Classic or Dud: Prince's Batman "Soundtrack" Album

Holy shit @ "Electric Chair!"

For me, probably his first less than very good album. It has its moments, though.

Better than Lovesexy and D&P.

It's been cute seeing people defend "Batdance" over the last couple days, but I never really liked it. I'll rep for the rest of the Batman album, though. "Electric Chair" prob in my Top 5 Prince songs.

contentious opinion there !

(i genuinely love all three so, i aint siding with any of them here)

xpost.

I like batman and love sexy about even (aka a lot)

the prince batman soundtrack makes me smile a lot.

i never did catch his cameo in the film.

I genuinely fail to understand what possible reason there could be to dislike "Batdance".

Anyway, a fine record. Uneven for sure but it's got those first two songs as well, and "Scandalous" which is an AMAZING song. Also, I would like to point out that Prince's elaborate conception of the Batman character is far more interesting than Tim Burton's.

The score was originally supposed to be a collaboration between prince and elfman and I've always wondered how that was going to work

I think its nonexistence answers your question.

at the time (1989) this felt like a gimmick and after a lot of soundtrack albums where artists kind of tossed in their also-rans from recent albums, i think people kind of projected that onto this one. however prince was producing so much good music in this period, more music than he could possibly include on an album a year, so there's plenty of great stuff on here-- minimalist rave-ups, ballads -- that would probably be more appreciated if it /weren't/ on the batman sdtk.

Totally

I need to listen to it again. I spent the summer of 89 listening solely to a C90 containing this and Lovesexy, and Lovesexy remains one of my favourite albums of all time and I fell out of love with this very very quickly.

Carlin's essay nails it, on both the album and the film. Some related ephemera:

* "I have seen the future, and it works" is a quote by the famed American muckracker Lincoln Steffens regarding his 1919 visit to the Soviet Union. Two summers after Batman, Soviet communism collapsed.

* Prince really was extremely enthusiastic about Batman, and constructed his own elaborate mythology around the character inspired by not just the Black Album, but Camille and Spooky Electric. Prince's long-suppresed Batdance video is much more interesting to watch than Burton's film.

Because the biggest flaw of the character, in almost any iteration, is that nobody really seems to know how to handle his sexuality. Some writers attempt to make him a hyper-sexual billionaire playboy who beds tons of women. The problem with this is that the "billionaire playboy" thing is a transparent pretense, and therefore anything he does in that persona is implausible. Batman has, since 1940, been an implicit pederast, and this reading continues to complicate the character.

Prince's solution is utterly fascinating. His reading of the character, because he's Prince, is intrinsically sexual, but he is just as disinterested as everyone else in the alleged Wayne-Vale "relationship". His most passionate expressions of sexuality, such as "Scandalous", are expressed in the character of the Joker, who in Prince's reading becomes an androgynous and pansexual Baphomet-like figure of misrule. The central conflict of Prince's reading of the Batman mythos is the sexual tension between Batman and the Joker, which is not something that exists in any other version of the character I have encountered.

* "Batdance" was edited down from a nearly nine-minute first cut. The sub-four minute single edit removes the reprise of the "A" section of the "song", thereby making the song even stranger.

* A dark record? Yes, definitely. However, Prince actually cut one track from the record, "Dance with the Devil", for being too dark. The song has never been released, but circulates as part of the five-billion-CD Prince studio outtake bootleg collection. It's pretty dark.

Also, "Dance with the Devil" is the tits.

This is a great post. We owe it 2 the Man 2 discuss Prince's reading of Batman.

Ok, I guess we kinda did already. Others anyway. Still, revisiting this of all of his eras is a nice discovery in the wake of his passing.

The central conflict of Prince's reading of the Batman mythos is the sexual tension between Batman and the Joker, which is not something that exists in any other version of the character I have encountered.

The Dark Knight Returns has it, albeit one sides.

https://bigotherbigother.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/batman-darling1.jpg

i put together an alternate version of the batman soundtrack to listen to because even though it's my favorite prince record it is, i've come to accept, really uneven (peeps on the "worst prince song" thread OTM about "the arms of orion", for instance, but even, say, "lemon crush", while not bad, is kind of a generic tune):

The Future
200 Balloons
Electric Chair
Scandalous

Partyman
Dance with the Devil
Batdance (long version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB-fSOds9AU

Which disc of work it is dance w the devil on

15

Been watching this a lot more than I would have imagined in the last few days. Is this "Vicki" Dr. Fink?

https://youtu.be/YRP7rwvy6k4?t=4m20s

xp I think "Trust" would have to be included since it's featured prominently in the movie.

