Knowing Prince's 1996 record Chaos and Disorder was his last contractual obligation to Warner Bros. might suggest to some the disc is pro-forma, without spirit and energy and otherwise lackluster.
It is none of those things, and I'm not proud to say I dismissed it out-of-hand back then without a listen. I recently rectified that and will attest to the album's stellar quality -- solid musicianship and infectious tunesmithing. It's a turn-it-up-and-sing-along party record.
Chaos and Disorder charted poorly because the Purple One didn't promote it, and I don't think Prince performed any of the music on the album in concert. Pity. Several genuine princely winners here -- Dig U Better Dead; I Rock, Therefore I Am; I Like It There, among them.
Foolish of me to doubt the man.
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When Prince was finally done with Warner Bros. in 1996, he released on his own label an enormous musical F.U. to the record company. It was titled Emancipation.
Though "free," Prince was still photographed with "Slave" scrawled on his cheek and going by the vaguely Egyptian glyph that combined male and female symbols but had no meaning other than what he'd given it. "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince."
Emancipation is a sprawling, three-disc work of 36 songs that contains Prince's usual mix of funk, pop, rock and soul, God and sex, plus four covers, the first time he'd not written everything on a recording. It's strong but may have been a meal too large for his fans to take in completely even though the critics loved it.
Each record holds 60 minutes of music -- much more than any of his other multiple disc releases. It took me quite a while to get to all of it. It's a bit uneven to my ear but Prince's indulgences -- and he was prone to excess and experimentation -- were always more entertaining than much of the work by his contemporaries.
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