Forgotten Song Faceoff: Bad Batman Movies Edition

"RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht" (ramblininexile)
02/13/2018 at 16:10 • Filed to: musiclopnik

The Schumacher/Goldsman Batman movies are terrible - we all know this. However, in their flurry to market to and cross-market with everything under the sun, they ensnared two famous rock bands. For Batman Forever , it was U2. For Batman and Robin , it was Smashing Pumpkins. Which came out better?

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

First off, from U2: Hold Me, Kill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me.

This song already existed in a primitive form before the movie soundtrack had need of it,and does not to my knowledge really appear in Batman Forever , but due to its appearance on the soundtrack, it made it to number one in Ireland and number two in the UK. It was nominated both for a Grammy(!) and a Razzie, which is an interesting feat that makes a little more sense when taking how corny it is into account, and the corn-by-association of the movie.

But - corny is not necessarily bad. It’s catchy enough, and got enough notice at the time that Weird Al made a parody of it.

After that, though... U2 didn’t even perform it for over a decade. Just slipped off the radar.

There are some similarities with the Big Headliner (tm) situation for Batman and Robin. Smashing Pumpkins’ The End is the Beginning is the End got its own Batman-themed music video, a good amount of promotion, and then... disappeared. Despite winning a Grammy! It charted in Australia and the UK, but has not been performed live since ‘97.

Despite some poppy-ness, the tendency toward being sinister of Pumpkins bleeds through... which unlike U2's offering sets the song sharply at odds with its film. Because... let’s face the facts here: Batman and Robin is as stupid as a catfood-between-two-sticks-of-butter sandwich and as successfully gloomy as a neon-painted bedsheet ghost... made out of a My Little Pony bedsheet.

After the near-instant trailing off in popularity, the gang making Watchmen had the bright idea of using the alternate cut of the song, The Beginning is the End is the Beginning in trailers for Watchmen. Not like it was used as a highlight for a scene in the movie, anymore than TEITBITE was, but the tone at least fit. Maybe a little too well.

In neither Batman movie does the song realistically have anything to do with the film itself. There does, though, remain the question of whether the song successfully evokes the movie, alongside the question of which is the better song. A comparison grading on either grounds would also have to exclude TBITEITB, because... it was only present on the single and the soundtrack, meaning that it was sold to those who already liked the main version of the song. Doomed to be forgotten until Watchmen , and not worth mention to promote Batman & Robin in any substantial capacity.

So, which do you prefer? Is it possible to be a good fit to Batman Forever or Batman & Robin without absorbing anything negative from them?

DISCUSSION (15)

HammerheadFistpunch > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/13/2018 at 16:15

Just watched that batman with Jim Carey. Crap on a stick its a bad movie. I know they were going for kitsch, but its like they were trying to make the worst possible movie. I didn’t even mind the grayson story, but everything else about this movie felt so half effort its hard to watch.

Chariotoflove > HammerheadFistpunch
02/13/2018 at 16:18

Batman movies had sunk so low that by the time we got the Christian Bale movies, they seemed like Oscar material.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > HammerheadFistpunch
02/13/2018 at 16:20

Batman Forever is like the herp. You can live with it, though it’s an embarrassment and may ruin your life in sudden recurrences. Batman & Robin is like AIDS. It will weaken you overall, cause you to die young, and open vectors toward all manner of disease and even mental illness.

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/13/2018 at 16:24

Funny you should post this. I just listened to this soundtrack a couple of weeks ago. Well, I should say that I FFWed through this soundtrack.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn
02/13/2018 at 16:25

Which soundtrack: BF or B&R ?

Chariotoflove > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/13/2018 at 16:26

Can confirm. I’m still hoping for a viable treatment to come out (for Batman & Robin , to clarify).

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/13/2018 at 16:26

The one with U2 and Seal. Is that BF? The one with Nicole Kidman.

WilliamsSW > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/13/2018 at 16:26

I like both bands enough to have paid moneys to see them live - but neither of these songs is in either band’s top 100.

And Batman Returns was the last Batman movie I saw - so I vote ‘no’.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Chariotoflove
02/13/2018 at 16:27

Maybe the treatment for Alfred’s MacGregor syndrome will also work on Batman & Robin AIDS... ah, fuck.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn
02/13/2018 at 16:29

Batman Forever. Which is terrible, but sort of possible to grit through. Val Kilmer is, at least, not a total embarrassment to the spirit of the thing.

facw > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/13/2018 at 16:29

I had the Batman Forever soundtrack as a kid (I liked it!)

Kinja'd!!!

I think I actually saw the cassette somewhere at my parents’ in the not distant past...

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > WilliamsSW
02/13/2018 at 16:31

I’m taking “no” as your answer to both closing questions, not just the second. Seems fair.

WilliamsSW > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/13/2018 at 16:32

Basically yeah. If you held a gun to my head, I’d pick the U2 song, I suppose.

tl:dr - I’m talking out of my ass

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > WilliamsSW
02/13/2018 at 16:37

My general take is that the U2 song is a giant pressed ham, the Pumpkins song is an inferior noise-blasty cut of what could be a good song (and its alternate is *too* moody and slow), and therefore it’s about a tie - with the tie-breaker going to U2 because it’s for a movie that is full of ham. Not a sort-of-moody song that is for a Batman movie that doesn’t exist.

WilliamsSW > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
02/13/2018 at 16:44

I think that’s quite accurate actually.