CHAPTER SEVEN: CHAOS AND DISORDER

The creation of Chaos And Disorder

O(+> had just wrapped up work on The Gold Experience in October 1994 when he made the first configuration of what would become Chaos And Disorder in 1996. In 1994 it was originally titled The Vault Volume II as a sequel to The Vault Volume I which O(+> had assembled in the summer of 1994. When the 1996 Chaos And Disorder configuration was released, it said in the cover that it was a compilation originally intended for private use only. And although O(+> made videos for some of the songs in late 1994, the compilation wasn’t slated for release at the time. Instead O(+> announced in a press release that he wanted to release an acoustic set entitled Heart on NPG Records when he was free of his contract with Warner Bros.

“He’s always making an album and he’ll put it away,” Mayte told Uptown in July 1995. “He got how many albums? He has got about five or six that are done now and people are asking, “hey, what about this? Is this the next one?” But you never know.”

The Vault Volume II tracks

O(+> shot a video for the Vault Volume II track The Same December on 8 November 1994. The song had a similar sound to the version of Dolphin that was included on The Gold Experience, indicating that they were probably recorded at the same time.

A video for the Come remix 18 And Over was also made which indicated that O(+> had come to regard the track as a song in its own right and that it was probably included as such on the original The Vault Volume II collection. When The Vault concept had morphed into the 1998 3-CD Crystal Ball compilation, 18 And Over was on disc 2, but as 18 & Over.

Two older songs, the 4 August 1985 Prince And The Revolution recording of the song Empty Room and the May 1993 recording of Zannalee, also got the video treatment, indicating that they were also included on The Vault Volume II.

Other 1996 Chaos And Disorder tracks known to be in existence in 1994 was the title track and Right The Wrong which were recorded on the same day in October 1993, but they were included on The Vault Volume I. I like It There was recorded in late 1994 and an unreleased video was made for the song. Except for Empty Room and 18 And Over, all of the tracks had been recorded with members of The New Power Generation. 

O(+>: The Vault Volume II (October 1994)

Track list unknown but includes: I Like It There, The Same December, 18 And Over, Zannalee & Empty Room

Possible The Vault Volume II tracks
Another likely candidate for inclusion on The Vault Volume II was Calhoun Square which was recorded 15 June 1993, and which was bootlegged around this time. It was an overdubbed version that finally saw release on disc 2 of the 1998 Crystal Ball collection, though.

The Vault Volume II appeared to have been a compilation of songs that didn’t make Come or The Gold Experience. As such, Interactive, What’s My Name and Strays Of The World could have been on it. Those three songs were certainly on Crystal Ball disc 2, but Hide The Bone was on Crystal Ball disc 1 but not on The Vault Volume 1. It’s About That Walk was probably saved for Volume III because it got released on The Vault... Old Friends 4 Sale. Somebody’s Somebody and New World could theoretically have been included on either Volume II or III. Of course, the compilation could also have included tracks that have never been released or bootlegged and remain unknown to fans.

By 22 December 1994, O(+> had put the video show together that would be shown prior to his concerts on the European The Gold Experience tour in March 1995.

O(+>: The Gold tour video experience (22 December 1994)

1. The Same December (3:24)

2. 18 And Over (4:16)

3. Zannalee (2:51)

4. Empty Room (3:22)

44 seconds of Zannalee, recorded 14 June 1993, were released on The Undertaker home video in March 1995, previewing the full version of the song on The Vault Volume II. To celebrate the home video release, O(+> performed the full version of Zannalee at an aftershow in London 23 March 1995. It was also performed at a concert at Paisley Park 26 August 1995. By then, police sirens were added to the song, indicating that the version that appeared on Chaos And Disorder in 1996 had already been recorded by this time.

Free the slave

In the summer of 1995, O(+> made a CD collection entitled Playtime by Versace. It was intended as a gift for Gianni and Donatella Versace and included the Vault Volume II tracks 18 And Over and I Like It There, as well as the new song Dinner With Delores that would end up on Chaos And Disorder. It is possible that the line "Then we watch a movie, one of them dirty kinds" was removed from the final version of Zannalee because Dinner With Delores came along and included a line about "showing dirty movies like some kind of whore."

In October 1995, a new video was made for the soon to be Chaos And Disorder track I Like It There featuring a playback performance of the song with The Paisley Park Power Trio of Michael Bland on drums, Sonny Thompson on bass and O(+> on guitar.

