DAD: Do you remember when compact discs were the best thing since, well, the compact cassette tape and Michael Rodd was busy spreading jam on them on Tomorrow's World? Well one side-effect of the CD revolution was that people started claiming that you could hear all kinds of background noises on albums. Whether you could hear Ringo breaking wind during Let It Be, I just do not know, but I was confidently told by someone that on the spoken intro to 'You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth' you could hear the guy's dental plate moving in his mouth. At least I think it was that song, it could have been the spoken bit in 'Thriller', but that was Vincent Price wasn't it? And I can't believe that he would settle for a badly fitting dental prosthesis. Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman utterly reject the Marks and Spencer theory of selling and do not locate their most desirable product at the back of the store to get you to past the dross. The title track is up front and centre as Track 1, Side 1. Also, they don't actually have much dross to peddle. Quite a bit of cheese, but all good blue-veiny aromatic stuff, none of your low-fat Cathedral City thank you. And look at the release date too. 1977. The summer of punk. Nobody wanted overblown, theatrical, gothic rock and roll while the Pistols and the Damned ran riot did they? Well apparently so, because Bat Out Of Hell speaks to the disillusioned teenager trying to find their way in the world in all of us and sex, bikes, death and a bit of horror is a potent brew. 'Bat Out Of Hell' is the perfect successor for 'Leader Of The Pack' and predecessor for Richard Thompson's '1952 Vincent Black Lightning'. Bad boys going too fast on their bikes and paying the ultimate price (OK. Thompson's protagonist gets shot during a robbery, but you get the point). On that spoken intro to 'YTTWROOMM' (you have to do this with Steinman titles) the bloke's successive Yesses tend to start sounding tetchier and tetchier, as if he's getting fed up of the constant stream of questions. That girl is high maintenance. The closing piano bars of 'Heaven Can Wait' are echoes of 'Thunder Road' and there is a touch of Bruce-ishness about the piano and sax-heavy rite of passage 'All Revved Up With No Place To Go'. J just told me that an ex-boyfriend once dedicated 'Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad' to her, which is one reason why I married her and he didn't. We listened to this album as a family on the way to the cinema the other day and once we had heard to 'Paradise By The Dashboard Light', I felt I had fulfilled my obligations in providing sex-education to my two boys. It also runs the gamut of every American rock n roll style from the fifties to the seventies. It's rather rich to single out any song on this as particularly histrionic, but 'For Crying Out Loud' wins it for me, and also has a disquieting similarity to Cliff Richard's best song, 'Miss You Nights'. Wikipedia hints that Steinman was aiming for 'Wagnerian Rock' and the clashing cymbals here certainly do the trick. The sequels just can't measure up can they, especially III?
SON: Okay, before I get into this, there is something I must say: no-matter my opinions, no-matter my thoughts, there is one thing that can’t be denied. That is just how great this album is on merit alone. At the very least, everyone should be at least passingly familiar with some of its contents. It doesn’t matter what I say. This album, or, at least, the opening track IS the iconic Meatloaf. Anyway, enough rambling, let’s do this. And we start with 'Bat Out Of Hell' which is, if not one of the best songs of all time, then easily one of the best known. My first relationship with this song was when CITV used to use it advertise Yu-Gi-Oh…I feel bad about that… anyway, I just want to say that the use of piano in hard rock/metal styled music works surprisingly well. 'You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth” starts with weird talking. It’s almost more memorable than the actual song. Not to say anything against the song, though. Musically its good. It’s just kind of bland. Then again, isn’t everything compared to the title track? 'Two Out Of Three Aint Bad' is good. A sombre little piece. I like it. 'Paradise By The Dashboard Light' is a song in multiple parts, but with one story. Its… all, right? I don’t like the first “movement” but, after that it turns into a relationship through rugby- I mean football- references. This is short-lived. The next part isn’t great, but it’s not bad. And then it ends with a final part which is just perfect. And then 'For Crying Out Loud' is quiet and forgettable for the most part. How the sequels could live up to this I don’t know. Cover depicts a character escaping hell on a bike. So, very literal interpretation.
