Prince Defined Joker & Batman For A Generation
Prince’s “Partyman” & “Batdance” among others made for the best movie album of the 80s.
I’m sure you have heard the sad news by now. Musician, artist and all around weird but incredibly cool guy Prince has passed away at the age of 57. He will be remembered for all of his various contributions to pop culture, but to comic book fans he will always be fondly remembered as the man who helped create of of the most iconic scenes associated with the Joker in all of movie history with “Partyman”, and “Batdance” still remains a pretty incredible song to this day. We’ll always remember Danny Elfman’s seminal Batman score, but Prince’s entire concept Batman album is just as important for Batman, Joker and even Prince himself (which I’ll get to in a bit).
I mean, the museum scene in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman is probably the standout scene for Jack Nicholson as The Joker, and it’s such a defining trait of every Joker portrayal since, from Batman the animated series to the Dark Knight and probably even into Suicide Squad. Joker was a psychopath, sure, but he wasn’t some sad sack, he reveled in it, he partied to it, and few scenes in history capture that more than the following scene, which Prince’s “Party Man” puts the exclamation point on:
And that point was pretty much hit again in the parade scene, again perfectly punctuated by another great Prince track, “Trust”:
And Prince didn’t just write some great songs for the 1989, he really got into the whole Joker motif, as you can see in the official video for “Partyman” & “Batdance”
But Batman was just as vital to Prince as Prince was to Batman. Prince had actually hit one hell of a rough patch before the gig for Batman came along. His album Lovesexy marked a low point for Prince, being a huge commercial failure it only sold about 750,000 copies. By contrast, his “Batman” album sold 4.3 million copies in it’s initial release and has sold 11 million copies worldwide. Incredibly rare for an album based around a movie.
Next: Joe Quinones Pitched A Batman '89 Comic
Prince leaves an indelible mark on the world in general, but he will always have a very special place in history for Batman & Joker fans alike. R.I.P. Partyman.