Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell

Bat Out Of Hell

By Meatloaf

Very Good Condition

Described as epic, gothic, operatic and silly all in the same breath, Meat Loaf's testosterone-fueled, Springsteen-inspired masterpiece-the third best-selling album worldwide behind Michael Jackson's Thriller and AC/DC's Back in Black -was shopped around for years before Todd Rundgren began production in late 1975. Songwriting credit goes to Jim Steinman on You Took the Words Right out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night); Heaven Can Wait; All Revved Up with No Place to Go; Two out of Three Ain't Bad; Paradise by the Dashboard Light; For Crying out Loud; Great Boleros of Fire , and the title track.

A Review:

Michael Lee Aday, aka Meat Loaf, had performed on stage in productions of HAIR and THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, and had developed into the larger-than-life performer stage productions often require. When he and Jim Sharman became friends, they agreed that three of Steinman’s songs for an unproduced musical titled NEVERLAND (“Bat Out of Hell,” “Heaven Can Wait,” and “All Revved Up With No Place to Go”) had potential as the foundation of an album—and the result was a collection of songs that virtually every recording company turned down. The album BAT OUT OF HELL was eventually recorded and quietly released by a minor label, Cleveland International, in 1977. It was not an instant success, but over time word of mouth began to boost sales, and at present it is one of the very few albums to have sold in excess of forty million copies.

Critics of the album tend to dismiss it as excessively theatrical, bombastic, and lyrically trivial—and they are right. The songs are hormone-hysterical reflections of teenage angst, a 1950s teenage fantasy created and interpreted by people who play it out with remarkable conviction. Everything here is excessively big, the arrangements, the character vocals and choral explosions, nods to heavy metal imagery, the self-indulgent teenage rock and roll mentality. And it’s easy to recognize the show’s theatrical roots: everything sounds like it has been lifted from a Broadway show. BAT OUT OF HELL isn’t just an album, it’s a performance piece, and Meat Loaf is its star. And he delivers.

Meat Loaf’s soaring, muscular, emotional voice is what makes the album work—it’s impossible to imagine any other singer pulling it off. He shifts from rock and roll kitsch like “Bat Out of Hell” and “All Revved Up With No Place To Go” into unexpected power ballads like “Heaven Can Wait” and “For Crying Out Loud.” “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is also a knock out, the most obviously theatrical song on the album, unexpectedly and wickedly funny in its portrait of a “first time” car sex fantasy. The “big” song from BAT OUT OF HELL, of course, is “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” an odd sort of love song that denies love. And it’s all incredibly listenable and a lot of fun, a reflection of a rock and roll era that existed primarily in the minds of teenage boys half a century ago.

Then as now, BAT OUT OF HELL provokes very mixed reactions. A lot of people absolutely despise the thing, and they do so pretty much for the very reasons its fans like it. Me, I think it’s a knock out. Strongly recommended.