Also it's interesting that three B-sides from Batman made it onto the "Hits / B-Sides" but none of the A-Sides.

Actually now that I'm looking closer, nine of the B-Sides on that set were from singles whose A-Sides were not included.

Was reading up on this ... Prince had a deal with WB that gave them the rights to all the music. Thus, no Batdance on Hits/B-Sides.

That kind of thing is very common for anything having to do with movie music

first time hearing this - this is really good! "ARms of Orion" is awesome, as is "Electric Chair".

oh man, you just named one of the most universally derided prince songs of all time! (the former)

i figured it probably was, I like cheezmo duets tho

also I like "Partyman"

omg LEMON CRUSH

"Arms of Orion" is tres pretty. Fuck the haters!

"Lemon Crush" has always been my favorite

This album is in no way an enormous climb down from previous fare (and Lovesexy certainly wasn't either)

kind of surprised how many of these songs he's done live, even in recent years. only ones he didn't do live were "lemon crush" and "trust".

the osmosis jones soundtrack apparently is ridiculously good !?

1. Summer In The City - St. Lunatics
2. Big Ball - Drama
3. Solo Star - Solange
4. Open - Brandy
5. Fill Me In (Part 2) - Craig David
6. I Believe - R. Kelly
7. Cool, Daddy Cool - Kid Rock
8. Turn It Out - De La Soul
9. Take It To Da House - Trick Daddy
10. Just In Case - Nivea
11. Why Did You Have To Be - Debelah Morgan
12. Don't Be Mad - Sunshine Anderson
13. Here We Go Again - Nappy Roots
14. Love Me Or Leave Me - Ms. Toi
15. Rider Like Me - Ezekiel Lewis
16. Break U Off - Uncle Kracker

the osmosis jones soundtrack apparently is ridiculously good !?

. . .

7. Cool, Daddy Cool - Kid Rock
. . .

16. Break U Off - Uncle Kracker

Does not follow.

Sure, but also

1. Summer In The City - St. Lunatics
2. Big Ball - Drama (love this!)
3. Solo Star - Solange
4. Open - Brandy
5. Fill Me In (Part 2) - Craig David
6. I Believe - R. Kelly
8. Turn It Out - De La Soul
9. Take It To Da House - Trick Daddy
10. Just In Case - Nivea
13. Here We Go Again - Nappy Roots
14. Love Me Or Leave Me - Ms. Toi

(whoops this really belonged on the crow soundtrack thread i guess?)

Bumped because I found myself re-watching the '89 Batman movie today, which I hadn't seen for years.

Anyway, 'Scandalous' fucking rules... as good a song as anything Prince did in the '80s... 'Partyman' isn't a favourite, but it works far better for me outside of the movie... that whole scene made me cringe a fair bit.

gentlemen, let's broaden our minds

This is a great album with only a few duds imo

Howard Stern last April: "I believe Prince made the best motion picture soundtrack of all time, and I know that might be a controversial statement, because not a lot of people like the Batman soundtrack." He wasn't kidding. It's his favorite Prince album.

It's not a soundtrack album,tho.

The majority of the songs were "inspired by the motion picture Batman" iirc, the idea of which seemed funny at the time, Prince finding the idea of a Batman Movie so cool he writes a whole album. Doesn't seem so unlikely now tho it wasn't really the case.

It's not a soundtrack album,tho.

It was marketed as a soundtrack album to the movie (as opposed to Elfman's contribution, which was released as "the original motion picture score"), and the songs (tho not all of them) were used in the movie, so I don't see why it wouldn't qualify as a soundtrack?

Anyway, 'Scandalous' fucking rules... as good a song as anything Prince did in the '80s...

I don't agree with this, in fact I think "Scandalous" is the only dud on the album, but if you like it so much, you should check out the Scandalous Sex Suite EP, which extends the song to a 20 minute suite, complete with orgastic moans by Kim Basinger (whom Prince was dating a the time). It also has a B-side called "Sex (The '80s Are Over and the Time Has Come 4 Monogamy and Trust)", which has gotta be the most stereotypical Prince song title ever!

Lol, looks like I posted pretty much the exact same thing about the EP in this thread in 2015.

"The Arms of Orion" is blah.

What, you're not searching for a lover in the Sea of Tranquility?

"The Arms of Orion" is tres pretty.