36 years ago, June 23, 1989, I was sitting in a theater somewhere near Blue Hole, WV watching this....the 1989 Tim Burton directed BATMAN...
My parents were vacationing there, and they had drug 15 year old me and my younger sister along for the ride. After the day's vacation activities, instead of watching THE TERMINATOR for the fifth time on our motel's cable TV, I opted to walk down the street to a local cinema and watch the film I'd been eagerly awaiting for months. It was well worth the 4 dollar ticket price.
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| I've always been more of a fan of the newsstand edition cover of the 1989 DC Comics adaptation |
"Partyman" by Prince....proof that not only was MTV a delightfully weird place in 1989, but promotional tie-ins for superhero movies started out being crazy bugnuts bananas....
The backstory on the development of Prince's BATMAN soundtrack album is insane, meaning there was practically none, some stories saying he turned a completed album to Warner Records in under two weeks. The structure of the album itself is chaotic, with no real connecting theme, compiled from a bunch of already recorded material from Prince's vault, in some cases literally Frankensteining 2 or 3 songs together, putting lyrics form one song onto melodies from another. So much so, that supposedly Warner A&R told him that they didn't know how to market any of it and there wasn't any material for breakout singles on it.
Prince's alleged response: "There's your album. Sell it." His work was done, and he had a pretty sweetheart final creative deal.
Then it became one of his best selling albums.
I've always been partial to two tracks on the album, "Electric Chair" and "Partyman". "Batdance" is just goofy enough that it feels fun without feeling like an obvious moneygrab with no thought put into it, and alot of Prince's diehard fans tend to dig the slow jam "Scandalous"....and, I will admit to having g a soft spot for the track "Trust".
"Hubba hubba hubba, money money money....Who do ya trust....."
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