Erotica is the fifth studio album by American singer and songwriter Madonna. It was released on October 19, 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 of the singer, and marked her first release under Maverick, her own multimedia entertainment company. For the album, the singer enlisted Shep Pettibone, with whom she had collaborated on 1990's "Vogue" and The Immaculate Collection, and André Betts.

In mid-1991, Pettibone sent Madonna a three-track demo; she listened to the songs and liked all of them. Afterward, the two met in New York City to start working on more music. The singer would write the melodies and lyrics on top of the music Pettibone produced in the style of his previous remixes. Erotica has been noted as a concept album about her alter–ego called Mistress Dita. With her, Madonna explores themes such as sadomasochism and sexual freedom in her coffee table book. In the album, the themes explored are mostly about sex and romance in times of HIV/AIDS, with songs that address "heavy" themes such as S&M and homophobia. Additionally, it marked a departure from the dance-oriented sound of Madonna's previous works, incorporating elements of hip-hop, house, and techno.

Upon release, it received mixed reviews from critics, who regarded it as one of Madonna's most adventurous albums. Others criticized its lyrics for being banal and felt the music was overshadowed by its sexual themes. Commercially, it charted number one in Australia, Brazil, Finland, and France, and peaked within the top five in Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Erotica 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 Billboard Hot 100. The album was supported by the Girlie Show, Madonna's fourth concert tour, which visited cities in Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Asia in 1993. Initially overlooked, partly because of the backlash surrounding the Sex book, Erotica has been retrospectively considered one of Madonna's most important albums, as well as one of the most revolutionary of all time by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many critics have since noted the influence of Erotica in later works by other female artists.

Background On April 21, 1992, it was reported that Madonna had teamed up with Time Warner Inc. to form Maverick, a multimedia entertainment company. Maverick consisted of a record company, a film production company, and associated music publishing, television broadcasting, book publishing, and merchandising divisions. The deal paid the singer an advance of $60 million and gave her 20% royalties from the music proceeds, one of the highest rates in the industry, equaled at that time only by Michael Jackson's royalty rate established a year earlier with Sony. Madonna described Maverick as "the perfect marriage of art and commerce", further adding that she envisioned it as an "artistic think tank", and likened it to a cross between the German arts institute Bauhaus and Andy Warhol's The Factory; "it started as a desire to have more control. There's a group of writers, photographers, directors and editors that I've met along the way in my career who I want to take with me everywhere I go. I want to incorporate them into my little factory of ideas", she explained. The first two projects from the venture were Madonna's fifth studio album and a coffee table book depicting her "erotic fantasies", titled Sex.

Madonna described the album as "soulful, with a jazzy undertone and a lot of beatnik-style poetry in it". Titled Erotica, the record saw the singer reunited with producer Shep Pettibone, with whom she had previously collaborated on "Vogue" and "Rescue Me" from The Immaculate Collection (1990). Alongside Pettibone, Madonna enlisted help from producer André Betts, who previously co-produced "Justify My Love" from The Immaculate Collection. She was interested in working with Pettibone and Betts because of their ability to remain plugged into the dance underground; "they come from opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of their music style and approach to music, but they're both connected to the street and they're still young and hungry".

Development

Following the release of The Immaculate Collection, by mid-1991, Pettibone began working on new music: "I knew I could do something great after 'Vogue' and 'Rescue Me' so I just started putting tracks together with my assistant, Tony Shimkin", Pettibone recalled. He and Shimkin created a three-track demo and sent it to Madonna, who was in Chicago filming A League of Their Own; she listened to the songs and liked all of them. In October, after filming was complete, Madonna met Pettibone in New York City to start working on more demos. Anthony Shimkin recalled that the singer brought with her a "book full of lyrics and melody ideas". Pettibone created the music, and Madonna the lyrics. Shimkin would program a Macintosh computer to play percussion and synthesizer parts and transfer them to an eight-track recorder; then, Madonna would record her vocals. According to author Mark Bego, the first batch of songs they worked on were the title track, "Deeper and Deeper", "Bad Girl", "Thief of Hearts", and "Rain". Recording took place at New York's Soundworks Studios, Master Mix Studios, and Clinton Recording Studios. The producer described their work schedule as "sporadic", because Madonna split her time between other ventures: She was working with Steven Meisel on Sex and would sometimes leave for two weeks; occasionally, she would also meet with producer André Betts. At first, Madonna did not like the first group of songs she had recorded. According to Mark Landeros from Classic Pop, Pettibone's "glossy sheen and pristine production" were the antithesis of what Madonna envisioned for Erotica. She wanted it to have a "raw edge", as if it were recorded in an alley in Harlem.

