By 1996, Prince’s battle with Warner Bros. had reached a boiling point. He had written “Slave” across his cheek, declared that “Prince” was dead, and was releasing music at a furious pace in an attempt to burn through his contract. Just months after The Gold Experience proved he could still create a masterpiece, he dropped Chaos and Disorder, a lean, 39-minute album that felt more like a middle finger than a grand artistic statement.

Prince himself dismissed the project, calling it “originally intended 4 private use only,” and refused to promote it. No tour, no music videos (save for the odd “Dinner with Delores” clip), and only a small push from Warner. Critics at the time wrote it off as a contractual throwaway. But listening closely, Chaos and Disorder has its own charm: a rough, guitar-driven, sarcastic collection that reveals Prince at his rawest.

By the mid-1990s, Prince was in open rebellion. He had changed his name to the unpronounceable Love Symbol, branded himself “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince,” and written “Slave” on his cheek to protest Warner Bros.’ control of his masters. In 1994, he released Come as the “last Prince album,” a dark and brooding project he all but disowned. But the very next year, he unveiled The Gold Experience, the first full album under the Symbol identity.

If Come was the funeral, The Gold Experience was the rebirth. Brimming with funk jams, soaring ballads, political anthems, and rock explosions, it proved that Prince was still operating at the height of his creative powers.

In August 1994, Prince released Come, an album shrouded in tension, ambiguity, and rebellion. By this time, Prince had entered open conflict with Warner Bros. Records, publicly declaring that his birth name was no longer his identity and adopting the unpronounceable Love Symbol instead. He shaved the word “Slave” into his face and staged the “death of Prince” in press images, going so far as to superimpose his portrait onto a tombstone for the album’s cover art. The inscription read:

Prince, 1958–1993. May he rest in peace.

For Prince, Come was not just another release — it was a funeral. He declared it the “last Prince album,” made to fulfill a contractual obligation, even as he poured his true creative energy into the parallel project The Gold Experience. Yet dismissing Come as a throwaway would be a mistake. Beneath the shadow of label politics lies a dark, moody, and daring collection that reflects Prince at a crossroads, balancing erotic obsessions with meditations on mortality.