PeteSilas said:

herb4 said:

I think that was because with Batman you could tell he had these songs laying around baking then shoehorned the theme of the film in as an afterthought. Hence, all the samples and pronoun changes in the song titles.

I'm not a huge fan of the film or the album but they both get points for style and, probably more significant, marketing. That god damn bat logo was EVERYWHERE that year.

lots of people have suspected that he had those songs just lying around somewhere, especially when he made the statement that it was completed in a week. to me, the lyrics sounded rushed and a little awkward in some spaces, just like the sometimes were on his b-sides, sounded like he was just trying to get something done and cut a couple corners.

It seems pretty obvious to me. I don't blame Prince for doing it, mind you, but nothing about the album screams "Batman Concept Album" to me and I enjoy the album a bit more when I just forget about the connection to the film altogether because it doesn't fit. I mean "Lemon Crush", "Trust", "Scandalous"...even "Electric Chair" and "The Future" barely even have a tangential connection or relationship to the characters or the story.

As to your point about the lyrics, they sound like were CHANGED, which is why they seem awkward. And I suspect they were. He dusted off outtakes and added some samples, some lines from the movie, changed some pronouns around and hamfistedly force fit his ideas into something loosely resembling a concept of duality. I never thought Prince was a great choice to the soundtrack in the first place, although off the top of my head I can think of a few songs he'd already done that would fit the film far better.

Dance With Devil, There's Others Here With Us...instrumental versions of Sign O The Times, I Wonder U, Something In the Water, Around the World in a Day, Life Can Be So Nice...Alexa De Paris. Come to think of it, I think the soundtrack would have worked better if it were entirely without vocals and explored some of Prince's more dark, creepy, experimental and psychedelic tracks. The more I think about it, a lot of the stuff off of Parade, stripped of the vocals, might have really blended in well: Christopher Tracy's Parade, Mountains, Do U Lie plus the ones I already mentioned.

There's your answer. Take the songs from Under the Cherry Moon (minus the vocals). Let Burton do the film making (Batman) and let Prince do the music. Just about all the tracks on Parade would fit, plus this way we're spared watching that trainwreck that Prince made.

I love me some Prince and I love me some Batman but when I heard he was soing the soundtrack I was like "what?" Made no sense. Like, I love crab legs and Chunky Monkey ice cream but I'd never put them in a blender.

For that time period, I actually think someone like Bowie, The Cure, Peter Gabriel...maybe even Trent Reznor (although he wasn't big at the time)...Love and Rockets...Lou Reed...perhaps Pink Floyd...would have fit the tone of the movie better. I'm spitballing here and trying to remember what sort of gothic atmospheric shit I was into back then but by 89 I was moving more into Public Enemy, Living Color, Bad Brains and the Beastie Boys. Danny Elfman's score is the far superior work connected to the film but Prince was the one that sold all the records.

It was just a bad fit, even though some of the tracks are rather good. It's like getting Madonna to do the soundtrack for "Platoon" or something. Ironic that "Batman Forever" really nailed it a decade later with Seal, Souisie and the Banshees and U2 in a far lesser film.

Shit...I didn't mean for that to turn into an essay.

gandorb said:

PeteSilas said:

yup, i'd go so far as to say no one did it more prolifically with that quality. he even had a great variety too, a song like "i love you but don't trust u anymore" is more pop ballad than soul and it's about as good as the more soulful ones.

His CD closest to a slow jams CD was disc 2 of Emancipation, a favorite of mine.

Good point. Co-sign on that. So many of Prince's ballads sound EXACTLY the same and I was never a huge fan of the falsetto delivery in the first place. Still not. The softer stuff on Emancipation is really an exception to the Do Me Baby, The Beautiful Ones, Scandalous, Insatiable, Slow Love, International Lover template he'd done so many times before. Those ballads share SO MUCH of the same beat, same delivery and same chord progressions that they're barely distinguishable.

I can't always put my finger on it but stuff like Soul Sanctuary, Dreamin About You, FLSMW and Curious Child really broke the mold and seemed to have a deeper structure to them; more layers of sophistication, instrumentation and passion. Probably it had to do with his marriage and how fired up and unleashed he must have felt. You can really feel the passion in those songs beyond the "Don't U wanna fuck me". I put "Damn U" in the same category and, again, that one was about his wife.

Oh, wait, this is the Batman thread. Carry on.

herb4 said:

PeteSilas said:

lots of people have suspected that he had those songs just lying around somewhere, especially when he made the statement that it was completed in a week. to me, the lyrics sounded rushed and a little awkward in some spaces, just like the sometimes were on his b-sides, sounded like he was just trying to get something done and cut a couple corners.

It seems pretty obvious to me. I don't blame Prince for doing it, mind you, but nothing about the album screams "Batman Concept Album" to me and I enjoy the album a bit more when I just forget about the connection to the film altogether because it doesn't fit. I mean "Lemon Crush", "Trust", "Scandalous"...even "Electric Chair" and "The Future" barely even have a tangential connection or relationship to the characters or the story.

