Before he founded Enigma, Cretu had released several solo records, collaborated with various artists, and produced albums for his then wife, German pop singer Sandra. Following their marriage in 1988, Cretu developed an idea for a New-age music project named Enigma, and recorded MCMXC a.D. in eight months at A.R.T. Studios, his home studio located in Ibiza, Spain. It is one of the first albums recorded onto a hard disk drive. Cretu makes extensive use of Gregorian chants, dance beats, and flute sounds.
MCMXC a.D. received some criticism for its sexual and religious themes and connotations but it became a worldwide success, reaching the top 10 in ten countries, including the United Kingdom, and No. 6 in the United States where it sold over 4 million copies and stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for 282 weeks. Four singles from the album were released—"Sadeness (Part I)", "Mea Culpa (Part II)", "Principles of Lust", and "The Rivers of Belief". "Sadeness (Part 1)" topped the singles charts worldwide and remains Enigma's most successful single. In 1991 and 1999, the album was re-released with additional remixed tracks.
MCMXC a.D. was recorded in 1990 across eight months at A.R.T. Studios located in Cretu's home on the Spanish island of Ibiza.
The chants used on "Sadeness" and "Mea Culpa" were mostly taken from Paschale Mysterium (1976) by the German choir Capella Antiqua München with conductor Konrad Ruhland, specifically from the track "Procedamus in pace! (Antiphon)". The vocals were used without permission which led to a lawsuit.
MCMXC a.D. is considered a landmark and innovative New-age album. Cretu developed the idea of sampling. Though samples had been used by artists such as Jean-Michel Jarre and Klaus Schulze, Cretu built his music around whole sequences of previously recorded parts. This method was adopted by many hip-hop and electronic music artists.
The introduction of MCMXC a.D. starts with a sample from "Not Forgotten" by Leftfield played backwards (which started to be famously used in Enigma's music), and the voice of Louisa Stanley, who at the time was an executive at Virgin Records speaking in "The Voice of Enigma". The Gregorian chant "Procedamus in pace!" then segues into the three-part "Principles of Lust". The first, "Sadeness", received the most attention through its unique and previously unheard mix of Gregorian chants and dance beat. The track features triangles and synthesized shakuhachi flutes with French lyrics and breathy sounds from Sandra, as well as samples from "Inifinity" by Greek band Aphrodite's Child. As for the male voice speaking in French during the track, Cretu only described him as a good friend of his. "Sadeness" fades into the second part, "Find Love", in which Sandra instructs the listener to follow their lust. Reversed chants signal the start of "Sadeness (Reprise)" and continues with a short piano theme based on the earlier shakuhachi flutes. The flute returns as chants of "Hosanna" gradually bring "Principles of Lust" to an end.
"Callas Went Away" is a tribute to the opera singer Maria Callas. Chirps from electronic birds at the beginning, mixed with a slow beat and sounds of a piano leads to Sandra's whispers and ends with some samples of Callas singing the aria '"Ces lettres! Ces lettres!" from the opera Werther by Jules Massenet.
The rain at the beginning of "Mea Culpa" is taken from the introduction of "Black Sabbath" by English heavy metal band Black Sabbath. The chant "Kyrie Eleison" (from Mass XI, Orbis Factor, in the Liber usualis) appears predominantly alongside Sandra's vocals and flutes. The song segues into "The Voice & The Snake", which is based on "Seven Bowls" by Aphrodite's Child, where a group of people describe the end of the world in an eerie and haunting manner, as mentioned in the Book of Revelation.
A bowl falls to the ground and breaks, leading into "Knocking on Forbidden Doors". The drum beats in the song were made to resemble the sound of a door being knocked. A guitar enters and slips aside quietly for Gregorian chants, this time a part of "Salve Regina", and fading into the "Back to the Rivers of Belief", another three-part track. It begins with "Way to Eternity", featuring composer John Williams' five-toned notes from the science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), which leads to mellow Gregorian chants. The beat from "Sadeness" returns with violins for the start of the second part, "Hallelujah". The triangle and voice from the first track reappears and repeats itself. The final section, "The Rivers of Belief", features Cretu singing the chorus. After that, the music stops completely, and John Forst's unfamiliar male voice recites 8:1 from the Book of Revelation — "When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, silence covered the sky" — which is sampled from 666 (The Apocalypse of John, 13/18) (1972) by Aphrodite's Child. Incidentally, the sentence about the seventh seal enters at the seventh minute and seventh second of the seventh track on some pressings of the album. The music closes with shakuhachi flutes, Cretu's vocals, and a falling star effect followed by the "Enigma horn". The song fades out and, when the album is played on repeat mode, fades right into the first song again creating a full loop.
The album's artwork was designed by Johann Zambrysky, who would design the covers for the next four Enigma albums. It depicts a black frame surrounding a silhouette of a figure being enshrouded in a bright light, and a Christian cross in the lower centre of the album for emphasis towards the themes of the album.
Several quotes are printed on the booklet, including the following:
The path of excess leads to the tower of wisdom.
— William Blake (a misquote of "The Road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom.")
The pleasure of satisfying a savage instinct, undomesticated by the ego, is uncomparably much more intense than the one of satisfying a tamed instinct. The reason is becoming the enemy that prevents us from a lot of possibilities of pleasure.
— Sigmund Freud
If you believe in the light, it's because of obscurity, if you believe in happiness it's because of unhappiness, and if you believe in God then you'll have to believe in the devil.
— Father X, Exorcist, Church of Notre Dame, Paris
The cover of the "Limited Edition" of the album is the same as for the original release, but has a grainy dark green background instead of black. The first million copies of the album also have a holograph of the monk and cross on top of the album instead of the normal art work.
In 1991, Polydor Germany sued Cretu and Virgin Germany for infringing on its "right of personality" in the Gregorian chant samples used in "Sadeness (Part I)" and "Mea Culpa". The lawsuit was settled out of court after Cretu agreed to pay compensation to the original creator of the samples. The case did not cover copyright infringement as the 1976 chant recordings were in the public domain.
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