I know many of you dismiss this record, but to me it was a great record, alot of people have said this was just demos thrown together, but i really believe Prince knew he was about to be released and he just went to a studio with Michael B and Sonny and Mr hayes and just jammed and put this record together.

Though i bought this record a few days earlier, July 9th was a bigger day because of his Today Show appearance, got there at about 2am, saw the soundcheck close up got to meet the band and Rhonda (love her), and the Performance was just mindblowing, just a great day and really HOT too, mid 90's that day here in NYC. Looking back at the TV footage seeing me, over Princes shoulder while he is playing Dinner With Delores is a nice memory.

I think one of the main reasons it is dismissed, despite the fact that people like yourself trumpet its supposed greatness, is because it's a contract filler. It even states in the liner notes that the songs were for private use and not intended to be released. With that, he's pretty much saying that this is just some songs thrown together for no other reason but to fulfill his contract. And it's audible that it's contract filler. Chaos and Disorder isn't a horrible record. In retrospect, it has a couple of pretty good songs. But, for a Prince record, as a follow up to The Gold Experience, it's not a very good album at all. Starts off pretty decent with the one-two punch of the title track, followed by "I Like It There." But then it goes horribly wrong from that point onward. Plus it contains one of my least favorite Prince tracks, "I Rock, Therefore I Am."

Bleah!!
[Edited 7/9/06 22:36pm]

Chaos and Disorder rocks!!

Chaos & Disorder shall only be known for getting out of his contract with WB...I find this album hard to listen to more than once a month, and that's only because I forget how much I don't like it by then...

I love Chaos & Disorder. My favourite 90's Prince album. It's agressive, raw, totally rebellious, pimped out, rocking with an abundance of cranked-up guitar. Plenty of snarling guitar solos on "Chaos & Disorder", "I Like It There", "The Same December", "Zannalee". This is the only 90's Prince album where his not trying to be a rapper. And this album rocks harder than any other Prince album since Purple Rain. Choas & Disorder was and is underrated because Prince refused to really promote it beyond the first (and only) single "Dinner With Dolores" because of his fight with Warner Brothers, even though he had music videos already made for "The Same December" and "Zannalee", and it came out at a time when the public was totally confused by Prince's name change and writing slave on his face. Remember Prince was not even called Prince then.

Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic?




[Edited 7/10/06 1:16am]

FrancerulzV99 said:

Undisputed with Chuck D and Hot Wit U with Eve.

Also Strange But True is rap/spoken word.

rudeboynpg said:

Well Prince still isn't acting like a rapper...He just has them join him...Besides, C & D has "I Rock, Therefore I Am" has features Steppa Ranks and Scrap D. on raps. I also forgot to mention The Truth (and don't even say it doesn't count ).

He himself is not rapping on "I Rock, Therefore I Am", Steppa Ranks and Scrap D. have there little raps there.

The Truth?
Doesn't count.

I Will is an inspirational favorite with some of Prince's finest blues guitar work. ...I Like it There is tight to me too.

At the time, people fell hook, line and sinker for the 'contractual obligation' crap - Come was (overall) a disappointment, Gold's greatness hadn't been recognised by the media and the general audience and the project had totally fizzled. Emancipation was promised to be a mind-blowing tour-de-force - the best stuff he'd been holding back all these years in chains at Warners. So, fans were eager to hear what Emancipation was going to be like, and another bitter rush-job for Warners was never gonna be welcomed.

Only - Much like the Black album, the music itself was compiled for the record, not recorded for it - so the spiteful disinterest should've been directed towards the project and it's themes, not necessarily the quality of the music.

The albums faults are GLARING - A short LP-length album, several hideous songs (I Rock Therefore I Am, Dig U Better Dead), and the dreaded 'Right The Wrong' - Which I've seen a lot of people have a change of heart over recently. The vehement hatred towards the album has turned luke warm for a lot of people - maybe they've had time to reappraise the album in the 10 years since it's release, or maybe they've seen that things actually got worse on the subsequent album releases!

Let's look at the songs on the album: IMO, the standout track is 'I Like It There', which is probably the most fun, balls-out, and convincing guitar number that Prince has done for a long time, and nothing Prince has done since has had as much punch or verve.

Dinner With Delores is a great little pop number, The Same December is a successful rework of Prince's ruffled, bombastic pop-rock formula, Zannalee (whilst an inferior retootling) is a fun blues-rock pop track with a welcomed simplicity. Into The Light / I Will is the other standout moment, and probably the sole most heart-felt moment on the LP. You even see 'Had U' getting praise from fans for being 'interesting'. Just leaving the title track, which I think is rather trite and inoffensive, but like a lot of similar Prince material, would hit much harder live. If any of the these tracks had been released on another record, say Come or Gold, or any variation on this era's material, they would've been viewed a lot differently by a lot of people.

When it's bad - It's REALLY bad, but that pretty much describes any Prince album of the past 10 years. When it's good, it stands proud of 85% of the material released in the past 10 years. Time to blow of the cobwebs and wipe SLAVE off your face - enjoy the songs, and forget the 'contractual filler' newspeak and propaganda from the time of it's release.

I definately believe that saying it was contract filler on the liner notes influenced people not to like this album off the bat. Clearly it is Prince saying, "this ain't my best work, don't take it too seriously"

Without that, perhaps it would have got a better reception from fans. I would say it is not a very balanced album - the first half is very rocky, the second half is a mix of mid-funk and balladry. But individually, a lot of the tracks are really cool and actually benefit from a lack of over-production, they're given a bit of rawness that Prince often 'produces out' of his music.

