Meat Loaf – Bat Out of Hell – 1978
Here's something I didn't know: Writer Jim Steinman had been working on a sci-fi musical version of Peter Pan called Neverland. Three of the songs from Bat Out of Hell were from that show. The title track, Heaven Can Wait and All Revved Up...
BooH is that great culmination of Boomer loves in the 70s. Musical Theater rock, Bruce Springsteen and the 50s. All wrapped up in an opulent Marvin Aday. My own band, Throttle Back Sparky, had been compared to Meat and his crew many times. It wasn't without reason. I loved, but was unable to write nearly as well, great, corpulent rock. So, it's no wonder I adore this record. But I haven't heard it in its entirety for about two decades.
Opening with the car crash epic title track Bat would set a standard followed much by Steinman and Aday. Single? Who gives a shit? Our singles are 9 minutes long. Cut 'em down if you want.
And that's the opening track. A tune that leaves Detroit Rock City so far in the dust Kiss might as well hang up their high heels.
There's a Beach Boys tinge to “You Took the Words Out of My Mouth”, with a nod to Phil Spector and his wall of sound. And that chorus, hookilicious.
After a side trip down ballad lane on the pedestrian “Heaven Can Wait” but it's immediately redeemed by the crunchy anthem rock of “All Revved Up with No Place to Go”.
You know if you get this record and a couple Boomtown Rats spinners and add them to your Springsteen you could have one hell of a working class weekend.
Quick note: Is it surprising that Roy Bittan played piano and Max Weinberg played drums on this spinner? Nope.
Side Two opens with the better ballad, “Two Out of Three Ain't Bad”. Where's my hairbrush/mic? “I'm Crying Icicles instead of tears...”, “Ain't no coupe de ville hiding at the bottom of a crackerjack box”, holy moley this song is begging for a late night rendezvous on Cadillac Mountain, some cheap wine and the sunrise over Frenchman's Bay.
And then there's the epic genius. The bastard child of “Greased Lightning” and The Rocky Horror Show. “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”. Put this one right up next to The Knack's “Good Girls Don't” and you have a one-two punch of dirty, defiling that your parents weren't paying attention to.
And there's just no better song to Air-Guitar/drum/piano to.
Uncompromisingly, the album closes with an 8 minute coda. “For Crying Out Loud” builds from a duet between Meat and Bittan's piano and gives way to a symphony where Meat is far from outmatched. In great stead, he's possibly found his calling. By the end of Bat Out of Hell, he deserves an orchestra.
Bat Out of Hell is a near perfect record. One that stands the test of time. A true rock epic.
Grade A+
A Side: Bat Out of Hell, You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth, All Revved Up with No Place to Go, Two Out of Three Ain't Bad, Paradise By the Dashboard Light
BlindSide: For Crying Out Loud.
Jim Steinman – Bad For Good – 1981
You can't do a listening post of Meat Loaf and not review the follow up to Bat Out of Hell. Even if Meat wasn't able to sing the songs, the ghost of his corpulence is all over this thing.
Quick notes: Steinman wrote two of the greatest uber-80s tracks: “Holding Out For a Hero” and “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. Nuff said. On to the album.
The title of this entire review and theme throughout will probably be “Steinman is no Meat”. It's like listening to Ace Frehley. He writes some good shit. He's a great player. With good ideas. But he doesn't have the voice or charisma to carry off the bombast.
After relentless touring and vocal problems, Meat Loaf lost his voice. But the label was clamoring for a new Steiman/Loaf rekkid. The tracks were written, laid down and Meat couldn't do it. So, instead of waiting, Jim Steinman stepped in and, hubris to hell, sang the songs that would have been done so much better by Meat.
The title track screams that this record is missing the good ol corpulent rocker. It's a great rocker. Energetic, exciting, bombastic. But, well, you get it.
The wanna-ballad, “Lost Boys and Golden Girls” starts off promising but descends into mediocrity pretty quickly.
I almost prefer the talk-poetry of “Love and Death and the American Guitar” to the rest of the album. It's like 'No Anchovies Please' from J.Geils' Love Stinks. Only less funny and nowhere near as clever. But it does carom into “Stark Raving Love” a song excellent in every respect save for Steinman's voice.