On 22 December 1995, Paisley Park issued a press release that said: “O(+> has officially given notice to Warner Bros. Records (WBR) of his desire to terminate his recording agreement with the company. (…) The Artist is prepared to deliver the three remaining albums under his former name Prince, which will fulfill his contractual to WBR. Currently, the albums are titled: Prince: The Vault – Volumes I, II and III. O(+> will release a new recording entitled Emancipation once he is free from all ties with Time Warner.”

Another regime change had occurred at Warner Bros.: Danny Goldberg was out after just one year as Chairman and Vice Chairman Russ Thyret assumed the top job.

Thyret had little appetite for dealing with O(+>’s many complaints and demands when he wasn’t even selling that many records, so he concluded that the label needed to end the relationship.

In early 1996, negotiations began between Warner Bros. and O(+>’s new attorney, L. Londell McMillan. An agreement was quickly reached that O(+> would ultimately deliver two albums of material from the vault to the label which would then release him from his contract.

O(+> decided that those two vault-releases should be The Vault Volume II and III, but instead of just letting them be released as they were, he decided to do quite a lot of additional work on Volume II in particular, updating tracks, removing tracks and adding new ones and transforming Volume II into the Chaos And Disorder album and Volume III into The Vault… Old Friends 4 Sale.

Transforming The Vault Volume II into Chaos And Disorder

Before disbanding The New Power Generation 8 March 1996, O(+> had recorded Sarah with them and The NPG Hornz. During March, O(+> made a new mix of the song and of Right The Wrong from The Vault Volume I.

The former NPG member Rosie Gaines was brought in to add background vocals to the song Chaos And Disorder taken from The Vault Volume I, as well as to three songs, Into The Light, I Will and Dig U Better Dead, that had been placed on an early 1996 configuration of Emancipation before getting moved to Chaos And Disorder. The NPG Hornz played on Into The Light and I Will which were initially two separate tracks that now became segued together.

Into The Light was originally recorded in early 1994 and may even have been included on the original The Vault Volume II configuration, as it - like What It Is… from 1994 - seems to have been inspired by Betty Eadie’s book Embraced By The Light. In the liner notes by Jim Walsh for The Gold Experience it says that O(+> was enamored with the book during the making of that album. “I don’t read many books,” O(+> told Vox in 1995, “but I have read Embraced By The Light. It was inspired by a near-death experience. It throws light on the little things in day-to-day life.”

Rosie Gaines also added lead vocal to I Rock, Therefore I Am. It sounded like an outtake from the 1992 O(+>-album with horrible Jamaica-rap added by Steppa Ranks in the style of the 1993 Pink Cashmere (12” Remix) and a 1996 rap by Scrap D., possibly replacing a Tony M. rap. Scrap D. also appeared on a couple of Emancipation tracks that same year.

In late March/early April 1996, O(+> hired former former NPG members Michael Bland and Sonny Thompson for a Chaos And Disorder-session at South Beach Studios in Miami. They recorded new versions of I Like It There, Chaos And Disorder and Right The Wrong that weren’t used.

Before finalizing the new configuration of Chaos And Disorder, O(+> added the 1995 track Had U and added some guitar to the ending of Dinner With Delores – the Chaos And Disorder album now being the guitar-heavy album Come had originally been in 1993. Sarah ended up on The Vault… Old Friends 4 Sale instead.

O(+>: Chaos And Disorder (April 1996)

1. Chaos And Disorder (4:20)

2. I Like It There (3:15)

3. Dinner With Delores (2:46)

4. The Same December (3:24)

5. Right The Wrong (4:39)

6. Zannalee (2:43)

7. I Rock, Therefore I Am (6:15)

8. Into The Light (2:46)

9. I Will (3:36)

10. Dig U Better Dead (4:00)

11. Had U (1:26)

Release of Chaos And Disorder

On 26 April 1996, O(+> delivered Chaos And Disorder and The Vault… Old Friends 4 Sale to Warner Bros. complete with the artwork design. The record company had no influence over the contents of either album. According to a Warner Bros. executive, it was a “take it or leave it, fuck you”-situation. Several top-level executives were upset about what was perceived as some of O(+>’s most mediocre work in ages. The general feeling at Warner Bros. was that O(+> dumped garbage on them.

“Someone told me that Van Halen did their first record in a week,” O(+> told Los Angeles Times. “That’s what we were going for—spontaneity, seeing how fast and hard we could thrash it out. It was done very quickly, and we achieved what we wanted to achieve in that period of time.”

