Sex & Violins (also known on later US releases as Cotton Eye Joe (Sex & Violins)) is the debut studio album by Swedish Eurodance group Rednex, released on Jive Records in February 1995.

Content

Female vocals on the album are provided by Annika Ljungberg; due to a disagreement with the other band members, she left the band after the release of the album's fifth single, "Rolling Home", in 1996, to start a solo career. The album was a commercial success, including the hit dance single "Cotton Eye Joe". For its US release, the album was retitled Cotton Eye Joe (Sex & Violins) and received new cover art – presumably due to the possible offensive nature of the original artwork, which depicted a person urinating into a chamber pot with the band members' faces. Initially, the album cover was edited to leave out the golden shower but with the yellow liquid remaining. This would be substituted for wholly original artwork for a short time, which depicted a desert landscape with cacti warped by heat haze, but returned to the unedited original cover after a single pressing.

Critical reception

David Browne from Entertainment Weekly said, "For sheer audaciousness, it’s not surprising that the record is garnering such attention. Where else can you hear a barn-dance staple gone techno, complete with dance-diva wailing and manic banjos and fiddles?" Neil Spencer from The Observer wrote, "Swedish barn-dance disco: an initially amusing joke (chart-topping "Cotton Eye Joe") repeated to the point of inanity."

Track listing

Notes

Personnel

Production

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Sales and certifications