Ok now I have to hear this (been meaning to buy Like A Prayer anyway).
― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Saturday, 16 October 2004 16:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― B.A.R.M.S. (Barima), Saturday, 16 October 2004 17:57 (nineteen years ago) link
It bears repeating: save for "Partyman", this album is great.
"Arms of Orion" is beautiful.
― john. a resident of chicago., Saturday, 23 October 2010 01:57 (thirteen years ago) link
Um excuse me? "Partyman" is my favorite Prince song. Period.
― mother cabrini maxwell (Stevie D(eux)), Saturday, 23 October 2010 02:38 (thirteen years ago) link
got this on tape iirc
classic
― BIG MUFFIN (gbx), Saturday, 23 October 2010 02:42 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah, "Partyman" fucking rules. Shrill funk collage.
― Brad Nelson (BradNelson), Saturday, 23 October 2010 03:20 (thirteen years ago) link
This was the first music I ever bought. I think on cassette, when I was 7 or 8. My best friend was a girl that would come over and we'd play the tape and act out the movie with me as Batman and her as Vicky. "Partyman" was the one we'd play over and over again. "Trust" is pretty good too!
― Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 23 October 2010 14:51 (thirteen years ago) link
listening to this album for first time in decades. reminds me how much of a marketing juggernaut this film was. perfect for 11-year-old me. this album is pretty good, against all odds. its worth getting the homemade deluxe edition available on the internets. got all the b-sides, some of which are fantastic.
― by another name (amateurist), Thursday, 21 July 2011 16:35 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah i was 6 when this movie came out and it utterly DOMINATED my summer. used to clean my room to this album!
― cave duel (latebloomer), Thursday, 21 July 2011 18:16 (thirteen years ago) link
argh i just realized that i said the exact same thing upthread.
― cave duel (latebloomer), Thursday, 21 July 2011 18:17 (thirteen years ago) link
in any case miccio is hilarious in this thread!
no doubt. I actually saw this again sometime between 04 and now and enjoyed it a lot. I dig how many moments feel like total non-sequiturs.
― da croupier, Thursday, 21 July 2011 21:54 (thirteen years ago) link
The other day my wife asked me whether someone on TV was hot and I said "well she's not, 'stop the press, who's that?' or anything..." and then had to explain both the original line and "batdance". or rather felt compelled to.
― da croupier, Thursday, 21 July 2011 21:56 (thirteen years ago) link
Part of the problem with inception was that it didn't have a soundbite-filled medley by prince called "do the inception" at the end.
― da croupier, Thursday, 21 July 2011 21:58 (thirteen years ago) link
if I could vote for Prince's "what?" from "Love Song" in the Prince poll, I would. Maybe I will.
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 21 July 2011 22:08 (thirteen years ago) link
Prince would've totally made a project out of Marion Cotillard.
― gay in every way but the way gays say is the only way they're gay (Eric H.), Thursday, 21 July 2011 22:09 (thirteen years ago) link
Time passes by for those who slowly wait.
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 21 July 2011 22:11 (thirteen years ago) link
Then Play Long reaches Prince and his music for Batman, which is more than you might think: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/prince-batman-motion-picture-soundtrack.html
― agincourtgirl, Sunday, 2 August 2015 17:14 (nine years ago) link
"Scandalous" is fantastic.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 2 August 2015 23:49 (nine years ago) link
I love this record. Just played it on Friday.
― Jon not Jon, Monday, 3 August 2015 01:53 (nine years ago) link
"Partyman" is a good time
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 3 August 2015 02:05 (nine years ago) link
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.
― rushomancy, Monday, 3 August 2015 10:15 (nine years ago) link
If you want to delve deeper into Prince's sexual take of Batman, I'd recommend acquiring the Scandalous Sex Suite EP, which includes an extended three part version of "Scandalous", complete with some orgastic moaning by Kim Basinger (she briefly dated Prince at the time, so he invited her to do this in the studio), and a track titled "Sex (The 80's Are Over and the Time Has Come 4 Monogamy and Trust)", which has got to be the most Princean title of all time.
Most of the Batman OST singles are well worth acquiring too, they have some dope B-sides like "Feel U Up" (Camille again!) and "200 Balloons", plus nice alternate mixes - the house remixes of "Batdance" and "The Future" by William Orbit and Mark Moore are even better than the originals, IMO.
― Tuomas, Monday, 3 August 2015 11:13 (nine years ago) link
I'm in this liminal state where I haven't googled anything in Tuomas's post yet to see if it's real. feels good.
― the most painstaking, humorless people in the world (lukas), Monday, 3 August 2015 16:34 (nine years ago) link
Is it heretical to prefer "The Future" to "Sign o' the Times"? Fine.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 3 August 2015 16:35 (nine years ago) link
Carlin's essay nails it, on both the album and the film.
yup
defenders of the film are baffling imo
― Οὖτις, Monday, 3 August 2015 16:40 (nine years ago) link
I like the movie, but Marcello's idea of asking Keaton to play both characters intrigued me too
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 3 August 2015 16:42 (nine years ago) link
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.
wait waht are you serious, this has totally been explored in the comics
xp
― Οὖτις, Monday, 3 August 2015 16:44 (nine years ago) link
and in pretty canonical stuff too - Dark Knight, Arkham Asylum etc
― Οὖτις, Monday, 3 August 2015 16:48 (nine years ago) link
I don't really follow Batman comics but I've read enough to know that take is basically Batman 101
― I Am Curious (Dolezal) (DJP), Monday, 3 August 2015 17:09 (nine years ago) link
Marcello's piece seems to be happily unaware that Batman comics have ever existed, while we're talking
― let no-one live rent free in your butt (sic), Monday, 3 August 2015 17:48 (nine years ago) link
idk if the comics are really relevant tbh - he's by and large correct about what he does discuss
― Οὖτις, Monday, 3 August 2015 17:55 (nine years ago) link
"* 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. "
Please PLEASE direct me to further reading on this?