Dinner With Delores was chosen as the first single and O(+> filmed a video for it in Los Angeles, 20 May 1996. For once, the video was actually released to coincide with the single release, but the song still failed to chart.

O(+>: Dinner With Delores single (June 1996)

1. Dinner With Delores (2:46)

2. Had U (1:26)

3. Right The Wrong (4:39)

On 8 July 1996, a live performance of Dinner With Delores was broadcast on CBS’ The Late Show With David Letterman. It had been taped about a week earlier, 2 July 1996. O(+> still had “slave” written on his cheek.

On 9 July 1996, he performed Dinner With Delores and Zannalee on NBC’s The Today Show. Along with two newspaper interviews, that was about all the promotion O(+> did for Chaos And Disorder which appeared in stores 9 July 1996. The cover announced that the compilation served as the last original material recorded by O(+> for Warner Bros. Records.

Chaos And Disorder fared miserably on the charts, reaching only number 26 on the Billboard Album Chart and failing to enter the R&B Chart. It became O(+>’s poorest selling album of new music since early in his career, moving just 140.000 copies in the United States and fewer than 500.000 worldwide.

Critical reaction

Most critics lambasted Chaos And Disorder. “Tucked inside the cover of his latest platter is a warning that the LP was “originally intended 4 private use only”,” wrote Jim Farber of NY Daily News. “Translation: “Songs this junky should've never made it out of the studio. But since I can't stand my record company, and I couldn't care less about my fans, I put them out anyway - the better to give Warners one last reason to be sorry they ever crossed me.””

“Chaos & Disorder appears to be an uninspired collection of warmed-over jams, sketches, snatches and leftovers,” wrote Jim Walsh in St. Paul Pioneer Press. “Has there ever been a more forgettable Prince single than Dinner With Delores? (…) But the biggest mystery is why would an artist so proud, and so fiercely competitive and trailblazing, release such a mediocre work?”

“Chaos and Disorder is a vault-clearing throw-together meant to fulfill a contract,” said Entertainment Weekly. “No longer content to wallow in a persecution complex, O(+> now apparently feels his fans have to pay for the cross.”

“Maybe he was just saving the good stuff for his new three-disc set, Emancipation,” pondered Rolling Stone Online. “If so, the die-hard fans got hosed. And they’re not the ones who made him a slave.”

On the positive side, some reviewers concluded that  “for a slapped-together throwaway, it’s not bad” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), “these are hardly the throwaway outtakes some artists use to wrap up a contract” (The News-Leader, Springfield, MO) and “you’d do well to remember that the worst throwaway crap from TAFKAP outshines the vast majority of other current artists’ most inspired efforts.” (Rebecca Eisenberg, Addicted To Noise.)

The final Chaos And Disorder tracks

There was no second single release from Chaos And Disorder, but O(+> made some minor changes to the promo video for The Same December and then released it to TV stations. The video told the story of O(+> taking revenge on a record company man who tricked him into signing a lifelong contract.

In a 1996 interview with The Globe And Mail, O(+> said he doubted he would ever listen to the Chaos And Disorder album again and added in a 1997 interview with Musician: “That whole album is loud and raucous, but it’s also dark and unhappy. Same with The Black Album.”

In 1998, the Vault Volume I, II and III concept had become the 3-CD Crystal Ball collection and it included 18 & Over and Calhoun Square. In 1999 It’s About That Walk and Sarah followed on The Vault… Old Friends 4 Sale before O(+> became a Jehova’s Witness and changed his heathen O(+>-name back to Prince. Then a 2002 rehearsal version of Empty Room was released on the download album C-NOTE on Prince’s now defunct NPG Music Club website in 2003.

In 2007, Prince performed Calhoun Square, Chaos And Disorder, I Like It There and Empty Room at a memorable rock aftershow in London, 29 August. In 2009, Prince reunited with NPG members Sonny Thompson and Michael Bland for a legendary rock concert in Los Angeles, 28 March. They performed Chaos And Disorder, I Like It There and Empty Room, not to mention the classic Peach from Come, taking the audience back to happier times – for the fans, if not for Prince. Of course, Prince changed the lyrics to Chaos And Disorder, singing “chaos and disorder ruling your world today” instead of “my world”, suggesting that there was no chaos and disorder in his life anymore.