Maybe it isn't fair to review this album comparing it to what could have been. But it's just so hard. Since its SUPPOSED to be a Meat Loaf record.
Oh, well. Back to it, I guess.
Nowhere is this more obvious and problematic than on “Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire”. It would have made a specTACular Meat Loaf song. And Steinman is a poor replacement. Still, it's rousing as hell. And ripping off his own “Paradise” on “Dance in my Pants” make the record feel even more hollow. And “Left in the Dark”...well, it needs the Meat, man. It's not even that Steinman can't do it justice. He's not the right singer for it. No way, no how. There are tons of people who could have pulled this off better. He's not one of them.
Grade: C-
A Side: Bad for Good
Blind Side: Stark Raving Love, Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire,
DownSide: Surf's Up, Dance in my Pants, Left in the Dark
Meat Loaf – Dead Ringer – 1981
From the opening pulse of “Peel Out”, Dead Ringer carries more promise than Bad for Good. Released during the same year, Ringer is such a welcome change from the cringeworthy badness of Bad.
Written by Jim Steinman but without his otherwise involvement, this was the true follow up to Bat Out of Hell, at least from the perspective of anyone wanting to see what Meat Loaf was gonna do next.
The thing about these songs is I agree with the Allmusic review where they say that Rundgren knew when the songs should end and his absence is what’s primarily wrong with Dead Ringer. Actually, I don't think he knew “when” as much as “How”. As in how to craft their theatricality and bombast to a point where they would climax, treating each song like a sexual rock and roll dance. Meat Loaf, producing himself, doesn't quite get that. Instead he just lets choruses go on and on and figures that counts as bombast and style. It doesn't. And it hurts the record overall.
From there it's one unmemorable track after another, each one trying to out-theatrical the last. And it makes me wonder if, after Bat Out of Hell, the world needs another Meat Loaf record at all.
Grade C
A Side: Peel Out, Dead Ringer for Love
BlindSide: I'm gonna love her for Both of us
Meat Loaf – Midnight at the Lost and Found – 1983
Well, this was fast. It doesn't usually happen this quickly. Normally there is a gradual decline in quality especially when an artist has reached the heights achieved by Marvin Aday so early.
Proving without a shadow of a doubt that Meat is a vessel and the “meat” comes from Jim Steinman, Loaf put out the contractual obligation record with no contribution from his svengali.
It sort of sucks. I'll sit through it, so you don't have to, but I won't go on. It starts off awful and it's a bumpy ride all the way through.
The title track tries really and it almost makes it. It's stupid and repetitive and doesn't know that it's only a 2 minute song, but it does it's best. So does “Wolf at the Door” but they are sketches at best. There's no Rundgren or Steinman to carry them over the threshold. Even the cover of Chuck Berry's “The Promised Land” falls short of inspiration. And that song is almost impossible to get wrong.
The rest is just an amalgam of bad. And Meat's blubbery visage on the cover doesn't really help matters, y'know?
Grade: D
A Side: Midnight at the Lost and Found
DownSide: You Can Never Be Too Sure About the Girl
Meat Loaf – Bad Attitude – 1984
On the title track of this attempt to pay off lawsuits and creditors it almost sounds like Meat is back. He's brought in the great voice of Roger Daltrey and is apeing Brian May's guitar sound. The song drives and harkens back to the first record or maybe Dead Ringer, actually. And elsewhere he's actually picked up a couple Steinman tunes. He's trying, I'll give him that. He's even brought in one of the ubiquitous Kulick brothers to lay down some heavy licks. It's kind of a return to form.
“Modern Girl” is a terrific single. During the synth/dance heavy 80s I'll say that I am impressed that Meat Loaf was still peddling this sound. And he deserves kudos for not jumping trends.
No sooner do I get to write that then the first of the Steinman songs, “Nowhere Fast” comes on with it's Devo rhythm and synths. It's not terrible, though. It's actually invigorating. Or am I just biased because I want it to be good since it's Steinman? I didn't care much for “Surf's Up” when it was on Bad for Good but it doesn't bother me that much here.
