Songoftheday 9/8/16 - Ever dance with the devil in the pale moon light?

"Batdance" - Prince 
from the album Batman (Original Soundtrack) (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's song of the day comes from Prince, who was last seen keeping his streak alive by reaching the top ten with the first single from his Lovesexy album, "Alphabet St", in the summer of 1988. After touring and between his own musical ventures, he was recruited by director Tim Burton to provide the music for the upcoming Batman movie extravaganza. With Michael Keaton as the title hero as well as Kim Basinger as Vicky Vale and Jack Nicholson as the Joker, the big-budget movie got their A-list musician as the Purple One did the entire album. The first single released, though, was quite eccentric (like Prince was himself), as "Batdance" wasn't a song per se but rather a mish-mash of snippets of ideas of his in one big, sweaty jam. The video had the artist in half-Bat/half-joker makeup and an army of Vicky Vales to boot...

For probably the combination of Prince's name and the movie's popularity, "Batdance" became his fourth #1 pop hit in August of 1989. The song also topped Billboard's R&B chart for a week, and even crossed over to their Modern Rock radio list at #18. The 12" remix climbed to #1 as well on the Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the record topped the chart in Canada, Norway, Switzerland, and New Zealand, and made the top ten in Australia (#2), the UK (#2), the Netherlands (#4), France (#5), Belgium (#5), Sweden (#5), and Germany (#10).

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Here's the extra-long combo of the "Bat Mix" and the "Vicky Vale Mix" that topped the dance chart...

Up tomorrow: Another movie hit, this time a bad boy goes solo.