Album #5
in the Remixed & Revisited series.
EROTICA
Erotica is the fifth studio album by American recording artist Madonna, released on October 20, 1992 by Maverick and Sire Records. The album was released simultaneously with Madonna's first book publication Sex, a coffee table book containing explicit photographs featuring the singer, and marked her first release under Maverick, her own multimedia entertainment company. Erotica is a concept album about sex and romance, incorporating her alter ego Mistress Dita, inspired by actress Dita Parlo. Some of its songs also take on a more confessional tone, influenced by the loss of two of Madonna's close friends to AIDS.
Madonna recorded the album in New York City with Shep Pettibone and André Betts while she was working on her book and film projects. She began creating the album's demos with Pettibone in his apartment in October 1991, and wrote the melodies and lyrics on top of the basic music which Pettibone produced in the style of his remixes. During the sessions, they had problems during sequencing, and, as a result, Pettibone kept trying to move development as fast as possible as he did not want Madonna to lose interest in the music. According to him, Madonna's compositions were serious and intense, moving the creative direction of the songs into a deeply personal territory.
Erotica received generally favorable reviews from critics, who regarded it as one of Madonna's most adventurous albums and praised her comments on taboos and AIDS. Commercially, the album was less successful than Madonna's previous albums, peaking at number 2 on the US Billboard 200, becoming her first studio album not to top the chart since her debut. Internationally, it topped the charts in Australia, Finland, and France, and peaked within the top five of several other countries such as Canada, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Erotica was later certified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America and has sold more than six million copies worldwide.
Six singles were released from the album, including the title track and "Deeper and Deeper", both of which reached the top ten of the US Billboard Hot 100. The album was supported by The Girlie Show World Tour, which visited cities in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, and Australia in 1993. Overlooked at the time of its release in part due to the backlash surrounding the Sex book, Erotica has been retrospectively considered one of "The 100 Best Albums of the 1990s" by Slant Magazine and one of the most revolutionary albums of all time by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many critics noted the influence of the album on the works of other female artists from Janet Jackson to Beyoncé.