If “Piece of the Action” could sound more like Bruce Springsteen I don't know how. “Cheatin in Your Dreams” is that great 80s John Parr-sounding quasi-anthem. It should. It's written by Parr. Parr could have been a new Steinman for Meat had the latter not forgotten to introduce him at a concert and left the former feeling dissed.
Poor Meat. I wonder if he will ever recover.
Grade C-
A Side: Bad Attitude, Modern Girl
BlindSide: Nowhere Fast
Meat Loaf – Blind Before I Stop – 1986
Meat has stated that he would have rather waited to work with Steinman again than record but his contract with Arista required that he create material.
Such is this album. Let's liveblog.
1.“Execution Day” - The kind of forgettable 80s synth-laden MOR crap we've heard before. Cheap Trick was forced to do this with “The Flame”. It's a sad note in their career. It's just as bad here.
2.“Rock and Roll Mercenaries” - Picture “Owner of a Lonely Heart” mixed with John Parr and...oh, I dunno...Scorpions. That's this song.
3.“Gettin' Away with Murder” - Generic Faltermeyer music.
Ugh. I just muddled my way through the rest of this. Except for the title track and the anthemic “Burning Down” this is a useless recording. If you have it, make it a coaster.
Grade: D
A Side: Blind Before I Stop
BlindSide: Burning Down
DownSide: Masculine
Meat Loaf – Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell – 1993
Yes! Here we go.
Just listen to that opening track. Eleven freaking minutes! “I'd Do Anything for Love (But I won't do that)”! Big, bombastic, epic, operatic. It's exactly what you would want from the sequel to the adolescent angst of Bat I.
Like many I wondered, “What is it that he won't do?????” Until I read that each verse lists two things the singer would do and one that he wouldn't and the choruses are reflecting that. Oh, just great.
Steinman is the perfect writer for Meat. Without him, he hasn't been able to do anything that doesn't sound hollow. It's not like Steinman needs Meat. After all this is the guy who made a fortune off the first record BUT also wrote the smash hits “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Holding Our for a Hero”. I don't imagine he needs more cash. But that makes this project even more honest. Steinman considers himself a genius. He thinks the world needs to hear these songs. And it's that honesty and self-deification that he brings to Bat 2.
The grandiloquence doesn't stop there. No, sir. “Life is a Lemon...” is a big, blustery tune of dissatisfaction with life. And that's one of the things I like about this record. The future is behind the writer and singer. They are old(er). They've learned some shit, seen some shit and they've got real opinions. Sex isn't about finagling and cajoling. It's earned, it's bored, boring and a whole host of other adjectives.
The paean to rock and roll (“Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through”) is so earnest it's almost treacly. But, like the first epic, you buy it.
A lot of this record benefits from the era. Had it been made just a couple years before it would have, more than likely, been bogged down with 80s-style synth-drums. That big, over produced, bloat of a sound that permeated all the Rawk of the mid 80s, and is all over the previous Loaf albums. In their stead, we are back to real drums, thick sounds, deep but never hollow, never too much reverb, or echo. It's gigantic, as it should be, and therefore rewarding.
Nowhere is this more evident than on “It Just Won't Quit”, a SEVEN minute ballad that really should be much shorter. But, works anyway.
And then we're back in business with “Out of the Frying Pan (and into the Fire) & “Objects in the Mirror May Appear Closer than They Are”. Between them they are about 17 minutes of RockOpera. The former is a power machine that defies you not to air piano and was so unmemorable on Steinman's Bad for Good mediocrity. It's not recognizable here. Proving that Meat was meant to sing Jim's songs the way Lisa was meant to pose for Leonardo.
The latter is a Bruce Springsteen song gone Wagner. The car, the crash, the nostalgia, all of it wrapped around urgent theatricality in the vocals. It's rock for the 30 something boomer. Who, at this time, were the perfect audience for this record. They were 18-20 when the first Bat came out and now they have kids and old friends they haven't seen in a while and lives filled with disappointments and sediment. Sure, it's 10 minutes long. So what? “Jungleland” was 9. No, this isn't a “Jungleland” but still, so what?