Personally, I love the title track, the rockiness and tongue-in-cheek humour of that and I Like It There, Same December, Right The Wrong and Zannalee. They make for a pretty stomping first half. Dinner With Delores sounds a bit out-of-place amongst those, although despite some terrible lyrics has a light-jazzy Dorothy Parker feel to it.

The second half is much poorer, though. It would have been the obvious choice after a load of rock songs to continue the vibe and make I Rock a full-on rock song too - but turns into into this mid-tempo funk with a rap and not enough rock! The turn around in direction is complete with the balladry of Into The Light and I Will which just sound like one song. Not particularly fond of ballads, and these are not up there with his best. Dig U Better Dead is actually a cool little song, but totally gets lost at the end part of this album, and together with the very short but cool oddity of Had U make a very spiteful end to this album and leave a less than joyous feeling.

It's an odd album, and under-rated because of that, I think. Personally, and maybe because I favour Prince's rock moments, I like C&D, I Like It There, Same December, Right The Wrong and Zannalee more than anything on the overly saccharine Emancipation which followed it!

Please see attached thread link, which is my take on proceedings.

In short most albums by Prince are 'compilation' albums - i.e. complied using tracks recorded or re-recorded over a period of years. For example SOTT is essentially a 'compliation' of Dream Factory and Crystal Ball tracks, the same with Grafitti Bridge etc etc.

C&D is no different and if you read my thread I actually argue that Prince put more effort into this and TGE than would otherwise be the case IF he merely wanted to end his contract with filler.


http://www.prince.org/msg/7/159658
[Edited 7/10/06 3:55am]

Since I heard that this album was mostly 'filler',
I waited a long time before I bought it.
Actually, now that I think about it,
I really wasn't planning on buying at all.
When I did make the purchase,
it was just to listen to it a couple of times,
then give it to my brother, who'll like any Prince just cuz it's Prince.

When I finally heard it,
I couldn't believe how much I liked it.
It's not a great album,
but IMO, it's still incredibly good.

It will remain a permanent part of my collection.

FrancerulzV99 said:

poor steppa never had a chance!

i think this album was prince at his "i don't give a shit" best. we could only be so lucky as to have new prince albums with songs like "zannalee" and "i like it there" and even the title track. even "into the light" and "i will" are better than most of "musicology" or even "3121". the only place i'll agree with the haters of this album is "i rock therefore i am" and "dig u better dead", and even those two songs have some fun hooks and ideas to them...it's just the lousy rapping that fouls 'em up.

"the same december"? "dinner with delores"??? are you kidding, i love this album!

this album totally rocks.

KAB said:

I think, therefore, that you can argue that the over-all concept for Chaos & Disorder was quickly put together as a contract-filler album, but that the individual songs were proper songs that Prince put as much care and attention into as any other tracks.

It's been said that Prince plans albums years in advance, it maybe that he had no concept of a 'C&D' album or 'Vault' album in the pipeline, recording those tracks as he went as he, well, just does, but then to get out of the contract he had to devise 2 albums very quickly - putting together pre-recorded material with no real feel for an over-all concept.

Saying that, C&D does have a bit of a F you attitude aimed surely at Warners - especially 'Had U', while The Vault has a consistent retro blues feel throughout, so who knows?

Michael Bland posts in the Associated Artists section and I asked him if "Chaos and Disorder" was a throwaway album or not.

His answer was that they recorded the songs on C&D the same way they recorded the songs on all the other albums he played on.

What that tells me is that C&D wasn't a throwaway album. I can't speak to how much time went into writing the songs, but Prince put as much effort into recording those songs as he did any others.

Personally, I like the album a lot.

metalorange said:

I agree - except to add - Prince and Michael and Sonny [and others?] recorded or re-recorded tracks [such as I like it there] in April 1996 presumably for the C&D project. Why do this unless it was because he wanted to perfect C&D before it's release?

KAB said:

Because he was interested in perfecting the individual tracks, but not perfecting the over-all concept or tracklist?

the album is trash !!!!!1

prettymansson said:

I never really thought of Chaos as a record of old demos, despite what the liner notes say "Private use", that to me just meant that it was one jam session and this is what they did. I remember reading back in 1996 that they recorded this record in Miami over a week. With the exception of "I rock" and maybe "right the wrong" its really a strong album, especially keeping a "rock" vibe. The argument can be made that all the records around 94-96 were "contract filler" because these tracks were all circulating amongst the fans, to be honest Chaos seemed to be the only album with "new" tracks from that time period. I think we all had every "Come" and "TGE" track before it came out.

oNe Of FaVoRiTe AlBuMs !!!!

(I typed it that way to show how much I love it ) LOL

I didnt like this album when I first bought it - but its been like a fine wine to me - matured well with its age and now I just love it!!

I thought it was sort of boring when I first heard it...not funky enough, like Come. Then it grew on me and now I love it! However, I really don't care for Jamaican rappers...that's my only legitimate criticism.

.....

[b][i]I HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT AFTER READING THE INSIDE LINERSON C&D WHERE PRINCE SAID THAT THIS WAS HIS LAST CD TO FINISH HIS CONTRACT WITH WARNER, THEY WERE DUMB AS HELL FOR LETTING HIM GO! THIS WAS & ALWAYS WILL BE ONE OF MY FAVORITE ALBUMS BY HIM. I CAN GET FUNKY OR ROCK THE HELL OUT WITH MY WINDOWS DOWN WHILE I'M DRIVING TO SEE ME GIRLS IN ST PAUL. !!!! "OH MY GOD - IT'S A BLACK GIRL"!!!!! LOVE YOU - MEKO

NOW, IF YOU DON'T HAVE THIS CD YET. GET OF YO ASS N GET IT.

It's a short, disjointed album, with a few interesting moments, But as a whole, it just didn't come together well. The album cover alone was enough to deter casual fans from buying it.