May 25, 1991 According to Billboard, Shep Pettibone was mulling over offers to write and produce songs for several platinum artists, including albums by Madonna and Liza Minelli.

July  8, 1991 Shep Pettibone began putting tracks together with his assistant and former boyfriend Tony Shimkin. Today, he gives Madonna a cassette of three instrumental demos, including Erotica / You Thrill Me and Deeper and Deeper, when he visits her in Chicago, where she is filming A League of Their Own.

October 31, 1991 Madonna had just returned from filming in Indiana. She began working on demos with Shep in his apartment / penthouse studio. Their initial work is rather sporadic, as at that time Madonna worked on her Sex book with Steven Meisel as well.

November  3, 1991 While shooting her MTV:10 spot in Los Angeles with Alek Keshishian, Madonna did a brief interview with Australian Molly Meldrum. In the interview, Madonna spoke about starting a new album: "Well, I’m gonna go to New York next week and start writing again. Thank God. I've missed it."

November 13, 1991 Madonna recorded the final demo for Deeper And Deeper and new vocals for the first demo of Rain.

November 15, 1991 Madonna along with Steven Meisel, designer Marc Jacobs, Alek Keshishian and some other guys went out to the men-only Gaiety Theatre in midtown Manhattan to scout locations for her book.

December  6, 1991 Madonna records final demo vocals and new harmonies for Rain.

January  2, 1992 Shep Pettibone returned from vacation in Jamaica with a reggae sound in his head. The song Why’s It So Hard came out of this.

January 11, 1992 According to Entertainment Weekly Madonna was involved in another project with her photographer, that reportedly seeked to reveal more of her inner secrets. It was rumored to be an illustration of Madonna's sexual fantasies.

January 15, 1992 Madonna recorded the final demo vocals for Erotica / You Thrill Me.

February 11, 1992 Shep Pettibone registered a number of songs with the U.S. copyright office, the so called Rain Tapes.

February 14, 1992 Madonna was spotted shooting with Vanilla Ice in Miami.

April 20, 1992 Time Warner announced a new $60-70 million deal with Madonna. The first two projects would be a book of erotic fantasies and a new album due in the fall.

April 25, 1992 Časopis Billboard píše o tom, že neoficiální zprávy a drby říkají, že Madonna nahrála písničky Deeper And Deeper, Eating Out / Out to Lunch a Smoked Too Many Cigarettes se Shepem Pettibonem. V létě se pak chystají spolu natočit celé nové album.

May  4, 1992 Madonna shot her scenes at the State Court House in Olympia, Washington, causing an uproar that state facilities were used for a reportedly NC-17 film.

June  8, 1992 Madonna and Shep Pettibone recorded Erotica at Soundworks in NYC.

June  9, 1992 Madonna and Shep Pettibone recorded Words and Why's It So Hard.

June 10, 1992 Besides Why's It So Hard Madonna and Shep Pettibone recorded Thief Of Hearts.

June 11, 1992 Madonna and Shep worked on Thief Of Hearts and Goodbye To Innocence.

June 16, 1992 Madonna a Shep recorded Deeper And Deeper.

July  7, 1992 Madonna and Shep Pettibone did the mixing for Erotic, the ode to S&M, that Madonna wanted included in her Sex book. Madonna wanted it to sound just like Erotica, but just a bassline, her voice and some sensuous Middle Eastern sounds. Shep gave her the idea to use the ideas and stories in the book in the song and this was when Madonna started using "My name is Dita, I'll be your mistress tonight." The chorus and bridge of the original changed completely.

July 29, 1992 Liz Smith reported, that Madonna’s new album would be titled Erotica.

August 14, 1992 Madonna attended a Peggy Lee cabaret show at Club 53 in the NY Hilton.

August 15, 1992 Goodbye to Innocence wasn’t working. Shep worked overnight on a new bassline and it seemed to fix the problem. However, when Madonna started putting down the vocal track, she started playing with the lyrics and started singing the words to Fever. It sounded so good they decided to actually cover the tune. Madonna called Seymour Stein and in less than an hour, they had the lyrics to the Peggy Lee original. This was the last track they did for Erotica.

September 12, 1992 After three and a half months Shep Pettibone left Soundworks Studios with the completed master for Erotica.

October 10, 1992

October 20, 1992 The alum was released.

November  7, 1992 The album peaked at number 2 of the Billboard 200 chart.

January  6, 1993 The album was certified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of 2 million units in the U.S.

July 19, 1994 The Just Say Roe compilation with Goodbye To Innocence was released.

July 27, 2014 The Shame and You Are The One unused demos leaked to the internet.

August 16, 2016 In the U.S. the Erotica were released commercially on vinyl for the very first time.

March 20, 2017 The Love Hurts demo, an early version of Erotica produced with Junior Vasquez, leaked onto the internet.

October 19, 2018 Warner Music / Rhino are re-releasing the album on white vinyl.

March  4, 2019 Jitterbug a Thief Of Hearts (New Music) demos leaked onto the internet.

September 26, 2019 The entire legendary Rain Tapes leaked onto the internet in full.