Publication: St. Paul Pioneer Press [US]
Date: July 5, 1996
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Title: "Ex-Innovator Ex-Prince Serves Leftovers"
Reviewed By: Jim Walsh

Truman Capote once issued one of the most memorable one-liners in book-reviewing history: "That’s not writing. It’s typing."

A similar thing could be said about the artist formerly known as Prince’s new album, "Chaos & Disorder," which hits stores Tuesday. Unlike the bulk of the Prince/TAFKAP catalog, "Chaos & Disorder" appears to be an uninspired collection of warmed-over jams, sketches, snatches and leftovers.

With apologies to Capote, it’s not record making. It’s recording.

Which, no matter what your feelings are about the former Prince’s public image, has never been the case before. He may be unfathomable to most anyone outside the music world, but whenever he gets in the studio, he has always been consistently innovative, and usually something interesting (at the least) occurs. Not this time.

Even his previously tossed-off works -- the hastily composed "Lovesexy" (1988), the batphoned-in "Batman" (1989) and the sketchy, if underrated, "Come" (1994) -- had unifying themes. But for the first time, TAFKAP has released an album that sounds void of his usual visceral focus and inspiration.

Beyond the shock appeal he has become known for, Prince, with almost every one of his previous 17 albums, has always given fans and critics plenty to chew on musically and lyrically. But on "Chaos & Disorder," the disappointing follow-up to 1995’s tour-de-force "The Gold Experience," there is a creeping feeling of deja vu -- a feeling that, even if we haven’t heard these particular musings on love, sex, spirituality, human rights and the afterlife, we’ve heard him do it before. And better.

The Warner Bros. bio for "Chaos & Disorder" would have us believe that this is another guitar record, on a par with the fireworks that fuel "The Gold Experience." But where those were lithe, compact, and purposeful moments, the guitar work on "Chaos & Disorder" is typically flashy but emotionally stingy.

I admit that I yearn to hear ex-Prince dueling with a second guitar again, in order to bring in da funk, bring in da noise. Perhaps the biggest shame about "Chaos & Disorder" is that it tarnishes the reputations of the otherwise spectacular New Power Generation -- so regal and powerful on "The Gold Experience" -- which sounds an awful lot like a band being put through its paces or on the verge of getting the pink slip (which happened earlier this year).

Even TAFKAP’s ubiquitous ear candy is applied much too literally to be compelling: revving motors behind a lyric about cars, a radio DJ behind a lyric about Top 40 radio, a moaning woman behind a lyric about orgasm, a siren behind a lyric about domestic abuse, etc.

Once upon a time, the former Prince would throw in a sound bite that gave the track a freaky quality. It made the song blow up in your headphones and imagination. But here, everything is carefully scripted for the listener.

As a result, "Chaos & Disorder" is sonically stuck in the ‘80s, at a moment in time when Beck’s "Odelay" and others set the standard for cutting-edge recording artistry.

Maybe the reason "Chaos & Disorder" is so disappointing is because of the high standards TAFKAP sets and usually hits. And, of course, as with any TAFKAP album, there are some choice morsels to go along with the leftovers. By my count, there are four strong cuts:

• "Chaos & Disorder." The record kicks off with a bang, thanks to this wicked quasi-anti-drug rocker’s bloody-raw vocal performance. Salient lyric: "I’m just a no-name reporter / I wish I had something to say / Look into my new camcorder / Trying to find a crime that pays."
• "Same December." A hopped-up big-band rave on race relations, punctuated by the scintillating NPG horns. Lyrically, it’s the latest in a long line of utopian visions from Prince/TAFKAP. Musically, it features a chorus worthy of T.Rex, a hook worthy of classic Prince, and it could be a monster hit for a radio format that doesn’t exist.
• "I Rock Therefore I Am." Even though the lyrics are more of the same "I’m an artist, dammit, don’t tell me what to do!" variety, this is an irresistable dance-hall number buoyed by the NPG horns and cameo vocals and reggae raps from Rosie Gaines, Scrap D. and Steppa Ranks.
• "Dig U Better Dead." A genuinely weird and thoroughly ebullient dance workout that can stand with the nastiest mechani-grooves in the Prince catalog.

The rest of "Chaos & Disorder" is remarkably unremarkable. (Has there ever been a more forgettable Prince single than "Dinner With Delores"?) Which brings us to the conspiracy theory. "Chaos & Disorder" is the last studio album the former Prince is required to release on Warner Bros. Records, his record company since 1978. (A forthcoming three-CD set of outtakes and unreleased material, "The Vault," is reportedly the final release, which will fulfill his contract.)

Given all that, and the fact that his first album was titled "For You," the last song on the CD, the one-minute, 26-second "Had U," could be read as a final kiss-off from the "Slave" to Warner Bros. that says, in its entirety: "Missed you / called you / found you / begged you / convinced you / saw you / held you / kissed you / fondled you / attempt to / undress you / smelled you / wanted you / asked you / thanked you / mounted you / hurt you / disappoint you / f--- you / had you."

His war with Warner Bros. has been well-documented here and elsewhere, and from the sounds of it, "Chaos & Disorder" is merely a homework assignment. A means to an end. But the biggest mystery is why would an artist so proud, and so fiercely competitive and trailblazing, release such a mediocre work?

I do not believe, as some critics do, that the former Prince has hit his creative ceiling. But the truth is, as he sings on "Zannalee," "If you want to be a headline, you’ve gotta be all you can be."

I hope that "Chaos & Disorder" is just the dusk before the dawn. In "I Like It There," the former Prince sings to a female conquest, "What can I say [that] Shakespeare hasn’t said before?" It’s a throwaway line from a throwaway album, but at this juncture in his career, TAFKAP could learn a little something from the bard. Such as: "Weigh’st thy words before thou givest them breath" (Othello), "Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste" (Richard III), "Let each man do his best" (Henry IV).