As much as I respected Prince as a musician I never got into his music in any kind of meaningful way. It just never grabbed me. I recognize how talented he was and I recognize that millions of people loved his music and I can, unless I’m having an off day, do the entire opening to Let’s Go Crazy at the drop of a hat because it was on the radio that much when I was a kid and it imprinted on me in a way that the Periodic Table never did, but I just never dove into his discography.

This happens. I can both acknowledge someone’s talent and the importance of their body of work and still say, “At the moment, that’s not for me.”

I do, however, own one Prince album and you might want to sit down before you read this (if you’re not already sitting down go ahead and stand up just so you can sit down again) but it’s his soundtrack to the 1989 Batman film.

I’ve actually bought it twice. The first time was in the late summer of 1989. We were back to school shopping and for whatever reason my dad bought me Prince’s Batman soundtrack on cassette along with the folders and notebooks and pens I needed for the eighth grade. The person ringing out our purchase left the plastic, anti-theft device on it, and we didn’t discover this until we got home. Having spent the last two decades working in the big box office supply business I know how crazy back to school can be, so it makes perfect sense to me in the here and now that the clerk forgot to take it off. At the time, I was just annoyed and had a terrible time getting the tape out. The case got cracked, but that was okay because I had some other tapes that I didn’t care about as much and just switched them out.

I didn’t have a huge music collection when I was 13, so I listened to that tape a lot. I liked Partyman quite a bit. I also liked Lemon Crush and Electric Chair. The samples from the movie were cool because this was before movies came out for purchase a few months after they left theaters, so hearing snippets of dialogue let me relive the movie that had been my focus for the summer of 1989.

Oddly enough, my least favorite song was Batdance, which was the big single from the album. The song was in regular rotation on the radio, as was the video on MTV. It was catchy and I tried to make myself love it because it was about Batman, but I never quite got my funk up to the extent that I thought I should. Now I listen to it through the lens of nostalgia, but back then it felt more like an obligation.

Back around 2009 I finally picked up the CD that was advertised in this house ad. I got it really cheap, which kind of surprised me because I figured it would be one of those things that would be worth more than the $10 plus shipping I paid. Maybe it was overproduced. Maybe people didn’t care anymore. Maybe I just got lucky.

Still, it was cool to find and cool to own. The tin case alone was worth the money.

While I will always prefer Danny Elfman’s score to Batman ’89, the Prince album holds a weird place in my fan heart. This was the first time a film got two soundtrack releases and there’s something to be said for splitting the difference between doing an orchestral score and having one of the biggest rock stars on the planet do a bunch of songs for the movie at the same time. It was another way Batman ’89 broke the mold on this sort of film.

And it’s a neat ad.

More to follow…