Problems also arose during sequencing; computer processes would take too long and delay recordings. Pettibone had to keep things moving as fast as possible because he did not want Madonna to lose interest in the music. Also at this point, the music was getting "a little melancholy" and Madonna's lyrics and ideas "a lot more serious and intense". It was Pettibone's idea to write a song for Madonna's friend Martin Burgoyne who died of HIV/AIDS, and wrote the chords for "In This Life"; she wrote the lyrics in 15 minutes. The title track "Erotica" underwent "numerous radical changes" during the recording process, with four different versions being recorded; the singer would first sing it one way, and then decide to erase everything and start all over again. Shimkin affirmed that the original version was not "as slinky and sexy and grimy and dirty", until the mixing process; at that stage, the song was still an "experimentation", but when they realized it was going to be the lead single, it took on a "different, darker vibe". While recording Erotica, Madonna was also working on Sex; for the book, she incorporated a dominatrix alter-ego named Mistress Dita, heavily inspired by German actress Dita Parlo. After seeing the book, Pettibone suggested that the singer incorporate the dominatrix theme into the song's lyrics: "'You have all these great stories [in the book]', I told her, 'Why don't you use them in the song?'". Madonna left the studio with a copy of Sex, returned and recorded her vocals to "Erotica" in a "very dry" way; Pettibone then realized the song "would never be the same again". The chorus and bridge were changed entirely and the song's "psyche" became "sexier, more to the point".

For "Deeper and Deeper", Madonna wanted to have a flamenco guitar in the middle, an idea Pettibone disagreed with, but eventually gave in. He later decided to add castanets to "really take it there". According to Shimkin, while they were recording the song, Pettibone began singing some lines of "Vogue"; Madonna, who heard this and emulated it, liked the sound and decided to keep it. She later explained: "When we were actually recording, doing the final vocals, I just went off into that for a second because ['Vogue'] to me it's just one of those great kind of feel good dance songs." "Where Life Begins" was the first song for the album Madonna composed with André Betts, who was pleased with the song's explicit subject. The singer and Betts also worked together on "Waiting", which samples her vocals from "Justify My Love", and therefore was "an easy sell [to Madonna]". During a break from recording, Shimkin and Pettibone went on vacation to the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, respectively. Hearing a lot of reggae on their trips inspired them to write the music to "Why's It So Hard". "Did You Do It?" began as a joke; while Madonna was out, Betts began freestyling over the instrumental of "Waiting" after being asked if he'd ever been intimate with Madonna. The singer liked the result and decided to keep the track on the album.

"Fever"s inclusion was a "happy accident". Madonna and Pettibone were working on "Goodbye to Innocence", a house song that talks about "living at the center of a controversial media storm", but, according to the singer, "[it] just wasn't working [...] the vibe wasn't right". When they decided to try and record the song one final time, Madonna started singing bits of Little Willie John's "Fever"; she had previously attended a Peggy Lee concert, and her rendition of the song had "made a strong impression on [me]". Pettibone liked how it sounded, and they decided to record a cover. The problem, however, was that neither of them knew the full lyrics. Madonna called Seymour Stein from Sire Records and, "within an hour, we had the lyric sheets, the Peggy Lee version, and the original version of the song in our hands". "Fever" was the last song to be recorded for Erotica.

Composition Sounds and themes Author J. Randy Taraborrelli described Erotica as a "melting pot of nineties urban music — burgeoning hip-hop and house, partnered with a more conventional synthesizer-based rhythm and blues". It is a dance album that incorporates elements from classic disco, modern house, and techno. Additionally, it marked a departure from the "four-on-the-floor disco romp that listeners came to expect from [Madonna]", focusing instead on "heavy, cold [...] difficult and unpleasant" themes such as homophobia, queerness, female sex and sexuality, "not only in the hottest moments of physical relationships, but in their darker, more intimate instances, particularly in relation to the growing AIDS crisis", as noted by the Portland Mercurys Jeni Wren Strottup. It has been described as a concept album about Mistress Dita, her alter-ego in the album and in Sex, as a reminder, and mostly about looking for romance in a post-AIDS era.

Music and lyrics