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Forums > Prince: Music and More > Was Batdance even played on the radio?
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Reply #30 posted 03/07/16 7:18am

feeluupp

ofc it was played. it was #1... lol

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Reply #31 posted 03/07/16 7:37am

SPYZFAN1

The short, radio friendly "pop" version was played to death on Top 40 radio.....The college radio staions used to play the regular version (w/ the guitar solo) and the R&B staions played the "stop the presses-funk" remix version only (minus the guitar solo and everything else)...It's funny because R&B radio did the same thing with the "funk w/out electric guitar" versions of Janet's "Black Cat" and EnVouge's "Free Your Mind".

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Reply #32 posted 03/07/16 7:48am

feeluupp

y is there still a discussion... yes it was played, it went #1 lol lol

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Reply #33 posted 03/07/16 12:09pm

Monarch

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Batman was a big deal. I was 9 & got my first exposure to Prince with batdance. Hooked ever since. Think about it. Your a 9 year old boy. Batman is the pervasive item of the moment. Your renting Batman on nes. Then hell yeah we have Batman music videos on MTV, life is good. It seems every time I ride my bike to my friends house to play Mike Tyson's punch out, batdance comes on my Walkman radio.
Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.
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Reply #34 posted 03/07/16 1:57pm

GottaLetitgo

I remember the first time it played on my local pop radio; it was up against another song (forgot which one) and lost in a New Songs at 9:00 challenge. 3 days later it seemed like it was playing every hour on the hour as the country was going Bat-crazy and even as unorthodox as the song was, it was a huge hit. The song and album rode the coattails of the bat phomemenon but as pointed out elsewhere in this thread, people also like Prince being poppy again. Lovesexy as brilliant as it was and is was such a commercial flop in the States that seeing the man make videos with the full weight of Warner behind him brought a lot of fans back who flocked away.

Not only did Batdance get massive airplay but a lot of stations played album cuts off the CD, I remember hearing Trust and Lemon Crush being played as album cuts.

I used to love those New Song Challenges. Back in 86, I remember Kiss winning it's first night in a new song challenge and then it lost in it's second night...to "Rock Me Amadeus".

[Edited 3/7/16 16:43pm]

All good things they say never last...
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Reply #35 posted 03/07/16 2:35pm

Poplife88

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Played to DEATH in Chicago back in 89. I remember hearing the remix quite a bit too. Partyman got a lot of play too as did the Purple Party Mix.

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Reply #36 posted 03/07/16 2:41pm

khelm9

Batdance was all over the place in the Summer of '89. Partyman was a decent hit topping out at #18 on the Billboard top 40. Heavy rotation on MTV as well. Arms of Orion was on the radio a fair amount as well and hit #36 on the top 40. Never understood why he did not follow up Partyman with Vicki Waiting as a single. I think it would have sustained a decent amount of momentum.

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Reply #37 posted 03/07/16 2:45pm

feeluupp

The best things that came out of that album were the European FUTURE 12" and the Scandalous Sex Suite singles...

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Reply #38 posted 03/07/16 3:12pm

KCOOLMUZIQ

Yes! Plus the video 4 "BatDance" was played @ the top of every hour on MTV(I miss the video channel MTV) I knew the WHOLE Batdance dance routine from start to finish..

eye will ALWAYS think of prince like a "ACT OF GOD"! N another realm. eye mean of all people who might of been aliens or angels.if found out that prince wasn't of this earth, eye would not have been that surprised. R.I.P. prince
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Reply #39 posted 03/07/16 3:18pm

Se7en

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It was played here a lot on the Detroit area, but as someone noted in an earlier post the fever died down within about a month after the movie came out. They didn't play it much at the end of the summer (if at all).

But yes, it was on a pretty good rotation here.

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Reply #40 posted 03/07/16 7:10pm

alandail

CharismaDove said:

For all of you who were there back in 1989, was Batdance even played on the radio?? Listening to the song now, I just can't imagine radio stations spinning this song and people actually listening to it all. I get that Batman was the hot topic of 1989, but unless you really loved either Batman or Prince (or both), how in the world did Batdance get any radio airplay? ... if it did at at all

It was #1, of coure it was played. THe song and the video were huge.