DAD: Warning. Most of this post is likely to turn into a rant about the opening 'I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)'. A Frankenstein's monster of a track which abounds with lyrical absurdities. Let's get the obvious out of the way first. He'd do anything for love but he won't do that. Meaning he won't do anything for love. It's oxymoronic with the emphasis on the moronic. "And some days it don't come easy, and some days it don't come hard, and some days it don't come at all and these are the days that never end". So in fact each day has one of three outcomes, which actually cover all the possibilities (let's not trouble ourselves with the low level innuendo). With the line "Sex and drums and rock and roll" I can only assume that Steinman used his spellchecker to proofread the lyric and it failed to spot the presence of an 'm' instead of a 'g'. Surely it can't have been to ensure it got airplay can it? Were we that puritanical in 1993? What else? "Will you hose me down with holy water if I get too hot? (HOT!)". Holy water doesn't generally come from a hydrant. "Will you colorize my life, I'm so sick of black and white". Give me strength. I have to admit I do quite enjoy Meat's appalled tone when she accuses him "Sooner or later you'll be screwing around". "I won't do THAT!" he says while raising his handbag to his chest. As for the tune itself. They try out three intros, roaring motorcycles, tinkling piano and screaming guitars before deciding just to throw them all together. But, despite all this, you will still find yourself singing along. Truly the Devil's work. Of the rest, there's more on here that you'd recognize than you might like to admit. 'Rock and Roll Dreams Come True' and 'Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are' are horribly familiar. I do have an affection for the latter since I heard it in a hotel restaurant in Edinburgh when we were having a weekend break being played on the lounge piano. One of those moments when you look at each other and say "Is he playing what I think he's playing?". Possibly the laziest song on the album is 'Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back' a whiny dirge in which he repeats yet another of the atrocities of IDAFL(BIWDT) by rhyming 'back' with 'fact'. Repeatedly. Steinman is also the master of the bracketed song title. His ditties are never fully complete without a parenthesised subtitle. Here we also have 'Out Of The Frying Pan (And Into The Fire)' and 'Good Girls Go To Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)' - clearly not that bothered about getting the Sisterhood on board. More feckin' nonsense in the title 'Everything Louder Than Everything Else'. "You gotta learn to dance before you learn to crawl" saith Mr. Loaf. "A wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age" he chants, as if repetition might make it more profound. The Who and Tyrell from Blade Runner got there years ago and said it much more elegantly. Whereas the original was funny and exciting and had an element of truth about it, this sequel suffers from the fate of so many sequels. Trying too hard to emulate the original. Even the artwork doesn't measure up.
SON: Oh, dear, a whole decade and a half between them? This reeks of cash grabs. Seriously, though, for future reference: never do this. Sequel albums should be reserved for albums with similar concepts musically, or concept albums, and never release them sixteen years apart if they are of the former category. Straight in with 'I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” and... well, it's definitely the best track on the whole album. The lyrics are horrible at times. I mean, my reasoning lies right in the title of this thing. It just feels constantly hypocritical. But, hey, at the very least is musically sound, unlike 'Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back'. Two points. One, only early fallout boy can pull of those sorts of titles, and two, this track is unbearably awful. its dull, meaningless trash. The lyrics are confused, the music is uninspired, and it’s just a huge hot mess. A hot mess that made it onto the best of Meatloaf album I should point out…WHY! And this is it for me. I just can’t comment on this album, because the rest is just… meh. Nothing stands out as good, nothing as bad. It’s all just… meh. I have listened to this album around ten times now, and I cant remember a single song. its unbearably bland. that's it. ITS OVER! I CANT! I JUST CANT! DON'T MAKE ME GO BACK! ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!
