It’s accepted music lore that Meat Loaf ripped through popular music on the back of a silver black phantom bike like a bat out of hell with his solo debut, appropriately titled Bat Out Of Hell. It was a work of massive, lusty hubris, composed by master songwriter and closet freak Jim Steinman, and it married 1960s adolescent yearning to a Spector-esque wall of sound – complete with horns, resplendent grand pianos, wall-to-wall vocals, and charmingly pretentious spoken-word excerpts – […]
Posts tagged "Jim Steinman"
Spin Cycle: Meat Loaf’s “Hell in a Handbasket”
Are we at a place, culturally, where we can unanimously agree that Meat Loaf’s 1977 debut, Bat Out Of Hell, is unequivocally awesome? Sure, it’s theatrical. It’s bombastic. And, perhaps most damningly, it’s awfully cheesy; Meat oversings every ballad, Jim Steinman writes pretentious multi-song suites about his inability to get girls as a teenager, and at first listen, Meat and Steinman seem to be taking everything really, really seriously. But it’s cheese of the most glorious variety; its sincerity (tempered, […]
The Jukebox From Hell 03: “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”
Some combinations just plain work. Chocolate and peanut butter Porkchops and applesauce Macaroni and cheese Brad and Angelina However…just because a certain formula seems to work for most, it does not necessarily mean that it will appeal to all. Not everyone likes Reeses Cups. Some people are lactose intolerant, some allergic to apples. Some people even prefer Jennifer Aniston to Angelina Jolie. Great commercial success has been realized by the duo of Jim Steinman and Michael Lee Aday, a.k.a. “Meatloaf”. The two paired up […]
