Batman is the perfect mix of SOTT & Purple Rain eras!

^ You NEED one of these:

[img:$uid]http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb79/bigjim99/qtip.jpg[/img:$uid]

robertgeorgeakabob said:

batman starts off brilliantly with the future and electric chair, then after that alot of it is average. i like it but it lacks the genius and enthusiasm of lovesexy. arms of orion is embarrassingly bad. batdance is great but i've always thought it sounded like a killer b-side. definitely the album where he lost his edge.

funny you said that about batdance.his killer b-sides always sounded like they should have been released as a -sides..lol

funkomatic said:

Without the hype of the movie Batman would have been an even bigger flop than lovesexy!

No way dude.The Batman soundtrack isn't a bad album.I don't understand why people say that.Anyway,to answer the original question,I think that Batman would have sold much better than Lovesexy.Lovesexy had 1 solid hit,and 1 minor hit(Alphabet Street and I Wish U Heaven respectively).Granted the cover didn't help album sales,but Glam Slam flopped (with a decent video)and I Wish You Heaven didn't crossover.The songs on the Batman soundtrack were more accesible.All the sings released were hits,with Partyman being the only song released as a single to be featured in the movie.

Some of you will say "how were they all hits",this is how.Batdance was number 1 on the pop/rnb/dance charts. And it crossed over to the top 20 on the rock charts,sold a million copies.Partyman hit number 18 on the pop charts,number five on rnb charts and went gold.The Arms Of Orion went top 40 on the pop charts,number 36.And Scandelous hit number 5 on the rnb charts.

Lovesexy was considered a flop here in the USA only,and it wasnt really a flop,just a flop compared to his other work.

I love both albums,

But Batman isn't a masterpice like Lovesexy, a shame Lovesexy did not sell in the US.

Batman is still great though, I have very fond memories to this album.

muleFunk said:

What "hurt" Lovesexy was the album cover.

I bought Lovesexy at the local mom and pop record store and the owner asked for my ID before she would sell it to me.

^ funny little story

thanks for sharing.... but I wonder what is wrong with some americans, that would never had happened here in Denmark. Lovesexy, the cover isn't that offensive is it...?

I can honestly tell you that back in late 80's I was in college living with roommates and having a lot of different firends over all the time.

Of course I was listening to a lot of Prince and starting to collect stuff like Black Album, Chocolate Box, Charade, and the official 12" releases and the albums.

Everyone loved the Black Album to the point where non prince fans were asking me for copies. They loved shit like Le Grind, Bob George, etc.

People like about half of SOTT. You can guess. Stuff like Housequake, the title track, It's Gonna be a Beautiful Night, etc.

But When Batman came out, the same people heard it, but and certainly Batdance was popular. But the interest was also because of the movie being woven into the images and the sounds. And all in all, no one really go into it to the point where they were asking me for copies.

And Lovesexy... everyone hated. They thought Alphabet St and Dance On were okay. Most people didn't like any of the rest. And everyone hated Glam Slam except for one girl who played keyboards who thought the ending keyboard runs were cool (after the song ends).

So I think that Batman would have done better than Lovesexy, but it's also because of the movie and the video for Batdance being entertaining. But there was also a sort of groaning that Prince was making such a mainstream nod to that movie after entering such an individualistic artistic direction with SOTT and such a strong dark crazy vibe with Black Album (Bob George being the single most eye opening track I've ever played for non prince fans back then. They all loved it).

khemseraph said:

funkomatic said:

Without the hype of the movie Batman would have been an even bigger flop than lovesexy!

No way dude.The Batman soundtrack isn't a bad album.I don't understand why people say that.Anyway,to answer the original question,I think that Batman would have sold much better than Lovesexy.Lovesexy had 1 solid hit,and 1 minor hit(Alphabet Street and I Wish U Heaven respectively).Granted the cover didn't help album sales,but Glam Slam flopped (with a decent video)and I Wish You Heaven didn't crossover.The songs on the Batman soundtrack were more accesible.All the sings released were hits,with Partyman being the only song released as a single to be featured in the movie.