DAD: Did you even know it existed? I have to admit I needed to check whether I imagined it or not. It's better than II, although it got me thinking about the formula for Steinman/Meat Loaf songs and albums. First of all you need a title, and route one is to identify a fatuous phrase that can stand as a metaphor for pretty much anything. I'm tempted to go topical and suggest 'Brexit Means Brexit (And It's A Fact That We're Never Going Back)', but for my imaginary song let's go for 'Some You Win And Some You Lose (But I'm Never Gonna Lose You)'. Musically you have to stick to classic heavy rock tropes, so plenty of crashing guitars, crashing drums and tinkly piano inserts. Kettle drums too if you can squeeze them in. You do need to give some kind of nod to modernity though, so, for example the opening 'The Monster Is Loose' here is clearly influenced by the darker howling style of mid-noughties nu-metal. They are a little behind the curve with the intro to 'If It Ain't Broke Break It' (d'you see my point?) which starts promisingly enough sounding a bit like Metallica before almost immediately descending into a loud brassy blancmange of poodle rock. If you do a duet with a female singer then this tactic must be used sparingly. Only one or two songs per album at most. And you need a woman who has a voice honed by a 60-a-day habit. This album has 'It's All Coming Back To Me Now' which you might just remember, and 'What About Love'. You need a lot of choral backing as well. As for Meat himself, he needs something he can get his teeth into, although 'In The Land Of The Pig, The Butcher Is King' may be a step too far. If it's a ballad, there's a certain threshold of muscularity that has to be exceeded, or failing that he needs to be able to deploy his vibrato to the full (see 'Cry To Heaven'). Of course you need to make some classical references, so 'Monstro' is based on Carmina Burana and 'Seize The Night' has a full orchestral intro. Lyrically, all you need is a rhyming dictionary and have a reasonable grounding in gothic horror. Probably watching Hugh Jackman in 'Van Helsing' is enough. Nights are always long and lonely. The albums need a long centrepiece song and here 'Seize The Night' is pretty much the successor to 'Bat Out Of Hell' and 'IWDAFL(BIWDT)'.
Oh. There's a song called 'The Future Ain't What It Used To Be' as well. It features Jennifer Hudson. She should know better.
SON: Another decade? Oh, well. This album exists. Who knew? Anyway, I honestly wonder whether I was slipped a Slipknot or Disturbed album. Now, for me, that should be a good thing. This is my kind of music at its core. And yes, the opening track 'The Monster Is Loose' is good. But here is the problem: it’s not Bat Out Of Hell anymore. The first two, for good or worse, did have a similar style to them. This just went full Linkin-Park-with-cellos. In fairness, this could be seen as good thing. It means the style has developed, and has stuck to what was popular. I mean, this is the mid noughties we are talking about. This was the popular style. It’s just… I don’t know. Wrong to me, I guess. The next few tracks 'Blind As A Bat', 'It’s All Coming Back To Me Now' and 'Bad For Good' are better, with the prior two being slower, more traditional Bat-Out-Of-Hell material. 'Bad For Good' is rocky in the right way. It feels kind of like the first two, so that’s fine for me. 'In The Land Of The Pigs, The Butcher Is King' throws any good will I have left out the window. This is awful. It is too metal to fit, and just sounds like it’s trying to be edgy for the sake of being edgy. But, then my good will returns with 'Monstro'. Fun fact, Monstro is the name of both the whale in Pinocchio, and a boss in the video game 'The Binding Of Isaac'. The connection? Who knows. This is good though. It’s a big, choral song, with deep Latin chanting and all. This flows into 'Alive', which… is dang amazing. But, then comes our old friend of misheard lyrics. 'I am the tickle on the bum that you can’t turn back'? turns out that its meant to be 'Ticker On The Bomb' but I just don’t hear it. Rest of the song is good. I feel like 'If God Could Talk' is like something I have heard before. No-clue what though. That’s going to bug me. 'If It Ain't Broke, Break It' is bad. Loaf is, what, in his fifties when he made this. The kind of lyrics just don’t work for that. 'Seize The Night' is big and orchestral, which is always good. It then goes into a slower, piano segment, and then into the weird Nu-metal vibe this album has had. I don’t know. Its…alright, but I got bored quickly. And… that’s it for the most part. There are two more tracks, which are not too notable. And that rounds up Bat Out Of Hell. The first one is the best, the rest are missable. Two is just piss poor, and the third one is too weird to be a Bat Out Of Hell album. In any case, we are past the ten-year anniversary of this one, so doubtless we are due a Bat Out Of Hell 4 soon. That is, if the legal disputes between Meatloaf and Jim Steinman haven't ruined the chance. Because, yes, I would want to see a Bat Out Of Hell four, just to see what it’s like. Only time will tell.
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