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| General Discussion:Batman (1989) 30th Anniversary Appreciation Thread | 123 NEXTLAST | Last Post |
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| | | | | Posted: | Jun 25, 2019-12:19 PM | | | By: | other tallguy(Member) |
I know the score wasn't released until August of 1989, but wanted to get this thread started to share the love for the film/score that first got me (and I'm sure a few other 40-somethings) into film music. First up, David McCaulley's excellent analysis of the "Shootout" scene with score reduction: There's a lot to love about Elfman's (and Burton's) Batman. There's not a track on the original album that I skip. But WOW, Shootout (or First Confrontation) is a work of art in both picture and sound.
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| | | | | Posted: | Jun 25, 2019-2:56 PM | | | By: | other tallguy(Member) |
Back in the Summer of 1989, after having seen the movie in the theater and heard Elfman's fantastic score, it was an agonizing wait until the score itself was our in record stores. I kept track as best I could looking at upcoming album release schedules in magazines or newspapers, it was so difficult back then to find any information. I would ask the record stores! I purchased it first on cassette (I didn't have a CD player yet) and wore that cassette out! It's not only an incredible musical achievement by Elfman overall, but regardless of all the recent expanded editions, that original 60 minute album presentation is a winner from start to finish. Oh man. Do you remember that? Monday: "Do you know when the Batman CD is coming?"
"It's over there."
"Those are the Prince songs."
"That's the Batman CD."
"No, there's one with the music from the movie coming."
"That's the only one there is."
"But there's one with the music coming."
"No."
"No really, there is."
"I don't know anything about that."
"OK, thank you." Next Monday: "Do you know when the Batman CD is coming?"
"It's over there."
"Those are the Prince songs."
"That's the Batman CD."
"No, there's one with the music from the movie coming."
"That's the only one there is."
"But there's one with the music coming."
"No."
"No really, there is."
"I don't know anything about that."
"OK, thank you. (Repeat until, what, late July?)
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| | | | | Posted: | Jun 25, 2019-3:00 PM | | | By: | EdG(Member) |
Tom Servo really captured it. I was asking about Elfman’s score at the local record shops (remember those?) and all I had to go on was a statement in one of the trades that the score album was “forthcoming.” In an era when orchestral scores were reduced to a single cue amid pop songs it was exciting to learn that the score would have its own release. And that score was PERFECT for the dark fantasy take Burton created. It really was something no one had heard before. The mood as the Main Title played for the first time was something I’ve experienced only a few times in my life as a movie fan: the crowd was INTO it and there was applause as it finished FOR THE MUSIC. Amazing. The music itself had an impact it’s hard to imagine now. Most people associated Batman with Neal Hefti’s earworm theme from the tv show. Elfman came out of nowhere with only a few comedy scores under his belt and redefined what a superhero sounded like for the industry as well as the audience and got typecast for a while in the process. Popular magazines were doing profiles of him because everyone wanted to know where that distinctive musical voice had come from: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/09/movies/pop-music-batman-bartman-darkman-elfman.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1990/06/10/danny-elfmans-big-score/fb856f51-44f2-495c-80b3-029be8aab483/?utm_term=.37ff886a143e I’ll be forever grateful for La La Land’s epic treatment of both Elfman’s Batman scores and the sonic improvements they brought, but that first album really was perfect as a listening experience. There was a lot of discussion about technical problems at the sessions which I would love to hear more about, not because I look for flaws but because I love a story of overcoming adversity. *By the way La La Land's set of both scores has been getting a lot of play from me lately. Something in the water supply perhaps?
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| | | | | Posted: | Jun 25, 2019-3:23 PM | | | By: | BornOfAJackal(Member) |
Good movie. Excellent score. I thought Batman Returns was better, all-around. That material was a better fit for Burton and Keaton. This first film was the result of a gritty, violent script that went through the development mill, then was handed off to Burton for his finalization. In a “cultural landscape” that wasn’t yet ready for the true Frank Miller approach, I thought it was the best compromise the corporate overtakers could’ve/would’ve produced. The score helped a lot. I haven’t heard the La-La Land Elfman set. Is it a true hi-fi experience?
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| | | | | Posted: | Jun 25, 2019-6:03 PM | | | By: | Josh "Swashbuckler" Gizelt(Member) |
This score blew me away. I was aware of Elfman already from Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice, but I wasn't sure how that added up to an epic comic book adventure, but those first notes of the main title made it clear that he was not %#&+ing around. This was gonna be a great score… and the movie took advantage of it, too. The music is very prominent in the mix, and it adds much to the dark quirkiness of the whole enterprise. The score was one of the cassette tapes I played constantly throughout high school. It was also a pretty generous offering for a soundtrack album at the time, running a good 10 —15 minutes longer than most albums at the time, one of the marks of the transition from LP to CD era. Loved that album, still do, but I also love the La-La Land presentation of the complete score as well. It's nice to be able to have both. I was also rather partial to the other scores and themes he did in this vein after he got typecast (Darkman, The Flash, etc). And, of course, his follow-up was fantastic with a great end title song too. But this right here, Batman 1989, this was really the moment for me when Elfman went from being a guy who did these nifty, quirky scores for Tim Burton to being The Man. In fact, after this YouTube video I'm watching is over, I'm gonna go listen to the original album.
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| | | | | Posted: | Jun 26, 2019-9:52 AM | | | By: | johnonymous86(Member) |
I was 3 when this movie came out so I didn't really appreciate it until much later...I had a thing about clowns and Nicholson's joker scared the shit out of me until I was about 5. As much as I think Jurassic Park was the first theater experience where a film score jumped out at me, watching my crappy VHS of Batman countless times just for the main titles is an indelible part of my childhood. I remember being excited that the local library had a copy of the music but when I got home and listened, it felt like some kind of cruel joke (nothing against Prince but I wanted that dark orchestral magic). I still have my cassette soundtrack somewhere--when I first listened to the LaLa release, I felt a little nostalgia for the missing tape hiss that i'd gotten used to after listening to that cassette a million times. I would be very curious to read more about the recording sessions. I always thought the performance of this score was inspired.
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| General Discussion:Batman (1989) 30th Anniversary Appreciation Thread | | First Post |
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