Batman Review

Handed the soundtrack to the biggest film of the year, he wrote in character: this song is the villain, this one is the reporter, this one is the two of them together. That framing device drains the writing of anything personal, and the lyrics across most of the album are the weakest of his major label run. Batdance is the exception and it is genuinely bizarre, a collage of film dialogue, three unrelated grooves stitched together, a guitar solo and a chorus of samples, and it went to number one, which says something about 1989.

Partyman is a decent funk track. Scandalous is a long slow ballad that would have been better on any other record. Vicki Waiting and Electric Chair are competent and anonymous. The playing is immaculate throughout because it always was. It sold in enormous quantities, it revived his commercial position, and it is the least essential thing he released in the eighties.