#247 The Best Album of 1989, Round 1 Match #11: Prince vs. The Durutti Column
Hey folks!
Today’s Best Album of 1989 match is:
#25 Prince, BATMAN
vs.
#104 The Durutti Column, VINI REILLY
To vote, follow this link to the Google Form. You will need a Google login to vote. If you can’t or won’t have one, let me know ASAP (either through this newsletter, my email [kentmbeeson@hey.com] or on the Best Album Brackets Bluesky account) and I’ll see what I can do.
We have two Designated Cheerleaders for BATMAN, and I feel fairly certain we’ll see it again in Round 2, so I’m only going to publish the first one. (If it looks like BATMAN is in trouble, I’ll turn on the Bat-signal and publish the second one.) Anywho, here’s @wesm.bsky.social for BATMAN. Take it away, Wes!
There are people that will vote against BATMAN, (or at least abstain,) solely because it is considered a soundtrack. But that argument breaks against the facts. The usual argument against soundtracks is that they are not true, from the ground up, albums; that they are,instead, more akin to Greatest Hits albums, a collection of previously released material. That is not what Prince delivers here. (According to Wikipedia,) Prince vetoed the use of “1999” and “Baby I’m a Star,” choosing to only include unreleased material.
Anecdotal interlude: When a friend of mine used to hold house parties for the eclectic group of old college friends, our D&D group, and his MBA cohort, I often found myself in charge of monitoring the CD changer. Usually, this amounted to maintaining the background music. Occasionally though, this meant putting on something to bring up the energy level. “Batdance” and “Partyman,” saw frequent use in this manner. (As did other Prince songs, tracks off of the ABBA Greatest Hits album and Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, and, of course, that sing along favorite, “Take on Me.”)
All the hallmarks of a Prince album are here. The funky semi-spiritual, (“The Future,”) an, ‘all I think about is sex,’ song, (“Electric Chair,”) a slow duet with Sheena Easton, (“The Arms of Orion,”) and a dance banger, (“Partyman.”) AND THAT’S THE FIRST FOUR SONGS.
The thing that really makes BATMAN different though, is Prince’s use of samples from the movie. Even discounting “Batdance,” which is virtually all dialog samples, most of the songs include a snippet or two to relate the song to the movie. In an odd way, this makes the dance songs feel like the collaborations between Prince and the Art of Noise that we could have gotten, rather than the cover of Prince we did get.
In short, don’t treat this as a soundtrack, think of it as Prince’s last album before his New Power Generation phase. Albeit one that has a peculiar focus on Tim Burton’s Batman.
Thank you, Wes! I never thought of describing “Batdance” as a Prince/Art of Noise collab, but that’s perfect.
Click here to see the current results for the entire tournament, and click here to see the current results for the prediction bracket contest.
Thanks for voting! Hope you had a good weekend!
Kent