It is easy to dismiss "Batman" as a quick and easy cash grab for Prince. After the dismal sales of "Lovesexy" and its accompanying tour, Prince desperately in need of a hit single and album to prove his relevance, and latching onto the biggest movie of the year with a quickly assembled batch of songs corresponding to the film seemed like a good way to do so. In actuality, "Batman" is one of Prince's most consistently focused and continually under-appreciated albums.
Sonically and thematically, "Batdance" is a largely dark album, drawing on the themes of good and evil and internal conflict / duality that runs through the film. The crux of this can be found in the chorus of the album's second (and best) song, the sinewy, sinister rocker: "Electric Chair": "If a man is considered guilty for what goes in his mind, give me the electric chair for all my future crimes.
Like Tum Burton's film, Prince uses the dark textures of the music to create sonic hellscapes for the listener to envision, conjuring images often grittier and darker than the gothic drabness of Gotham City Burton created. "The Future," the album's prophetic opening track, speaks of a world where chaos has triumphed over order, infested with crime and a general sense of nihilism. Even the album's more uptempo, seemingly happy tracks such as "Partyman" and "Trust" have an underlying paranoia to them; they somewhat recall "1999"'s apocalyptic shadow and how tracks such as "D.M.S.R." and "Automatic" seem like futile, brief respites from the inevitable doom and gloom rather than a truly good time.
Elsewhere on the album, there's "Vicki Waiting," which deals directly with Bruce Wayne's frustration of balancing his love for Vicki Vale with his obligation as Batman, and is a surprisingly successful track in that it's tastefully done without being too cheesy, containing some beautifully cinematic lyrics. And "Scandalous" is one of Prince's best slow jams, a smoky, slowly building torrent of passion that almost rivals "Do Me, Baby" as his best pure sex jam.
There's some forgettable fare on the album. "The Arms of Orion" is a tepid duet with Sheena Easton, recalling none of the spark or chemistry they brought to "U Got the Look"; it doesn't help the track itself is incredibly sappy, a run of the mill ballad that goes nowhere interesting. "Lemon Crush" is atrocious, with some of Prince's worst lyrics ("If I'm workin' at my jobba, I'm the victim, you're the robba"), with an amorphous beat. And I always find myself on the fence with "Batdance": while the guitar work is great and the dialog from the film is woven in rather creatively, it still goes on a tad too long and feels a bit forced and cheesy.
While it doesn't hang together perfectly, "Batman" is largely a sharp, solid album with a lot more depth than many would think just on the basis of its origin. With its thematic darkness and mature lyricism in several tracks, it's an album begging to be rediscovered and reassessed, holding many surprises for those willing to do so.
