Movies - Batman

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While it garnered mixed reviews from critics, the 1989 Batman soundtrack returned Prince to the top of the Billboard album charts. The album was buoyed by the No. 1 hit single, "Batdance", a multi-phased pastiche of funk, rock, and dance interlaced with samples from the movie itself. Batman also spawned the follow-up single, "Partyman"; both video clips featured Prince's quirky alter-ego known as "Gemini", a half-Batman, half-Joker embodiment, somewhat akin to Lovesexy's 'Camille' vs. 'Spooky Electric'. The Sheena Easton duet, "The Arms of Orion", followed as the third single and last were the slow-burning ballad, "Scandalous" in the U.S. and a remix of "The Future" in the UK.

As a Warner Bros. stablemate, Prince's involvement in the soundtrack was designed to leverage the media company's contract-bound talent as well as fulfill the artist's need for a commercial (if not critical) revival. The result: yet another successful cross-media enterprise by Warner Bros. in the vein of Purple Rain
.

The whole ownership of the "Batman" franchise is quite complex and the hit singles from this album were not allowed on any of Prince's hits collections. Even on the concert t-shirts which listed all Prince's album titles to date had the song "Scandalous" rather than Batman. Despite this, Prince has performed a number of the album's tracks in concert over the years. (Update: the 2005 2-DVD edition of the Batman movie contains Prince's related videos as a bonus feature.) Wedged between Lovesexy and Graffiti Bridge, the soundtrack serves as Prince's final album contribution of the 1980s.

Critically, the album was not particularly well received at the time, with many reviewers labelling it as mechanical and dull. Indeed many reviewers suggested that Prince was just using the soundtrack as a means of jettisoning some of the excess tracks that had built up in the Paisley Park vaults over the years. Songs like "The Arms Of Orion" and "Lemon Crush" could have been formulated for any other film, not just Batman. In a recent trivia book, Q music magazine suggested that "Batdance" was the beginning of the end of Prince's musical greatness, a view echoed by the popular press. Without the support of the movie, it's unlikely that the album would have sold as well as it did, although in 1990 it won a Brit Award for best soundtrack/score. The album also debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 charts and went multi-platinum in the US.

Not to be confused with Danny Elfman
's orchestral score for the same movie.
No.1 Billboard 200 Albums Chart
No.5 Billboard R&B Albums Chart

Track listing

#"The Future" #"Electric Chair" #"The Arms of Orion" #"Partyman" #"Vicki Waiting" #"Trust" #"Lemon Crush" #"Scandalous" #"Batdance"

Singles and Hot 100 Chart Placings

"The Future
" (UK/Germany)

# "The Future" (remix) # "Electric Chair" (remix)

"The Arms of Orion
"

# "The Arms of Orion" (#36 US, #27 UK) # "I Love U in Me"

"Partyman
" (#18 US, #5 R&B, #14 UK)

# "Partyman" # "Feel U Up" # "The Purple Party Mix" (maxi-single) # "Partyman Music Mix" (maxi-single) # "Partyman Video Mix" (maxi-single)

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Movies - Batman

Track listing

Singles and Hot 100 Chart Placings

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