As to your point about the lyrics, they sound like were CHANGED, which is why they seem awkward. And I suspect they were. He dusted off outtakes and added some samples, some lines from the movie, changed some pronouns around and hamfistedly force fit his ideas into something loosely resembling a concept of duality. I never thought Prince was a great choice to the soundtrack in the first place, although off the top of my head I can think of a few songs he'd already done that would fit the film far better.

Dance With Devil, There's Others Here With Us...instrumental versions of Sign O The Times, I Wonder U, Something In the Water, Around the World in a Day, Life Can Be So Nice...Alexa De Paris. Come to think of it, I think the soundtrack would have worked better if it were entirely without vocals and explored some of Prince's more dark, creepy, experimental and psychedelic tracks. The more I think about it, a lot of the stuff off of Parade, stripped of the vocals, might have really blended in well: Christopher Tracy's Parade, Mountains, Do U Lie plus the ones I already mentioned.

There's your answer. Take the songs from Under the Cherry Moon (minus the vocals). Let Burton do the film making (Batman) and let Prince do the music. Just about all the tracks on Parade would fit, plus this way we're spared watching that trainwreck that Prince made.

I love me some Prince and I love me some Batman but when I heard he was soing the soundtrack I was like "what?" Made no sense. Like, I love crab legs and Chunky Monkey ice cream but I'd never put them in a blender.

For that time period, I actually think someone like Bowie, The Cure, Peter Gabriel...maybe even Trent Reznor (although he wasn't big at the time)...Love and Rockets...Lou Reed...perhaps Pink Floyd...would have fit the tone of the movie better. I'm spitballing here and trying to remember what sort of gothic atmospheric shit I was into back then but by 89 I was moving more into Public Enemy, Living Color, Bad Brains and the Beastie Boys. Danny Elfman's score is the far superior work connected to the film but Prince was the one that sold all the records.

It was just a bad fit, even though some of the tracks are rather good. It's like getting Madonna to do the soundtrack for "Platoon" or something. Ironic that "Batman Forever" really nailed it a decade later with Seal, Souisie and the Banshees and U2 in a far lesser film.

Shit...I didn't mean for that to turn into an essay.

ya, elfman's score was called 'the real batman soundtrack', not only because it was better but because it was in the movie. Prince was barely included. It was a good break for prince though because lovesexy flopped and he'd been losing people steady since Purple Rain. It's just a damned shame that he was so bigheaded that when he got the chance to do graffiti bridge he had no one else good to collaborate with and he wouldn't have listened to anyone at that point anyway.

herb4 said:

gandorb said:

His CD closest to a slow jams CD was disc 2 of Emancipation, a favorite of mine.

Good point. Co-sign on that. So many of Prince's ballads sound EXACTLY the same and I was never a huge fan of the falsetto delivery in the first place. Still not. The softer stuff on Emancipation is really an exception to the Do Me Baby, The Beautiful Ones, Scandalous, Insatiable, Slow Love, International Lover template he'd done so many times before. Those ballads share SO MUCH of the same beat, same delivery and same chord progressions that they're barely distinguishable.

I can't always put my finger on it but stuff like Soul Sanctuary, Dreamin About You, FLSMW and Curious Child really broke the mold and seemed to have a deeper structure to them; more layers of sophistication, instrumentation and passion. Probably it had to do with his marriage and how fired up and unleashed he must have felt. You can really feel the passion in those songs beyond the "Don't U wanna fuck me". I put "Damn U" in the same category and, again, that one was about his wife.

Oh, wait, this is the Batman thread. Carry on.

I always mention that alot of people didn't like Prince's falsetto, it was an acquired thing that people either love or hate. The ballads on emancipation do show more depth, sincerity and range than his other ballads, the topical stuff as well as the musical structures sound different than what he'd done before. Curious Child was a 3/4 time thing that some people said ripped off Seal's kiss from a rose but if you didn't like any single one of those ballads than I just can write you off and say you just don't like ballads period, which some people don't.

herb4 said:

Marrk said:

rebelenterprise said:

It took me a minute 2 get into it (I bought it w/ The Black Album n gravitated 2 that immensely), but now I think it's a good 1. Don't dislike 1 track. Partyman n Electric Chair still get spins n the whole thing 2 when I'm feeling whimsical .

To me Batman was the start of his new, more compressed sound. It is as if somewhere between Lovesexy ("Welcome to the New Power Generation") and Batman he upgraded his recording equipment and brought a lot of sounds to the front of the mix. It was as if reverb became too old school for him to bother with.

I Still like the album though. It was the first Prince CD I bought. Everything was cassette up to that point. The album is definately part of his classic period for me even though it points to a new direction in sound and recording processes which went on to become the brickwalled sounds of the 90's.

Batman is a great record. The affiliation with the film/cartoon was fun and there are some amazing songs on the album. Admittedly some less striking songs but a phase in Prince's career that was exciting with excellent videos, great remixes and creative b-sides. Also I think Prince's hair was cool at this time . I enjoy Batman and over time I have even grown to appreciate the corniness of Arms Of Orion!

