I always wondered why songs from the Batman soundtrack NEVER appeared on compilations, etc.

Today, while surfing wikipedia, I found this:

Due to licensing issues with the Batman franchise, Prince was not allowed to include songs from this album on any compilations. Even on concert T-shirts listing Prince's albums, the Batman title was replaced by the song "Scandalous".

Source / Website URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/w...ce_song%29

My thoughts: Interesting.

Songs from the Batman soundtrack always appear on my "homemade" Prince compilation CDs. (If you know what I mean )

Strange.

Didn't Warners own the Batman movie franchise? It was glaringly missing from the Prince - The hits 1,2 and bsides release

"200 Balloons" which is a b side 2 Batdance appeared on the B-Sides Hits cd

moviestar08 said:

It was a B-Side. Didn't actually appear on the album. Just the single for "Batdance."

I think B-Sides were allowed. I don't know..

The whole thing, is probably what happened, due to the fact that none of the album tracks are on anything. However, it is still silly.

All this time, I thought it was for "artistic" reasons. Now I come to find, it is just business. Boo!!!
[Edited 7/1/07 17:07pm]

All the licensing deals were probably a mess. He incorporated the bat symbol into his whole image at the time (putting the silver bat on his boot, using the bat logo as the backdrop to his SNL appearance). He even used the Joker laugh in the remix of Thieves in the Temple a year later. I think DC Comics and Warner were probably worried about losing rights to a very profitable character. Copyrights and trademarks are such a weird and dog-eat-dog business, and the law sometimes makes it hard for companies (which is why Disney always has to be so aggressive over their own trademarks, even though it sometimes alienates fans). That's just my take.

strange indeed
they should reissue the 'the hits' cd on 5 discs or something haha
called: Prince 'the warner bros years' with just all the best tracks chronologically
too many songs not on those discs it's unbelievable (boys and girl / money don't matter and on and on...)

off topic: does anybody know if there's a chance that his newer material (starting 1996) will ever appear on a best of?
being the owner of his masters it must be totally up to Prince right?
in that case i guess there will never be such a project...

Time Warner doesn't own WBR

ehuffnsd said:

they did at the time, however. and they own DC comics as well.


i think the actual issue has to do with the lines lifted from the films in both Batdance and Partyman. to finagle the licensing one time for the soundtrack is easy enough. but having to do it again and again for compilations...

then again, Partyman is on one of the Hits singles, so

fonkee said:

I agree! I even came up with a tracklisting that included everything from For You to Chaos and Disorder and all the extended mixes from For You to Batman and B-sides

what about most beautiful gal in the world he never preforms it?? whats the restriction on that song!
The beautiful gals of the world own that or what?

asg said:

he was still doing it on the Jam Of The Year tour. i think he just wore it out, really. it's one of those "this is my big hits and i'm going to perform it at every show to show it off and it's put a few more asses in the seats, but it's really a fairly insignifcant song, so i probably won't be doing it in a few years" numbers.

I think the key reason is because of the actual quotes used in the movie on most of the songs, something about the actors voices being used I think I could be wrong though

doegx said:

that's what I was trying to say as well. I thought I did, but reading it, I guess I wasn't specific enough