10. Meat Loaf: Bat Out Of Hell
There’s a point where you discover that there is music outside of what your parents like. For me it was when I was about 10 years old and my cousin played me Green Day. Before that the only music I knew of was Bruce Springsteen, California Raisins and Meat Loaf: Bat Out Of Hell. I still find California Raisins entertaining enough, I hate Bruce Springsteen but Meat Loaf: Bat Out Of Hell has and will always be one of my favorite albums ever recorded.
It’s one of those rare records where everything works out perfectly. Not a single one of the seven tracks contains a wasted moment. Every song off this was a hit in it’s own right. The most famous being Paradise By The Dashboard Light a song that still is a most play at Weddings (despite it lyrically being about a guy promising to marry a girl in order to get into her pants).
It’s one of those rare records where everything works out perfectly. Not a single one of the seven tracks contains a wasted moment. Every song off this was a hit in it’s own right. The most famous being Paradise By The Dashboard Light a song that still is a most play at Weddings (despite it lyrically being about a guy promising to marry a girl in order to get into her pants).
Let’s start with my two favorite tracks though, because they couldn’t be more different but yet helps explain the wide range of this album. The first is opening & title track Bat out of Hell (the longest track on the album) which tells the story of a motorcyclist who doesn’t see a sharp turn in time and dies. It contains some of the craziest piano work ever recorded in the beginning of the song and ends with the greatest guitar solo of all time (in my opinion) by Todd Rudgren.
On the opposite side of the musical spectrum is my other favorite track off this album Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad. This song is a sad piano ballad of talking of love lost due the inability to say those three magic worlds. It’s sad, humorous and nostalgic deducing all at once.
Those two songs represent both sides of Jim Steinbeck’s songwriting styles. He knows how to rock but he also knows how to create a sentimental side. In 7 songs you’ve got 4 songs that will rock your face off and 3 songs that will get you laid if you play your cards right.
Meat Loaf has never been able to create an album as beautiful and fantastic as this album. Now that him and Jim Steinbeck are no longer on friendly terms it’s even less likely he’d make a record this incredible.
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