In 1989, Prince released his soundtrack to Tim Burton's blockbuster movie Batman. Music critics generally viewed the album as a disappointment. His fan base largely dismissed it as merely marking time. Nearly twenty years later, it is high time for reappraisal. The past decade-plus of mostly subpar Prince albums has benefited Batman. If the same album was released now, I daresay it would be hailed as a return to form.
I was among the staunchest critics upon initial release of Batman, primarily because of my die-hard admiration of Prince. My expectations were extraordinarily high. In fact, I was far more excited for the album than the movie that inspired it. But the music seemed distinctly underwhelming compared to then-recent Prince releases such as Lovesexy and Sign O' the Times. The lingering impression was that Prince had taken a big step backward after his creative innovations throughout the 1980s.
Commercially, it was a different story entirely. Buoyed by the phenomenal success of the movie, Batman became Prince's first multi-platinum chart-topper in years. Considerable debate raged over whether it was even appropriate to have Prince contribute pop songs to Burton's dark vision of Gotham City. In retrospect, such concerns seem unfounded as very few songs from the album are featured prominently in the film. Rather than a traditional soundtrack, Batman is a Prince album; a party album, featuring mostly dance music laced with sound bites of dialogue from the movie. Primarily recorded by Prince alone in a matter of weeks (though some songs already existed in various states of completion), the production seemed hasty. This obviously wasn't the meticulously crafted product that Prince's followers had come to expect.
Fast forward to 2008, Batman sounds practically like a forgotten classic when compared to the likes of 2006's 3121 or 2004's Musicology. These days Prince seems to have largely lost his ability to compose tight, coherent songs with strong hooks. Back in 1989, he was coming off what is remembered as his peak period. Consider Batman's opening track: the minimalist, spooky-sounding "The Future" - lead vocal credited to Batman (each song was assigned to a different character). The string samples manage to evoke Danny Elfman's iconic score, while the Sounds of Blackness Choir samples contribute to the uneasy atmosphere. Lyrically the song paints a bleak view of a dangerous present with an uncertain future. Reminiscent of his earlier "Dance On" (from 1988's Lovesexy) in chronicling the ills of modern society, Prince sings of drugs and street gangs. Sinewy and sparse, "The Future" rises to a level it's author rarely reaches any longer.
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