Some of you will say "how were they all hits",this is how.Batdance was number 1 on the pop/rnb/dance charts. And it crossed over to the top 20 on the rock charts,sold a million copies.Partyman hit number 18 on the pop charts,number five on rnb charts and went gold.The Arms Of Orion went top 40 on the pop charts,number 36.And Scandelous hit number 5 on the rnb charts.

Lovesexy was considered a flop here in the USA only,and it wasnt really a flop,just a flop compared to his other work.

Say whatever you want: The success of the Batman album and singles was purely based on the hype of the movie and not on the quality of the music IMO. It was different with Lovesexy, especially in Europe.

[Edited 4/26/11 9:11am]

funkomatic said:

khemseraph said:

No way dude.The Batman soundtrack isn't a bad album.I don't understand why people say that.Anyway,to answer the original question,I think that Batman would have sold much better than Lovesexy.Lovesexy had 1 solid hit,and 1 minor hit(Alphabet Street and I Wish U Heaven respectively).Granted the cover didn't help album sales,but Glam Slam flopped (with a decent video)and I Wish You Heaven didn't crossover.The songs on the Batman soundtrack were more accesible.All the sings released were hits,with Partyman being the only song released as a single to be featured in the movie.

Some of you will say "how were they all hits",this is how.Batdance was number 1 on the pop/rnb/dance charts. And it crossed over to the top 20 on the rock charts,sold a million copies.Partyman hit number 18 on the pop charts,number five on rnb charts and went gold.The Arms Of Orion went top 40 on the pop charts,number 36.And Scandelous hit number 5 on the rnb charts.

Lovesexy was considered a flop here in the USA only,and it wasnt really a flop,just a flop compared to his other work.

Say whatever you want: The success of the Batman album and singles was purely based on the hype of the movie and not on the quality of the music IMO. It was different with Lovesexy, especially in Europe.

[Edited 4/26/11 9:11am]

how is he viewed bye europeans?

muleFunk said:

What "hurt" Lovesexy was the album cover.

I bought Lovesexy at the local mom and pop record store and the owner asked for my ID before she would sell it to me.

I think a good portion of the Batman album was very good. I love 'Lovesexy'! I admired Prince's music from '1999', 'Purple Rain', 'ATWIAD', etc, but after listening to 'Lovesexy' several times (thinking it was an interesting sounding album) something clicked, and I couldn't get enough of it. I wonder if he put subliminal messages in it, such as, " I love this music, it's better than 'Cats', i want to listen to it over, and over again"(Am I showing my age? ) But seriously, I had a whole new level of respect for Prince's gift. I know that doesn't touch upon your question, but I've never been in tune with how Prince's music does on the charts, or sales. Thank you for bringing up two wonderful albums though! Honestly, If I had to guess? I would guess that sales, and chart position would have been the same.

The question should really be if The Black Album was released instead of Lovesexy or 'If Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic' was released instead of Batman, as Prince was working on it for release before he got the Batman gig, and he released Batman instead.

ALthough he did very well commercially from Batman, there are some songs that were ready for the Rave album that were shelved and were never officially released. The 1999 release of the album with the same name only shares the title track, unfortunatelty none of the other songs were released - if they were I think it would have become one of Prince's best works judging by the tracklists I have seen.

[Edited 5/3/11 11:02am]

I would have been very confused as to why there were so many references to the joker and batman...

It wouldn't be the "Batman" album we hear today, that's for sure. Most of the songs would probably be disintegrating in the "vault" right now, being that they were influenced by the look & feel of the movie. Folks would be saying, "I would give my right arm to hear 'Arms of Orion'!", and going crazy over a leaked 30 sec. snippet of "Lemon Crush". He probably would've tried to put out another double lp. I love the Batman album btw lol

[Edited 5/3/11 13:41pm]