ALBUM: Bat Out of Hell (1977)
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$
Meat Loaf motorcycle appears to be flying out of my computer keyboard.
Meat Loaf. That’s Mr. Loaf to you sonny.
Meat Loaf was who he was/is.
What he was was: A powerful singer, who produced a highly entertaining album as I was a senior in high school. Collaborator Jim Steinman wrote the songs and Todd Rundgren threw some of his magic potion in.
And man, did the Meat Loaf album capture a teen moment with humor and dumbed down imagery so that even the slowest among us could get it. A play-by-play featuring former baseball player and announcer Phil ‘Scooter’ Rizzuto.
Bombastic. Sure it was. World changing. Surely it wasn’t.
Unless you are the one being asked in a backseat moment:: ‘What’s it going to be boy, yes or no? … Do you love me, will you love me forever? Do you need me? Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life …”
And we know what rhymes with ‘life.”
Wiki says the album is one of the best selling of all time with 43 million copies sold. It was 343 on a top 500 greatest albums list by Rolling Stone.
Entertaining. Yes. It is like a teen movie, cinematic in scope. American Graffiti with a Springsteen reach for grandeur and a Rocky Horror Picture Show reach for vamp.
Cool fact: It was rejected several times and was really was a slow starter coming out of the garage. But it picked up big support in the UK and Canada before going nuts in the U.S.
Speaking of Ellen Foley –– she was back-up singer and sang the part of the young woman asking those hard questions: Yes, yes, yes, or no?