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Reply #41 posted 03/07/16 9:26pm

thedance

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feeluupp said:

The best things that came out of that album were the European FUTURE 12" and the Scandalous Sex Suite singles...

I agree, excellent stuff on the Batman album / those singles were truly amazing woot!


The Future
single remix however wasn't made by Prince,

a Remix made by William Orbit wasn't it..?

Prince 4Ever. heart
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Reply #42 posted 03/08/16 1:21am

KCOOLMUZIQ

thedance said:

feeluupp said:

The best things that came out of that album were the European FUTURE 12" and the Scandalous Sex Suite singles...

I agree, excellent stuff on the Batman album / those singles were truly amazing woot!


The Future
single remix however wasn't made by Prince,

a Remix made by William Orbit wasn't it..?

The Future remix was House muziq @ it's BEST!!! It was SLAMMIN!

eye will ALWAYS think of prince like a "ACT OF GOD"! N another realm. eye mean of all people who might of been aliens or angels.if found out that prince wasn't of this earth, eye would not have been that surprised. R.I.P. prince
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Reply #43 posted 03/08/16 2:40am

thedance

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KCOOLMUZIQ said:

thedance said:

I agree, excellent stuff on the Batman album / those singles were truly amazing woot!


The Future
single remix however wasn't made by Prince,

a Remix made by William Orbit wasn't it..?

The Future remix was House muziq @ it's BEST!!! It was SLAMMIN!

1. The Future (Remix)

2. Electric Chair (Remix)

The Cd single includes both songs:

"Remixed by Mark Moore and William Orbit at guerilla studios London"

(I just made the check, finding this cd in my collection biggrin )

Prince 4Ever. heart
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Reply #44 posted 03/08/16 4:16am

ZiggmanZoo

It was in heavy rotation all over in Europe as well. Of course it sounded different than all other songs on the radio, but that's Prince smile

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Reply #45 posted 03/08/16 4:37am

ethanthomas

Obviously it was played on radio, the tiniest bit of research would have revealed the song went #1. Batdance is great song that required a lot of imagination, quintessential Prince
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Reply #46 posted 03/08/16 9:34am

databank

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CharismaDove said:

I guess what I mean is, compared to other hitmakers in 1989 like Madonna, Bobby Brown, and Paula Abdul etc, "Batdance" isn't even a song. It's basically an extended mostly instrumental jam.

It was based on the same formula several sample-based house music tracks that were, indeed, not "songs", had followed earlier (87-88), and lots of them had been huge hits (MARRS' Pump Up The Volume, S'Express' Theme From S'Express and Superfly Guy or Hithouse's Jack To The Sound Of The Underground come to mind, and acts such as Technotronic or Confetti's achieved huge hits by following a pretty close formula). That kind of stuff, generally dubbed "house" or "acid house", was very popular at the time and played heavily on radio and TV. It may seem odd today but if u were there at the time, Batdance in fact followed a trend (though in a more agressive, somewhat more experimental and uniquely "princey" manner) and the fact that it was a hit was no surprise at all. + the movie was truly a hype in 89, and WB pushed the promo on both the album and film as much as they could.

A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/
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Reply #47 posted 03/08/16 9:52am

Dandroppedadim
e

i loved this 12". funny i also played the hell out Hijack's badman is robbin' 12", which to anyone who knows it samples the 60s batman.

https://youtu.be/q6jiYb-oikE

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Reply #48 posted 03/08/16 12:26pm

smokeverbs

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Se7en said:

It was played here a lot on the Detroit area, but as someone noted in an earlier post the fever died down within about a month after the movie came out. They didn't play it much at the end of the summer (if at all).

But yes, it was on a pretty good rotation here.



Indeed, but I gotta say Mojo played the fuck outta the Vicky Vale mix for quite some time!
Keep your headphones on.
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Reply #49 posted 03/08/16 12:30pm

darkroman

CharismaDove said:

darkroman said:

You can check the radio play charts.

