Batdance is the ninth and final track on Prince’s eleventh album Batman (the motion picture soundtrack to the Tim Burton movie Batman), and, two weeks prior to the album’s release, Batdance was released as the album’s first single, becoming Prince’s fourth number one hit.
Basic tracking took place in mid-late March 1989 at Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota, as the last song recorded for the album, replacing Dance With The Devil. The song contains samples from The Future, Electric Chair, 200 Balloons and We Got The Power (the latter was briefly considered for the album but left unreleased). Prince would later make regular use of mentioning or sampling tracks from an album within one of the album’s final tracks. Of Note, remixes of Batdance also contain samples from Rave Unto The Joy Fantastic (planned for the Batman album and replaced by Partyman, the song was only released in 1999).
The vocals on the album are credited to a character from the movie, as if Prince is singing on their behalf. The lines on Batdance are attributed to different characters from the movie and to Gemini, a character half-Batman, half-Joker created by Prince.
Perhaps because the track contains several samples from the movie Batman (which are covered by their own copyright permissions), and since the track can be seen as a promotional tie-in more than a song in any traditional sense, it had not been included on any of Prince’s compilation albums, despite its commercial success. After Prince’s passing it was however included on 4Ever.
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