Alltough in terms of the quality of the songwriting i consider Batman a step back from Sign of the Times and Lovesexy, i think the music on it is more 'original' then many people make it out to be.

Original in what way? well, almost the entire album is created by using samples. I dont think Prince has done that before in this form, and apart from hip-hop artists (who have been sampling for ages) i dont know about any other pop-artists who had created music the way Prince did on Batman before the release of that album in 1989.

Apart from most of the beats, almost all instruments (strings, horns, choir, guitar, sometimes bass) are sampled by Prince, and then played back on keyboards.

Some examples? The choir- and stringparts on The Future and Scandalous, the guitarriffs from Electric Chair (only the solo / leadguitar is really a guitar), the hornparts on Partyman and Trust, the 'bassline' from Partyman (which is actually a sample of Princes voice) and finally the sample-'overload' of Batdance.

I didnt realise that immediately when the album came out in 1989, but in retrospect it was a rather fresh and original 'experiment' from Prince to create an album almost totally existing of sampled sounds.

What do you think?

Could this be the first interesting Prince post in a long long time?! I think it might.

Thanks for your thoughts RP.

(Goes off to find the album in question)
[Edited 2/29/08 12:15pm]

Riverpoet31 said:

Good points. My thoughts are that music technology was expanding by leaps and bounds in the '80s (especially late '80s thru early '90s) and that he found some toys to play with. He had a ton of fun using them for Batman. Just a year before, the Lovesexy sound can also be credited to Prince finding some new musical toys.

Batman Album is on par musically with SOTT. The instrumentation is right on. Batman is one of Prince's best albums. Definitely in my top five just on the music and diversity of the songs alone.

A true remark, Snap.

I mean, alltough Prince changed his sound severaltimes during ATWIAD, Parade and Sign of the Times, after creating the Minneapolis sound in the first half of the eighties, it sounded he still used the same devices most of the time on those albums from the second half of the eighties.

On Lovesexy you can hear him use more contemporary sounding dance-beats, probably inspired by the house-movement and also probably using new drumcomputers for that (instead of the 'good old Linn).
There is also a lot of synth-bass to be heard on Lovesexy (I know, Lovesexy).
Lovesexy also sounds if he has used a lot of sampled 'overdubs' for sound-effects and extra vocal punctations.

In that sense its a break from the sound of Sign of the Times, using those modern techniques way more often.
He delved deeper into that on The Batman album (this has also to do with the fact he had short time to record that album, i think, and it was his most clear 'one-man project' since Dirty Mind and Controversy).
And IMO he builts further on that sound on the Graffiti Bridge album, using an underground of samples and electronics to create the basic-tracks, and putting 'real' instruments on top of that to bring more 'life' to the material.
[Edited 2/29/08 13:04pm]

I disagree with you here. Alltough, as i said the Batman album was more revolutionary then it was made out to be, and alltough the combination of 'cold' electronic funk and dark humor fits the movie very much, Batman lacks the kind of hard to devine spark and magic that Sign of the Times carries for me.

I mean, look at the history of Sign of the Times: it consists of material from 3 different recording-sessions, each with their own identity: material he recorded with the late Revolution, with a large input from Wendy and Lisa, material he recorded for the Camille-project: creepy electro-funk, and finally, material he recorded after that, when the Revolution was disbanded, mostly solo-material with a sober, demo-like character.

It could have easily turned into a mess, mixing music from those three periods together on a double-album.

But ultimately its the mixture of that material that 'works' for Sign of the Times. And since the album was original considered to be a triple-album (something WB was not so keen on), you can really speak of a "happy accident" when it comes to Prince trimming down this diverse material to such a compelling, sprawling double-album.

Personally i think Prince album-wise, is at his best when he just 'lets things happen', when he isnt TOO focussed on making a concept-album (Symbol, The rainbow Children) or to make a commercial come-back (Rave, Musicology).

Princes managers convinced him to release the demo-material for Dirty Mind as an album, and that saved the music on that album to be unneccesarily polished like happened with the material on For You and Prince.

Prince dismissed Parade afterwards, saying he didnt have enough good material written when he went into the studio with the Revolution, but in retrospect the quick process of recording that album gave the music a sense of intiutive playfullness and creativity, that would maybe have been 'killed' if Prince had decided to work on the album a lot longer.
[Edited 2/29/08 13:22pm]

Good thread.

blackguitaristz said:

IstenSzek said:

2

RP where have you being hiding all this time, I will have to pull this album out tonite and listen to it again, I clearly remember the title track being made of samples, but I never thought about the other songs till you mentioned it now. Up till now I always thought of Lovesexy as the sample album, probably coz I examined the album more than Batman, by the time Batman came out, I was at college, working, first GF and so on, and didnt have the time to sit with the lads and dissect music like the old dayz. It was in its own way an influential album, U2´s direction, particularily their Zooropa album, and they also did a Batman soundtrack and of course the Smashing Pumpkins, especially their later work on Adore and coincidently they also featured on a Batman soundtrack.

The Future and Batdance are the stand out tracks here.

