The Defender BY CHRIS NEILL Each month, a BRAG writer picks a pop culture oddity that they feel has been hard done by and puts in their plea for a retrial. This month, Chris Neill makes the case that Prince’s Batman soundtrack is a hidden gem in the back catalogue of a truly unstoppable artist
T
he late ’80s were somewhat rough for Prince. While remaining a critical success, his sales were less desirable. Wanting another hit from him, Warner Bros. (his label at the time) decided to utilise some good ol’ brand synergy and tapped him do the soundtrack for the most anticipated film of 1989: Tim Burton’s Batman.
Burton himself was a big fan of Prince, and had been using two of his songs – ‘1999’ and ‘Baby I’m A Star’ – in the films’ rough-cut. Prince was asked to contribute new songs to replace those two, but because Prince is Prince he turned in an entire album. It would go on to be his highest-selling record since Around The World In A Day. If you’ve seen Burton’s Batman, you know that Prince’s music barely appears in the film and, tonally, Batman the film and Batman the album could not be more different. Strip away the dialogue samples and ‘Batdance’, and you wouldn’t know it was a Batman soundtrack unless somebody told you. But Batman is something more than just another Prince album. When you stop thinking of it as a soundtrack and treat it as Prince’s take on the Dark Knight’s mythos, everything takes on a new meaning. This isn’t Prince’s usual narrator singing about sex and partying; it’s Batman and the Joker. In the liner notes, each song is credited to a different character; e.g. Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale sing the duet ‘The Arms Of Orion’. In the music video for ‘Partyman’, the album’s second single, Prince offers his take on the Joker, depicting him as a funky, hedonistic crimelord, who dances around a lavish party while proclaiming, “All hail the new king in town!”
“THE BATMAN SOUNDTRACK WOULD GO ON TO BE HIS HIGHESTSELLING RECORD SINCE AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY.”
“BATMAN IS SOMETHING MORE THAN JUST ANOTHER PRINCE ALBUM.” “MAYBE PRINCE IS RIGHT; MAYBE BATMAN’S INTERNAL DEMONS WOULD BE LESS PREVALENT IF HE TOOK A LOAD OFF, TIME TO TIME.”
‘Scandalous’, an overwhelmingly horny song, has the Dark Knight telling Vicki Vale, “Tonight why don’t we skip all the for play, mama; And just get down here on the floor.” Maybe Prince is right; maybe Batman’s internal demons would be less prevalent if he took a load off, time to time. It’s an adaptation that feels more like a piece of pop art than a soundtrack – a version of Batman we’ve never seen before. He’s funky, sexy, cool. No single track on the album embraces that pop art aesthetic more than its’ closer, ‘Batdance’. It’s a fevered Frankenstein’s monster of dialogue snippets and samples from multiple Prince tracks – even the iconic theme from the camp 1960s TV series pops up. It sounds nothing like anything Prince had done at the time. ‘Batdance’ is the real reason I love this album; more specifically, I adore the music video. It features Prince simultaneously dressed as both Batman and the Joker, with backup dancers flocking around him in a neon-purple drenched and smoke-filled Batcave. Essentially, It’s the Batman movie Joel Schumacher wishes he could’ve made. Compared to other Prince albums, Batman is fine. It’s got a few good tracks (‘Partyman’, ‘Vicki Waiting’, ‘Scandalous’) interspersed with mostly okay ones. Released in-between Lovesexy and the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack, its not as good as the former and about on par with the latter. Batman is seen as a black sheep of the musician’s discography, which is fair. Taste is a weird thing sometimes. For the most part, we know why we like or dislike something and we’re able to articulate that feeling into a coherent reason. But every now and then, you encounter something that defies any internal logic that you have. Something that, for all intents and purposes, you shouldn’t like (or love), but for some unexplainable reason you do. That’s how I feel about Prince’s Batman soundtrack. It’s just one of those things, like asking someone if they’ve ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight. I have no idea what that means; I just like the sound of it.
74 :: BRAG :: 736 :: 04:04:18
“IF YOU’VE SEEN BURTON’S BATMAN, YOU KNOW THAT PRINCE’S MUSIC BARELY APPEARS IN THE FILM AND, TONALLY, BATMAN THE FILM AND BATMAN THE ALBUM COULD NOT BE MORE DIFFERENT.”
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