 , Prince's 38th birthday. In the music video, a sexually unfilled woman named “Delores” is portrayed who longs for a lover. When Prince declines her offer to have sex, Delores tries to seduce a woman in a nightclub. But when this attempt also fails and Prince also rejects another offer from her, Delores leaves dejected at the end of the video. The director of the low budget video was Giorgio Scali.
Cover versions
Only a cover version is known of the album Chaos and Disorder ; in 2008, the Norwegian punk band Bare Egils Coverband recorded a new version of the title track.
reception
Press
The reviews of the album Chaos and Disorder were very different; either the album was praised or rated negatively.
The Chicago Sun-Times even wrote that Chaos and Disorder was "Prince's best performance since Purple Rain (1984)". Cheo Hodari Coker from the Los Angeles Times was also enthusiastic and awarded the highest score with four points, which means "excellent". Music critic Robert Christgau awarded the grade A- , with A + being the best possible award. He wrote that Chaos and Disorder is “a guitar album that is spiced up by a cheeky-fresh, if not shocking range of voices and sound tricks. Only the use of French horns creates a mess here and there. ” Billboard magazine said the album was“ a welcome return to the roots. ” Stephen Thomas Erlewine from Allmusic gave three stars out of five and came to the conclusion,“ Chaos and Disorder is not Prince's best or most important album, but it is fun to listen to. Especially when you are ready to accept it for what it is - a record that just rocks. "
The US music magazine Rolling Stone was much more cautious with its praise and criticized: “At best, the record sounds like a collection of polished demos . But even more often you get the impression you are dealing with a Prince impersonator - someone who studies all typical movements and idiosyncrasies, but has nothing new or original to say. ”Jim Walsh of the St. Paul Pioneer Press said Chaos and Disorder looked "like an uninspired collection of warmed-up jam sessions , sketches, fragments and leftovers." The New Musical Express gave only two out of ten points and wrote that Chaos and Disorder had "the sound of a man who has too much time and too many names, and who flushes his talent straight down the drain marked with garbage . Gluck, gluck, gluck. ”Jim Farber of the Daily News summed up:“ The question is: Was this simply because TAFKAP [The Artist Formerly Known As Prince] wanted to wipe Warner out or because he finally got completely insane ? . "
After Prince's death in April 2016, the music journalists Albert Koch and Thomas Weiland from the German music magazine Musikexpress reviewed the album Chaos and Disorder and gave it four out of six stars. They wrote that the album was “a straight rocking album with the flair of an untreated studio session. The guitar doesn't sound like Brian May , but like Jimi Hendrix , deficiencies in the songwriting (exceptions: I Like It There , Dinner With Delores ) are made up for by a tremendous joy in playing ”.
Charts
| Charts | Top ranking | Weeks |
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| Chart placements | ||
 Germany (GfK)
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42 (8 weeks) | 8th |
 Austria (Ö3)
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17th (9 weeks) | 9 |
 Switzerland (IFPI)
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21st (9 weeks) | 9 |
 United Kingdom (OCC)
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14th (5 weeks) | 5 |
 United States (Billboard)
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26th (4 weeks) | 4th |
Chaos and Disorder has sold fewer than 500,000 copies worldwide since 1996, of which approximately 140,000 were sold in the United States. This made it the least sold Prince album in the United States. (Status: 2004)
The single Dinner with Delores was not very successful from a commercial point of view; for example, the song only reached 36th place in the UK as the highest ranking. No other chart positions are known internationally.
literature
- Jason Draper: Prince - Life & Times (Revised & Updated Edition). Chartwell Books, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-7858-3497-7 .
- Alex Hahn: Obsessed - Prince's turbulent life . Hannibal Verlag, Höfen 2016, ISBN 978-3-85445-610-0 .
- Ronin Ro: Prince - Inside The Music And The Masks. St. Martin's Press, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-312-38300-8 .
- Matt Thorne: Prince. Faber and Faber, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-571-27349-2 .
- Uptown: The Vault - The Definitive Guide to the Musical World of Prince. Nilsen Publishing, Linköping 2004, ISBN 91-631-5482-X .
Web links
- Princevault.com , information about the album Chaos and Disorder
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Uptown (2004), p. 400.
- ↑ Chaos and Disorder. In: Princevault.com. February 28, 2016, accessed April 8, 2017 .
- ↑ a b c Uptown (2004), p. 193.
- ↑ a b c Ro (2011), p. 276.
- ^ Ro (2011), p. 277.
- ↑ Draper (2016), p. 132.
- ^ Ro (2011), p. 278.
- ↑ a b Uptown (2004), p. 195.
- ↑ Photo of the writing Slave on the cheek. (No longer available online.) 2017, archived from the original on November 7, 2017 ; Retrieved April 8, 2017 .
- ↑ a b Draper (2016), p. 114.
- ↑ Hahn (2016), p. 246.
- ↑ a b Ro (2011), p. 275.
- ↑ a b c d Ro (2011), p. 279.
- ↑ a b Hahn (2016), p. 278.
- ↑ Draper (2016), pp. 198-199.
- ↑ a b c Uptown (2004), p. 194.
- ^ Ro (2011), p. 280.
- ↑ Draper (2016), p. 114.
- ↑ Steven Parke: Homepage SP Steven Parke. 2017, accessed April 8, 2017 .
- ↑ Thorne (2012), pp. 317-318.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Draper (2016), p. 131.
- ↑ a b Hahn (2016), p. 284.
- ↑ a b c d Thorne (2012), p. 317.
- ↑ Dinner With Delores. In: Princevault.com. June 8, 2016, accessed April 8, 2017 .
- ↑ Uptown (2004), pp. 629-630.
- ↑ a b Uptown (2004), p. 630.
- ↑ a b Uptown (2004), p. 629.
- ↑ Various Artists Shockadelica: 50th Anniversary Tribute to the Artist Known as Prince. In: Allmusic.com. 2017, accessed April 8, 2017 .
- ↑ Cheo Hodari Coker: LA Times 7/7/96. In: Princetext.tripod.com. July 7, 1996, accessed April 8, 2017 .
- ^ Robert Christgau: Prince - The Gold Experience. In: RobertChristgau.com. 2017, accessed April 8, 2017 .
- ↑ Stephen Thomas Erlewine: Prince - Chaos and Disorder. In: Allmusic.com. 2017, accessed April 8, 2017 .
- ↑ a b Hahn (2016), p. 285.
- ↑ Prince: Chaos And Disorder. In: Princetext.tripod.com. 2017, accessed April 8, 2017 .
- ↑ Jim Farber: Sour deal finally ends in 'Chaos'. In: Princetext.tripod.com. July 16, 1996, accessed April 8, 2017 .
- ↑ From the big Prince special - an overview of all albums. In: Musikexpress.de. May 22, 2016. Retrieved April 8, 2017 .
- ↑ Prince. officialcharts.de, accessed on February 16, 2019 .
- ↑ Prince. austriancharts.at, accessed on February 16, 2019 .
- ↑ Prince. hitparade.ch, accessed on February 16, 2019 .
- ↑ Prince. officialcharts.com, accessed February 16, 2019 .
- ^ Prince - Chart History. billboard.com, accessed February 16, 2019 .
- ^ Uptown (2004), p. 401.
- ^ Ro (2011), p. 281.
- ↑ Dinner with Delores in the Official UK Charts (English)