A lot of this record can be heard on others. Like “Wasted Youth”, a reworked monologue that was known as “Love & Death & an American Guitar” on Bad for Good. “It Just Won't Quit” could be found on Pandora's Box's record “Original Sin” which also featured “Good Girls Go To Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere), also here. And “Lost Boys & Golden Girls” is another holdover from Bad for Good. All of which just keeps proving that thesis that the sum of Meat Loaf + Steinman is better than the parts alone.
There are fucking BAGPIPES at the end of “Everything Louder than Everything Else”, man. How awesome is that???
And just when you think you've got a real handle on what this disc is all about, the swing-time horns of “Good Girls, etc” throw everything for a loop and revitalize the whole affair. I do sort of hate the instrumental “Back Into Hell” and I think “Lost Boys” while just fine, is unnecessary. But still and all. A great record.
Grade: A
A Side: I'd Do Anything For Love
BlindSide: Out of the Frying Pan, Objects in the Rearview Mirror, Everything Louder than Everything Else, Good Girls Go to Heaven
Meat Loaf – Welcome to the Neighborhood – 1995
1.Where the Rubber Meets the Road – Meatie finally gets it. He seems to have a pretty good understanding on how to craft a Steinman-esque tune. It's nowhere near as powerful, cheeky or smart as Jim's work but it's a close approximation
Some of my favorite players in the world are on this record. Most notably Steve Van Zandt, continuing the mining of E Streeters for Meat's albums, to a lesser interesting extent Sammy Hagar and, most pleasing to me, Rick Springfield's guitarist, Tim Pierce.
2.I'd Lie for You & That's the Truth – A Diane Warren single. Sounds like everything Diane Warren ever wrote for any band. Epic balladeering at it's most unctuous.
3. Original Sin – A Steinman tune. One that appeared on his svengali project, “Pandora's Box”. I've never heard that version. But I love it when Meat meets Steinman so I'm down with it. It could have fit on Bat II.
4.45 seconds of Ecstasy – Huh? Who is this? Why is this here? Ummm...who is this click singing this song? I don't get it.
5. Running for the Red Light (I Gotta Life) – Tries to be a barnburner. Comes across as third rate Rocky Horror song. Make that second rate. It's one of the more successful tracks on a mediocre record.
By this time it's obvious that Meat Loaf is a vessel for a specific type of event: The Jim Steinman Show. Without Jim Meat would have been no where. Well, not nowhere. He would more than likely continued on his pace of acting career, etc. But he would never have been a megastar and he's been trying to keep that machine running for years. More power to him, but he's not fooling anyone.
6.Fiesta De Las Almas Perdidas – A latin inspired, mariachi interlude. Okie dokie. No idea why this is here. But, sure. Why not. Has nothing to do with Meat Loaf but, okay.
7.Left in the Dark – Streisand covered this? Really? This was one of my least liked songs on Bad For Good. With Meat at the mic, however...it's better. Not great but his voice suits it so much better. He's more earnest and desperate and romantically determined.
8. Not a Dry Eye in the House – Another Diane Warren track. It's almost like she was tasked to listen to the Bat albums and go write something for Meat, then came back with something she already had lying around that she thought might fit if she reworked it a bit. It's basically a repeat of the title over and over until it's hammered you into submission so that you think that the album is named, Not a Dry Eye in the House, and then you cry because Diane Warren is rich and you live in a studio apartment on Long Island.
9. Amnesty is Granted – This past year Adam Lambert opened his album with a track written by Justin Hawkins of The Darkness. It's my favorite tune on that record. This one is written by Sammy Hagar. I loves me some Haggar. Side note: Haggar wrote “I've Done Everything for You” that was covered by Rick Springfield. Tim Pierce played guitar on that vastly superior single. Means nothing. But I know it.
10.If this is the Last Kiss (Let's Make it Last All Night) – Another Diane Warren song!!! But it doesn't sound like one. It has balls. Well, Warren Balls. Warren Balls. That's a great comic book uber rich super villain name. It's got that quintessential Meat Loafian bigness with an anonymous back up singer duetting with him. It's fine. Harmless.
11. Martha – Tom Waits wrote this song. No shit. Tom fucking Waits. Meat almost over sings it. Waits' ballads are delicate, fragile. It's a curio, deserving to be at the end of the record. And weird.