.

Yes.

.

It was played to death!!!!!!

.

cool cool cool cool

I actually did a search for those out of curiosity, but couldn't find anything entirely useful neutral But folks here are saying it was a pretty big hit so it's cool. I checked Billboard and it said the song was top 10 for six weeks -- one of the more successful songs of '89.

.

Well as Billboard are based mainly on radio play and focus groups, then that should answer your question.

.

cool cool cool

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Reply #50 posted 03/08/16 2:59pm

Fury

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The Vicki vale mix was on every black radio station! Once they split the future / VV into two separate mixes it took off on R&b
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Reply #51 posted 03/08/16 6:12pm

EnDoRpHn

Of course it was. He was still with WBR, and it was a promo add to a WB movie.

Pay to play.

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Reply #52 posted 03/08/16 6:50pm

renfield

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"Batdance" reached #2 on Billboard's Top 40 Airplay chart, and was #1 for three weeks on the Sales chart. It spent one week at #1 on the Hot 100, which is a combination of sales & airplay (infor from the "Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits", plus I was 14 that summer, a chart watcher, a Prince fan, and a comic book fan. So I remember wink ).

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Reply #53 posted 03/08/16 8:38pm

warning2all

I remember it always being #1 forever on "Top 10 @ 10" on our station.

Yes it got significant airplay.

That was a big big hit and a true original composition- one of Princes most unique tracks. A really of the moment smash.
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Reply #54 posted 03/08/16 11:39pm

alandail

Batdance went Platinum in the US. Prionce only ever had 2 US platinum singles, When Doves Cry and Batdance.

The song was huge, as was the album, which sold 11 million copies.

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Reply #55 posted 03/09/16 3:30am

udo

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CharismaDove said:

Was Batdance even played on the radio?

.

It was the lead single, so what do you expect?

Pills and thrills and daffodils will kill... If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry.
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Reply #56 posted 03/09/16 3:33am

feeluupp

alandail said:

Batdance went Platinum in the US. Prionce only ever had 2 US platinum singles, When Doves Cry and Batdance.

The song was huge, as was the album, which sold 11 million copies.

all that information is incorrect.

You got that from Wikipedia which is wrong.

Prince had way more than 2 singles to reach Platinum, I won't name them all but KISS is another one that went platinum...

Also the BATMAN album did not sell 11 million copies. The only DIAMOND award Prince received was Purple Rain which sold over 13 million copies in the U.S. Alone.

The BATMAN album sold over 2 million copies in the U.S. alone and over 4.7 million copies world wide.

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Reply #57 posted 03/09/16 5:25am

Wolfie87

I love the "Stop the press!" part of the video and the song. One of the funkiest jams he ever recorded. And the video part is so slutty, horny and intellectual (?) (All this and brains too) while Prince is licking his mouth. OMG!

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Reply #58 posted 03/09/16 10:59am

namepeace

It was played heavily. Warners needed great promotion for Batman , its tentpole movie of 1989, and Prince needed to salvage his commercial viability after Lovesexy tanked in 1988, followed by a massive tour that didn't sell out.

"Batdance" was essentially a (great) commercial for the movie. But it was all over MTV and the radio for weeks. The album, extended singles and b-sides are pretty doggone good too.

Good night, sweet Prince | 7 June 1958 - 21 April 2016

Props will be withheld until the showing and proving has commenced. -- Aaron McGruder
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Reply #59 posted 03/09/16 11:03am

Guitarhero

namepeace said:

It was played heavily. Warners needed great promotion for Batman , its tentpole movie of 1989, and Prince needed to salvage his commercial viability after Lovesexy tanked in 1988, followed by a massive tour that didn't sell out.

"Batdance" was essentially a (great) commercial for the movie. But it was all over MTV and the radio for weeks. The album, extended singles and b-sides are pretty doggone good too.

USA only.

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Forums > Prince: Music and More > Was Batdance even played on the radio?