Publication: Minneapolis Star Tribune [US]
Date: July 17, 1996
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Title: Minneapolis Star Tribune Review
Reviewed By: Jon Bream

This recording carries the following announcement - or disclaimer - on the back: "Originally intended 4 private use only, this compilation serves as the last original material recorded by Prince 4 Warner Bros. Records."

In other words, Prince's heart isn't in this album (in stores today). Still, for a slapped-together throwaway, it's no bad. A lot of funk-rock, a dash of pop, a taste of jazz and blues, a couple of nasty dance numbers, lots of Prince guitar work. It's mostly retro-sounding - like Prince of the mid-'80s.

At times, "Chaos and Disorder" sounds like a cut-and-paste job, with lots of musical flash and fun and little emotional investment or conviction. But Prince's leftovers are often tastier than other artists' main courses.

The number that stands out is "I Rock, Therefore I Am." This declaration of self-confidence is funky, slinky, freaky and the only hip-hop thang Prince has ever done that seems natural. This dynamite dance jam goes dance-hall with a guest reggae rapper rhyming about Kirby Puckett and other things Minnesota. The best dance workout is "Dig U Better Dead," a nasty mechanical funk jam promulgating the philosophy that life is full of peaks and valleys and that if you're lost, the naysayers say you're better off dead, but Prince would rather see you turn to God.

Those are the high points. The low points are perhaps the nadir of Prince's 18 years on Warner Bros. "Into the Light," an adult pop song, is one of the schmaltziest and schlockiest things he has ever released - until the ensuing "I Will," a piece of fluff that sounds like a chorus and keyboard riff stretched into an incomplete song.

"Chaos and Disorder" ends with an 86-second self-absorbed kiss-off to a lover (or a record label), "Had U," framed by hauntingly warped strings and guitar. Prince still seems as irresistibly mysterious and weird now as he did on his first Warner Bros. album, "For You," in 1978.