Chaos and Disorder

Lore & Background

Prince refused to promote the album, still engaged in his fight against his Warner Bros. contract, and it was released simply to fulfill his contractual obligations. The inlay sleeve carries the message: 'Originally intended 4 private use only, this compilation serves as the last original material recorded by (love symbol) 4 warner brothers records - may you live 2 see the dawn'. The inlay sleeve shows a bloody hypodermic needle with a dollar bill inside it, and a human heart sitting in a toilet bowl. While Prince insisted that the album 'was done very quickly', and that they were 'seeing how fast and hard we could thrash it out', more than a third of it dates back to sessions for The Gold Experience and Come. It also marked the return of Rosie Gaines, who sang on five songs, and Michael B. and Sonny T., in what were to be their last sessions as regular New Power Generation members.

Reader's Guide

The album reached number 26 in the United States—his poorest performance with an album of new material since his debut album For You—and number 14 in the United Kingdom. The single 'Dinner with Delores' was released in the United Kingdom only, and despite the low-key promotion, became a Top 40 hit, albeit a minor one by his previous standards. Despite having been out of print for years, the album was released digitally on Tidal in 2016, and on iTunes in 2018. It was reissued on CD and vinyl in September 2019.

Did You Know?

• Another described it as a 'tightly-focused, grunge-oriented rock-funk collection' where 'the grit and punch of the musicianship is what gives the album its overall raw edge.'
• The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau wrote that 'anybody expecting a kissoff or a throwaway radically underestimates his irrepressible musicality.'
• At the time of its release, Prince told the Los Angeles Times: 'I was bitter before, but now I've washed my face. I can just move on. I'm free.'
• After Chaos and Disorder it was 18 years before Prince released another album on Warner Bros., 2014's Plectrumelectrum, under a deal which gave back Prince control of his masters.