This blog presents a series of articles that tells all about Prince's controversial 1993-1996 era when he was known simply as O(+>. The stories behind his music, his girlfriends and his battle with his record company. Come, The Gold Experience, Chaos And Disorder, Emancipation and all of the side-projects - it's all here, even a bonus interview with Chaka Khan about her 1998 album with O(+>.
fredag den 25. januar 2019
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.
UPDATED 28 April 2022: The 1996 Chaos And Disorder album evolved from the 1994 The Vault Volume II collection and this chapter has been reworked accordingly. Thanks to TheSilentMikey.
UPDATED 18 October 2023: Comments about Calhoun Square in the beginning of the Possible The Vault Volume II Tracks section were corrected. Thanks to Mr.Z
UPDATED 28 April 2022: The 1996 Chaos And Disorder album evolved from the 1994 The Vault Volume II collection and this chapter has been reworked accordingly. Thanks to TheSilentMikey.
SvarSletUPDATED 30 May 2022: The I Like It There video was moved to October 1995. Thanks to PrinceVault.
SvarSletUPDATED 18 October 2023: Comments about Calhoun Square in the beginning of the Possible The Vault Volume II Tracks section were corrected. Thanks to Mr.Z
SvarSlet