Why on earth would anyone describe an extremely successful album as misunderstood!

.

Maybe they have too much time to waste!

.

herb4 said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Totally agree with a lot of what you say, but I don't think it's the first time Prince did something commercially. 1999 was very commercial (read: "Little Red Corvette", "1999"), and Purple Rain was about as commercial as anything.

I think they only sound that way in retrospect since those albums helped to define the era. It's easy to say now that they were "commercial" because they became the norm but, at the time, no one had really heard anything quite like what he was doing. Bits and pieces sure. He was cribbing a LOT of easy to identify influences (and some not so obvious ones) and blending it into a stew all his own but it's like saying that the Clash with "Rock the Casbah", U2 with "War" or Metallica's "And Justice For All" were being "commercial" simply because they became popular and found a broader audience.

MTV really really helped Prince achieve mainstream success back then and absolutely can not be undertated, especially since a big part of his appeal was the look. Without MTV, I doubt he would have reached the sales figures he did and, as such, would have been regarded as more of a cult artist; which ironically he kind of sort of became.

My point being, I think we're labeling the records as "commercial" in retrospect simply because of their sales. Songs like "LPWM", "Darling Nikki", "DMSR", "Something in the Water", etc....at that time were in no way designed to cater to the masses. I think the public had simply caught up to what he was doing. D&P and Batman were the first times I ever caught a genuine whiff of Prince mainly/simply trying to sell albums, especially after really challenging records like ATWIAD, Lovesexy and SOTT.

agreed

I really like Party Man.

herb4 said:

Dance With Devil, There's Others Here With Us...

Agreed. These two songs would have made a huge difference on the album. I like a few songs from Batman, but it´s far away from a masterpiece. To be honest, I like this 2 songs more than the ones in the soundtrack.

I love me some Prince and I love me some Batman but when I heard he was soing the soundtrack I was like "what?" Made no sense.

For that time period, I actually think someone like Bowie, The Cure, Peter Gabriel...maybe even Trent Reznor (although he wasn't big at the time)...Love and Rockets...Lou Reed...perhaps Pink Floyd...would have fit the tone of the movie better. I'm spitballing here and trying to remember what sort of gothic atmospheric shit I was into back then but by 89 I was moving more into Public Enemy, Living Color, Bad Brains and the Beastie Boys.

Yes, guess they would fit better... Also tought of the etherial vibe of Cocteau Twins´s Treasure.

Telecaster5 said:

kmama07 said:

Telecaster5 said:

You just named just about every band I still listen to and love. Haha.

Well I'll be damned. I guess I'd say you have excellent taste.

Rebeljuice said:

To me Batman was the start of his new, more compressed sound. It is as if somewhere between Lovesexy ("Welcome to the New Power Generation") and Batman he upgraded his recording equipment and brought a lot of sounds to the front of the mix. It was as if reverb became too old school for him to bother with.

I Still like the album though. It was the first Prince CD I bought. Everything was cassette up to that point. The album is definately part of his classic period for me even though it points to a new direction in sound and recording processes which went on to become the brickwalled sounds of the 90's.

Good post! I'd like to hear more of your views on the recording evolution of his music. I always feel like Lovesexy got a lousy mastering job for the CD release. I have hope that a remaster will sound fatter--some day!

zenarose said:

I reminder when I first heard the Batman album I was disappointed. I had high expectations after his more creative albums Sign O the Times and Lovesexy. Now I appreciate this album more and listen to it a lot, but I don't consider it a masterpiece.

[Edited 5/27/17 10:15am]

zenarose said:

Latin said:

Batman sold 6 million.4 singles from it and a promo for Trust. I fell in love with the album in 1992. The last album of the 80s and another masterpiece,Prince was in between bands,another solo project. His use of sampling on the album is imcomparable to any pop album.That amount of sampling is only performed by hip hop artists.But he kinda inverts the sampling and instead of using music he samples the Batman film,its a genius move,in that sense the album is hip hop.Gemini/Good vs Evil,Batman vs The Joker. A brilliant delivery and execution for a soundtrack(emphasis on the word) based on the lead characters of the film. Masterpiece to end the 80s.

Tim Burton asked Jack Nicholson who he should get to do the soundtrack and Nicholson said Prince. Prince was on set absorbing all he could for inspiration. He is also in the film.

Where is he in the movie?

Laydown said:

Tim Burton asked Jack Nicholson who he should get to do the soundtrack and Nicholson said Prince. Prince was on set absorbing all he could for inspiration. He is also in the film.

kingricefan said:

Where is he in the movie?

Laydown said:

Tim Burton asked Jack Nicholson who he should get to do the soundtrack and Nicholson said Prince. Prince was on set absorbing all he could for inspiration. He is also in the film.

Ive watched the film many times to find him but to no avail. I presume he is an extra,somewhere in the background of a scene. I will find out.

Laydown said:

But he kinda inverts the sampling and instead of using music he samples the Batman film,its a genius move,in that sense the album is hip hop.

No it isn't. Not even close.

I loved it, Electric Chair is my jam