Bat Out of Hell –

For Crying Out Loud –

We continue to wildly swing back and forth between light and heavy musical genres this week.
…OR DO WE??? :3

Bat Out of Hell (1977), by Meatloaf (songs by Jim Steinman). Alright unless you are aware of Meatloaf’s musical career, you probably have some preconceived ideas of what this album will sound like. However, don’t let this record deceive you by its looks and name. I was personally surprised by this album when I first heard it, and I would honestly admit that it’s now one of my favorite vinyls in my collection :O

While Bat Out of Hell is definitely a “hard rock” album, “metal” would probably be a poor overall description of Meatloaf’s sound. “Wagnerian Rock” is what Steinman personally coined to describe the album and the term has come to define other bands (like more recently the German industrial band Rammstein). While you can easily find a better definition than one by me, I’ll briefly state that music from this genre draws heavy inspiration from the man its named after, the German opera composer Richard Wagner (you know…”Flight of the Valkyries” guy…)

As for the album itself, it is certified platinum 14 times with over 40 million sales, making it one of the top ten best selling albums of all time! O.O
Quick shout out to the comic artist Richard Corben who illustrated the album cover (you know since this is a webcomic blog after all…). You might know him from his time with Heavy Metal magazine or his work on the Hellboy comics for awhile.

Michael Lee Aday, better known by his stage name “Meatloaf,” had actually released one album prior to Bat Out of Hell, but it was within the soul genre. This album would mark his rock debut, which would define the music for the rest of his career (kinda like how the Moody Blues second album was radically different than their first, but that’s another story for…next week??). Like last week’s Dean Martin, Meatloaf is also a multi-talented individual acting in several movies and plays. One of his more memorable movie roles was as Robert Paulson from Fight Club.

A relatively short album in terms of songs (only 7 tracks), but still over 45 minutes in length. Due to the longer nature of the songs, I figured the most reasonable thing to do was pick the longest two songs. 😛 But seriously, I had to choose the opening title track “Bat Out of Hell,” which boasts a wide range of musical technique from the whole band. This song follows a reckless young man as he meets his fate after a terrible motorcycle crash. I then chose maybe my favorite song on here, the album’s closing song, “For Crying Out Loud.” This one is a love song about the singer’s lover and her positive impact upon his life even though he’s reached the bottom of life. While these songs are fairly serious in nature, I hope it doesn’t underplay the humor and wit found throughout the album and featured more prominently on some of the other songs.

Also really random tidbit, but I found out that my copy of this record (which is sadly in pretty rough shape) is actually the Canadian version. It’s hard to see it in the picture, but centered at the bottom of the cover it says “Songs by Jim Steinman.” Steinman’s name is normally shown directly below the title “Bat Out of Hell” on the original US version though.