Divide & Conquer

"Divide & Conquer" is the third studio album by trance-rock singer Violetta DiNozzo. Originating as a studio album for the Darling Violetta Project, the album was pushed back multiple times until eventually being released as a solo album on August 22nd, 2011. The album debuted at #1 in the UK, becoming her second chart-topping album. It spawned two of Violetta's three career #1 hits. In 2012, Violetta released a remix album based on an expanded version of the album.
==Background & Recording==
Violetta began work on the album as far back as 2009, when she started sourcing demos from other artists. The recording of the album itself began in 2010, but these sessions went unused for the album when Violetta decided to change the direction her third album was taking. The recordings from those 2010 sessions were instead used on the tour edition of her album "Blood Of The Sacred, Blood Of The Damned" and third American album "Dealbreaker". Violetta had decided that what she wanted to do for her third album was form a band to create the album with. Violetta began recording demos with guitarist/bassist Raphael Monaghan (previously of Schizophonic), and DJ/producer Katrina Benson, whom Violetta had previously hired to be her touring DJ. When Violetta realized how well the trio were working together she hired them to be her team for the album, dubbing themselves "The Darling Violetta Project". Together they began preparing her third album as a band, but the general public was not receptive so the album was postponed so it could be re-branded as a Violetta solo album.
The album was intended to be released in April, but due to financial difficulties at Alias Records, the album was postponed again when the label couldn't afford the promotional budget required to effectively facilitate Violetta's comeback at the same time as label boss Esmeralda Dimuzio. During this period of multiple pushbacks, Violetta and her team continued to write and record additional tracks for the album until eventually they finalised a tracklisting. A great deal of the album was written by other artists; Violetta's concept for the album was to relinquish her level of creative control, starting with the formation of a band (intended to split the creative control equally between all bandmates) and then from accepting material by other writers (to provide a different lyrical output to Violetta's own). The resultant album featured only four primary writing credits for Violetta, out of twelve tracks. The American edition of the album featured a slightly altered tracklisting compared to the UK version, but to nowhere near the same extent as with her previous studio album, as Violetta had by this point completed her three-album deal with Epic Records and had signed a new deal with independent electronic label Organized Nature.
In early 2012, Violetta had the entire album remixed, including additional tracks recorded that same year. The remix album "Divided. Conquered. Revisited." was released in February, in a two-disc set that housed the entire album remixed, plus the original album with the original versions of the new tracks included. Violetta wrote all three of the additional songs included on the remix album, whose sales were counted toward the original album despite not being considered a proper re-release.
===Collaborations===
Violetta worked with a great number of other artists while recording the album, because she wrote only a small portion of the material on the album. Violetta took the demo of "Rockstar" from Yannik McQueen" in 2009, and it got a slight re-working for the album. Syd Wolfe wrote "Go, Baby Go", which was another demo that was picked up early. China wrote two songs which went to Violetta; first was "Don't Play Those Games", which made it onto the album and was released as a single in the UK, and "Illuminati" which was recorded with DJ Double Garage for his follow-up album to "Metronomy". That album was shelved, but the song was held aside and was featured on the American edition of "Divide & Conquer", and released in the UK as a b-side to "Monsters". Halle York wrote "10,000 Butterflies" which was sold to Violetta, who slightly re-worked the song for her album, and was released as the third single. Violetta requested a song from Ben Johnston and Elice Claire, who were writing material together due to the release of their single "Scattered Echoes", and they co-wrote the song "Running Undaunted" for her, which became the second single.
Ben also wrote the song "The Underdog", which was written for an unreleased concept album, but sold off as a stand-alone piece. Crystal Barker wrote "Tick The Boxes", which is the oldest song on the album. It was written in 2009, and the demo was put up for sale at the same time. The trsck was never claimed, so in 2011 Violetta put in a bid and bought the song. All of these songs were in a more pop and rock style depending on who wrote them; Violetta worked with Raphael and Katrina to re-build the songs into their new trance-rock sound. The process was collaborative, bouncing ideas off of the writers and working on songs until everyone was in agreement about the direction of the album. In 2012, the song "Otherworld" was released on the remix album "Divided. Conquered. Revisited.", a song recorded for the album with Violetta's half-brother Victor Strong, which missed the cut of the original album. Violetta had promised the song would be released, and she made sure to include it as one of the tracks added to the expanded album.
==Tracklisting==
All songs produced by Katrina Benson.
==Chart Performance==
A strong promotional campaign under the Fusion Records banner helped the album achieve massive debut sales, her biggest sales week ever, leading to "Divide & Conquer" debuting at #1 in the UK, Violetta's second chart-topping album. The promotional campaign wasn't quite as strong in America due to Violetta re-signing with an independent electronica label. It was still able to chart in the top 10, debuting at #8. The album was certified platinum in the US, and diamond in the UK. The album was also a success throughout Europe, where it was given proper local release as opposed to previous albums, which were only available through import.
===Chart Run===
* Week 1: #1 - 129,009
* Week 2: #5 - 70,465
* Week 3: #9 - 40,755
* Week 4: #12 - 34,010
* Week 5: #20 - 21,930
* Week 6: #15 - 31,959
* Week 7: #2 - 80,092
* Week 8: #4 - 68,093
* Week 9: #9 - 48,953
* Week 10: #12 - 37,901
* Week 11: #18 - 19,013
* Week 12: #21 - 19,039
* Week 13: #7 - 48,226
* Week 14: #3 - 76,296
* Week 15: #8 - 62,743
* Week 16: #15 - 40,192
* Week 17: #19 - 29,086
* Week 18: #33 - 16,992
* Week 19: #31 - 11,724
* Week 20: #28 - 13,533
* Week 21: #39 - 3,013
* Week 22: #37 - 8,029 (RE-ENTRY)
* Week 23: #34 - 6,998
* Week 24: #20 - 14,765
* Week 25: #15 - 27,217
* Week 26: #5 - 60,739
* Week 27: #13 - 34,095
* Week 28: #20 - 16,887
* Week 29: #18 - 22,132
* Week 30: #20 - 21,121
* Week 31: #24 - 12,610
* Week 32: #25 - 13,700
* Week 33: #28 - 13,238
* Week 34: #35 - 8,738
* Week 35: #40 - 4,029
TOTAL: 1,167,322
== Artwork ==
Image:VDi-D&C-FrontCover.png|Original Cover
Image:VDi-D&C-RevisitedCover.png|Revisited Cover