12. Where Angels Sing – A nice Steinman-esque coda to the whole affair.
Welcome to the Neighborhood is precisely what one would expect from a Meat Loaf record sans maestro. Harmless. Sometimes fun. But you don't need to hear it.
Grade C
A Side: Original Sin
BlindSide: Running for the Red Light, Amnesty is Granted
Meat Loaf – Couldn't Have Said it Better – 2003
From the opening strains of the first/title cut, it's obvious that this won't be any different than any other Meat Loaf record. The only question will be, 'Are the songs any good?”.
I also kind of like this first cut.
I didn't read anything about the record before I started listening. But then I got antsy and started to research.
Um...Nikki Sixx??? From Motley Crue??
And then I remembered that I actually liked Nikki's solo, The Heroin Diaries.
And James Michael who was a collaborator on that Sixx record and worked with Motley Crue.
But this sounds NOTHING like a Motely Crue record. Far from it. Or maybe it does, it's just that there's pianos here and Loafie's theatrical voice.
Michael, Sixx and another songwriter, Jo Davidson, who is credited with one track on the album make up the first “Chapter” on Couldn't.
The first chapter is more operatic than Meat has sounded, even on Bat 2. Where that was filled with histrionics and ballyhoo, there are softer moments, like “Did I Say That?” that have, if it's possible, more resonance than that stellar release. But that it's followed by the sickly sweet, “Why Isn't that Enough”, a song I never ever want to hear again. Like Diane Warren by the numbers, only not written by the Maestress, instead it's by the Jo Davidson dude. Wherever it came from, send it back. After that fiasco, we are back to the Heroin Boys and they really salvage the first part of this album.
The Intermezzo interlude sounds like someone found some cuts from Titanic on the floor and decided to include them. It doesn't hurt the album, even though I'm not sure who tunes in to Meat Loaf looking for a musical interlude...
The second chapter revs things up with the driving “Testify”, by Better Than Ezra's Kevin Griffin. In it's own way, it's the finest track on the album and the least I would expect from Meat Loaf. A little rock, a little gospel, but never over the top. This style continues with “Tear Me Down” by Stephen Trask, the writer of Hedwig & The Angry Inch. It seems like Loafy might have finally found some songs that do him justice.
Like the first half, this half suffers from annoying balladeering. But what else do we expect from Diane Warren? Why do people keep buying her stuff???? And that's nothing compared to “Do it” which sounds like a leftover Roger Taylor track from a late 70s Queen record. Just awful.
And the Dylan cover? “Forever Young”. Ugh. Like the Tom Waits track on the previous album, it just has no place in Loaf's throat.
All that aside, There's enough good stuff on “Couldn't Have Said it Better” to make it probably the best non-Bat Out of Hell record in Meat Loaf's oevre.
Grade C+
A Side: Couldn't Have Said it Better, Did I Say That?
BlindSide: Testify, Tear Me Down,
DownSide: Why Isn't That Enough, You're Right I Was Wrong, Do It, Forever Young
Meat Loaf – Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose - 2006
Well, let's face it. This is a marketing ploy. It's like slapping the name “Die Hard” on an overbloated action flick and claiming it as part of the canon. It isn't. It's just to sell a few more units.
What's really obvious on this record, though, is that Desomnd Child (the producer and occassional contributor) and Nikki Sixx, while I like their work, are NOT Jim Steinman.
The opening track makes this fact truer when you lay it next to the cover of Steinman's “Bad for Good”.
“The Monster is Loose” is an attempt at Goth Metal and just comes across as embarrassing, whereas “Bad for Good” proves all along just how great that follow up record would have sounded if Meat could have sung it back in 1980.
AND AND AND! Adding Brian May's guitar to that track makes me wish that Meat would get together with Rundgren, Steinman and May and just re-record that fucking second record. There has never been a guitarist that fits the Meat Loaf sound like Queen's Axeman.