― Corn on the macabre (Jon not Jon), Monday, 3 August 2015 18:11 (nine years ago) link
it might be truer to say that reading hasn't really shown up *outside* of the comics? nicholson's joker is lascivious, but in an omnisexual kinda way
― the velvet dope (Andre Gunder Frank 3000), Monday, 3 August 2015 18:13 (nine years ago) link
maybe not explicitly, but Joker's always been an essentially camp figure, and I think that includes the usual pansexual connotations
― Οὖτις, Monday, 3 August 2015 18:14 (nine years ago) link
Cesar Romero was gay after all
― Οὖτις, Monday, 3 August 2015 18:16 (nine years ago) link
jon not jon the liner notes/lyric sheet for batman kinda demonstrated it, songs were in character, the whole album kinda played like a rock opera. that the batman soundtrack is basically a sequel to the black album is something i wouldn't have picked up on at the time but seems super apparent. it was interesting to learn why 'partyman' and 'batdance' haven't been on any of his comps. all his comps have left off something so it didn't seem too odd, that one of his number one hits wouldn't be on a greatest hits comps was more of a marker of how many hits prince had than anything else (though obv that #1 hit would definitely be 'batdance', it's been at least 25 years since i heard it on the radio).
― balls, Monday, 3 August 2015 18:20 (nine years ago) link
batman '89 is still my favourite superhero movie, it has this jagged tangle of sensibilities that marvel and DC would never really permit again
joker sparing the francis bacon painting, jack palance acting like a reptile that put on your dad's skin, the long metropolis tribute near the end...
― the velvet dope (Andre Gunder Frank 3000), Monday, 3 August 2015 18:20 (nine years ago) link
I didn't know the reasons for their omissions until I read the Wiki last night
xpost
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 3 August 2015 18:22 (nine years ago) link
Xpost yeah I have imbibed the internal evidence (though I haven't read the liner notes since purchasing the cassette in 89) I just thought for a sec there might be some prince interview where he talked about it.
OTM that batman plays like a black album sequel. They even have similar arcs (killer a-side, b-side peters out a little)
― Corn on the macabre (Jon not Jon), Monday, 3 August 2015 18:32 (nine years ago) link
Not that it's super-relevant to the album, but saying things like there was no precedent for the darkness of the movie and Burton had to build his own antithesis of the '66 TV show, whimsically speculating what the characters might have been if they'd existed in the '40s - rhetorical asides that clunked specifically due to by-and-large non-correctness
Agree that the album is good and the Scandalous Sex Suite is ridiculous obv
― let no-one live rent free in your butt (sic), Tuesday, 4 August 2015 00:17 (nine years ago) link
lemon crush is the best thing on here, though i like the whole album, even if it could be a bit less rushed sounding in places. i want to hear the 9 minute version of batdance.
sex is one of his great b sides.
― StillAdvance, Tuesday, 4 August 2015 12:53 (nine years ago) link
lemon crush and vicki waiting.
electric chair is fantastic but a bit throwaway sounding.
― StillAdvance, Tuesday, 4 August 2015 12:54 (nine years ago) link
Is the Batdance video really "long suppressed"? Easily accessible via Google. Though maybe not commercially available. Anyway, I showed it to my kids not long ago, they didn't know what to make of it.
― something totally new, it’s the AOR of the twenty first century (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 4 August 2015 13:04 (nine years ago) link
Also, I reviewed the album when it came out for my college paper: "as bizarre and carefree as anything he's ever done, though not as stunning as his best work." More otm than most of my 19-year-old opinions.
― something totally new, it’s the AOR of the twenty first century (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 4 August 2015 13:06 (nine years ago) link
i dont remember the mark moore or orbit mixes of the singles, but always felt after the future, and maybe loveleft loveright from graffiti bridge, that i wished prince let more house/techno producers remix his songs. or that he went down that route rather than hip-hop. though who knows if it would have turned out as badly.
― StillAdvance, Tuesday, 4 August 2015 13:12 (nine years ago) link
He's had housey/ravey moments on several of his post-Batman albums, most notably "Loose" on Come and "The Human Body" on Emancipation (I'm pretending Joy Un2 the Rave Fantastic doesn't exist)
― I Am Curious (Dolezal) (DJP), Tuesday, 4 August 2015 13:37 (nine years ago) link
The "Batdance" video was an extra on a "Batman" DVD I rented a long time ago. Maybe they got rid of it since then but I think at least first run DVDs have it.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 4 August 2015 13:52 (nine years ago) link
i try to pretend loose and human body dont really exist. sleep around was house-ish too.
― StillAdvance, Tuesday, 4 August 2015 14:52 (nine years ago) link
I started a thread on this subject a while ago:
Prince and house
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 4 August 2015 19:07 (nine years ago) link