Batman: Music From the Motion Picture - Prince (CD 1989)

In 1989, the Batman movie flooded the entertainment scene on all 4 cylinders. Big stars, big numbers, big promotion, and big success. Surprisingly, the dark and foreboding movie soundtrack was performed completely by Prince and the effort almost slipped into the music scene without being noticed. Even to this day, Prince fans remember a few of the songs but not the fact that they appeared on this album. Nonetheless, classics like the sexy and slow Scandalous (which was co-composed with Prince s late father John Nelson) along with the unforgettable Batdance and its peculiar video which ran quite often on MTV at the time.

What really gets me about this virtual masterpiece is that almost all of the songs actually pertain to the movie and it s storyline. From song to song, Prince incorporates sound clips of memorable lines from throughout the movie. The result is almost like a musical rendition of the movie itself. For instance, Trust is an upbeat tune that was used during the scene where the Joker was having a parade for the people of Gotham city. In the parade, he was trying to win the hearts of the people by tossing handfulls of cash into the street. He prefaced the scene by asking Who do you trust? So, Prince brilliantly played into that scene by penning a party/parade style song that easily meshed with the mood and feel of the scene. Whether that was planned or not is another story.

Vicki Waiting was almost written by Bruce Wayne himself speaking of the movie s love interest. Interesting that Bruce could never tell her everything so he would see her but never tell her the truth of it all. So, he kept her waiting for it. Prince weaved bits and pieces of the story all through this song. This mellow track also is one of my favorites by Prince as well. I just like how his guitar play adds flava to the song without overpowering it. His guitar follows the lines of each verse like some hot sauce to some Carolina pork BBQ!! (y all don t know nothin bout that!!)

Prince constantly adds flava to all his quirky tracks in a similar method with The Future where he laces percussion, synth chords of various sounds, and funky guitar riffs as only he could do. And he pulls the whole track off with a flair that seems foreboding and ominous in a you better watch out kinda way. Even so, this song also links song to movie connecting to the Joker s warning to the mob boss that ends up setting a trap to kill him or get him caught.

On the pure rock side of things though, he drops Electric Chair and Lemon Crush. The first is a guitar heavy declaration of the Joker s sins. The latter on the other hand just seems like filler to me. It is a typical Prince song with sexual undertones, guitar laced all over, and classic Prince harmonies.

The two slow songs, Scandalous and Arms Of Orion ft. Sheena Easton, are basically love songs that could be applied to any movie. The first, of course, is one of the greatest Prince love songs ever made. On par with Sign O The Time s Adore and Diamond s & Pearls legendary tune Insatiable, this song has Prince crooning in his girly voice in a way that actually comes off as sexy. Just for this song alone, this album is worth the purchase.

Now, the two songs that separate this soundtrack from others are Partyman and Batdance. The first is a hand clappin 80 s funk-fest that was remixed beautifully on an EP called Scandalous Sex Suite. The latter is the epic DJ-like tune that was basically Prince mixing movie sound clips to a beat that he made up. To put it plain and simple, if movies had remixes, this song would be the model! When he flips the beat and funks it up for the entrance of Vicki Vale .whooo, man! You can just smell the grease on the skillet!! Still, Batdance isn t your traditional tune so it isn t something you d really blast in your car (unless you loop that Vicki Vale part over and over!!).

Truthfully, the only downside I ve found in this album is that it is only 9 tracks long. All in all, Batman is one of the strongest singular effort soundtracks ever made. This is definitely a must have for any Prince fan!