The biggest problem with Bat 3 is that it keeps dropping turds all over the place, like Child's “Blind as a Bat” and Diane Warren's “Cry Over Me”, when it has gems like “It's All Coming Back to Me Now” and the crazy epic, “In the Land of the Pig, the Butcher is King”. I don't think I recall any song in Meat's catalog quite like this one. It's grand guignol goth opera, and unlike so much of Steinman's songs that Meat has recorded, it's not about tortured love or angst. It almost feels like it fell off a larger score. Like Sweeney Todd for the rock opera sect. (I just looked it up and it turns out that it was intended to be reworked for Steinman's Batman musical, so, there ya go) Steve Vai's schizophrenic guitars elevates the whole thing to the stratosphere. Followed by the Carmina Burana inspired “Monstro”, for a while the record makes me believe in it. If only it had been stripped of the Diane Warren-ism it could have been a remarkable album. Child even redeems himself with the Holly Knight co-penned “Alive”. Sure it sounds like it could have been written for Bon Jovi, but Meat adds that extra helping of musical theater and it explodes.
The rest of the record just continues building on these themes. Bigger, bigger, bigger. At some point it even seems like it's gonna start sounding like a U2 record (“What about Love”)
The last three Steinman tracks are what you'd expect. I don't particularly think Loafy needed any of the other songs. Just record Jim's stuff, Marvin. That's where the gold is. And Jennifer Hudson does a great job on “The Future Ain't What it Used to Be”.
I like Bat 3 more than I thought I would. But I'm also a sucker for this kind of stuff. I want a lot of theater in my rock, but I don't want rock in my theater. Go figure.
Grade: B-
A Side: Bad for Good, Alive
Blind Side: It's All Coming Back to Me Now, In the land of the pig..., If God could Talk
DownSide: Blind as a Bad, The Monster is Loose, Cry to Heaven
Meat Loaf – Hang Cool Teddy Bear – 2010
I love Rob Cavallo. I think American Idiot and The Black Parade are worthy entries into the grand pantheon of rock opera epics.
So, what happens when he gets hired by Meat Loaf? Let's find out.
You get a big, rock opera type sound. Set against a “theme” of being told through the eyes of a soldier, depicting his possible futures....um...kay.
The first song, “Peace on Earth” is what you'd expect from someone if they said, “Hey! American Idiot was great! I loved “Jesus of Suburbia! But, I sort of already did that rambling multi-part opera and I should at least get in the game, huh?”
So, you get a confused, non-melodic mess.
The soaring guitars, yelping and bellowing singer, full stops, car imagery, 16th note loving pianos, screeching female backup singers. It's all there. Like a formula. “Living on the Outside” is perhaps the most cutting of this cookie. The formula works, but while you hear it, it just makes me want to hear the Bat albums or Couldn't Have Said it Better. I get it.
“Los Angeloser”, with a title that sounds like it fell off a Motley Crue record, is a mid-tempo rocker with, I'm sad to say, “scratching”. Yeah, that's not 15 years too late, Meat. Only Loafy would try to turn his record into a Bloodhound Gang record.
This record plays a little like The Towering Inferno of records. Threadbare musical ideas hung together with star guest players. Check it:
Kara DioGuardi: Vocals on "If I Can't Have You"
Hugh Laurie: Piano on "If I Can't Have You"
Jack Black: Background Vocals on "Like a Rose"
Brian May: Guitar on "Love is Not Real"
Steve Vai: Guitar on "Love is Not Real" and "Song of Madness"
Really?
Hugh Laurie? House?
Yes.
“If I Can't Have You” is written by Kara DioGuard and is every bit the pile of suck that you imagine it would be. House ain't bad, though.
“Love is Not Real” is a terrible song that wastes both Brian May AND Steve Vai. Seriously, I thought if those two played together the universe might open up and descend upon us the greatest rock god creation could muster.
Instead, it's just a shitty song.
It says a lot when the best song is by Bon Jovi. “Elvis in Vegas” is something that could have fallen off The Circle.
I don't know if I had a predisposition to not liking this record simply because I knew there was no Steinman abounding. It doesn't matter. I really don't like it. It's ugly. And it's no fun. At all.
Grade: D
A Side: Peace on Earth, Elvis in Vegas
BlindSide: Living on the Outside, Like a Rose
DownSide: Love is Not Real, Did You Ever Love Somebody
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