Everything else is mostly filler, some good, some so-so. The best thing about batman was that it forced prince to create an album with cohesion which he did. It didnt age well but it was a good effort.
[Edited 2/29/08 15:39pm]

this has been the best thread i've read on here probably since i joined 2 years ago

Riverpoet31 said:

perfectly said, Dirty Mind has that edge that Nirvana´s first album Bleach had, which their killer success Nevermind never had. P´s dismal view on Parade has always been a wierd one for me, I often wonder did the person that quoted him on that get it totally wrong

Well, I never really noticed before, but I guess it's true. I never actually noticed that before.

Riverpoet31 said:

nice thread..... thanks

Whitnail said:

Not to sound ignorant, but I've never heard of P disavowing Parade before...can someone point me in the direction of that interview?

Volitan said:

I didn't know that. I need to check this album out more.
@ River:
Good thread idea, btw

Queen did the whole movie-sample thing about a decade earlier with its "Flash Gordon" soundtrack. Queen has been an obvious influence on Prince; check out "3 Chains O' Gold."

Batman haters can kiss my peachy .

I adore this album from start to finish. INCLUDING 'The Arms Of Orion'. You heard me, Anx.

I love Batman though. When I was growing up as a young lad, I was poor and didn't have cable, but I had a VCR and every DAY, I would watch Batman, and it's still in my top 3 favorite movies ever. I can quote it almost line for line. And the scenes with the Prince songs were always cool. So when I got older and into music and Prince, I had to get the Batman album. It's more nostalgia than anything, but I love the Batman album.

sro100 said:

are you talking about sampling film snippets or sampling instruments to arrange a song? two different things.

onenitealone said:

It's obvious that Madonna's Now I'm Following You (from I'm Breathless a year later) was totally inspired by Batdance.

And check out the beginning of both albums. Madonna was in Prince's ass at the time...

Interesting things I learn from long-time hardcore fans.

Cheek said:

Kiss it!

Cheek said:

I think you might be on to something there...



I bet you looooove that song, don't you? Especially the "dick... dick... dick..." bit. Yeah?



.
[Edited 3/1/08 3:03am]

onenitealone said:

Excellent - a long-overdue, worthwhile thread - there is still hope for the world.

Batman Soundtrack album is generally SO under-rated. Maybe the reason could have something to do with the rest of his 80's output. The musical journey he took us all on throughout the 80's was so completely and totally unmatched by any other act at the time: 9 albums in 9 years that were all so musically creative, daring and diverse, and each completely different from the last (seriously, who else does that? Nobody. Not a whole new direction with each year/album/'look'/tour.)

Because of his ability to consistently recreate the musical landscape at the time, there was the sort of high expectation with each new release that no other musical act was burdened with (and to anyone else it would've been a unachievable burden, but that cool mutha-fucker just continually did it with ease...).

I think creatively only the Beatles defined a decades music so effortlessly (and no I'm not talking sales here, I'm talking sheer creative, defining musical output and influence/respect over the peers of the era).

When it came to the Batman album, I think many took it as a bit of a sellout, a bit too mainstream and safe, and, well, maybe 'corporate'? Many possibly didn't really give it a chance for those reasons and in retrospect it got unfairly labeled and scorned.

I remember getting the LP home the day it came out: Normally it was a case of putting the needle on the 1st track of side one and taking the experience in, in the order it was designed. But that day I went straight for the last track on side two. I'd heard the Batdance single, loved it, and 1st up I wanted to hear the album version of that track before starting the album with track one.

I didn't place the needle in quite the right place, I didn't move it forward quite far enough - my bad. So the first sounds of the album I heard when the needle eased down was the awesome vocal delivery of "tonight it's gonna be scandalous, cause tonight I'm gonna be, your fantasy". Damn! Loved the beat, loved the vibe, loved the vocals - instant classic! Okay, so now I gotta put the needle back to the start of THAT song, and listen to THAT all the way through, before I listen to Batdance all the way through, before I listen to the album as a whole...

Anyway, top album (although, sorry onenitealone, but i never have liked that sappy ArmsOfOrion - if i had to delete 3 songs from his 80's catalog, it would be that, Ronnie Talk To Russia & Slow Love).

It was put in an impossible situation to follow on from Parade, SOTT and Lovesexy, but its still a damn good album, and a better than a number of those that would follow. I'm not saying that he hasn't released anything good since then, (he has, many times) but that era was surely his creative peak, when he was hungriest and had so much to prove - focused, daring, soaking it all in, willing to experiment, no hang-ups, and doing it all with ease...

this is an interesting take on the album. i haven't listened to the Batman Soundrack in ages - never cared to. i hope i can find it....

btw: i was just watching the new years video 87-88 with miles. Towards the end of the "Beautiful Night" jam, he does an acapella thing that emulates a bass line. I wonder if the bass line from "Partyman" was born out of this. They sound very much alike.

FlamingRaindrop said:

Fantastic post, great to see the thread back on track again, although I dont agree that Slow Love should be omitted, but that is all down to taste

Whitnail said:

Agreed