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Meat Loaf

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Has died at 74. Never the biggest fan of his overwrought music, but the GLW loves BOOH. A good actor and generally improved the joy in the world. RIP big guy.

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  2. Bat is probably the single album which has given me the most consistent joy over more time than any other.

    We’ll be at the matinee of Bat, the Musical at Wimbledon tomorrow (a show delayed from 2020) and it’s sure to be an emotional occasion. My father died on Wednesday, and although we had never been close and he would have found Bat ‘interesting’ at best I’ll put in a shout for him too.

    • Indeed, rather like Meatloaf himself. He knew his limitations but wasn’t embarrassed by them. BOOH is one of those albums that justifies itself by being not bad on the whole, and generally good fun. That is more than sufficient.

    • Is Bat Out of Hell the best uncool album there is? It’s a great album, without a bad track on it, and yet it never seems to appear on any ‘greatest albums’ lists, despite selling by the millions.

      • I think you are right! That observation deserves a thread of its own: a list thread in fact. I’m trying to think of other great uncool albums, but most of them develop a kitsch factor, which isn’t the same thing. I don’t think meatloaf is kitsch.

      • In my old age I’ve formed the view that any ideas of credibility or cool around music, particularly when retained into adulthood, are strictly for people who really struggled to get off with their chosen gender in their teens.

        I kid, a bit. But it’s so daft, isn’t it? There’s so much unacknowledged internalisation, still, of the idea that there’s a correct music, correct music opinions, and if we can just have all the right records we’ll be somehow more whole, more righteous.

        Honestly, that goes nearly as much for the poptimist tendency – my own personal bias – as for the rockular If I Can Just Like Bruce (or Kendrick) Enough Maybe They’ll Let Me Write For Q (or Guardian Music) lads. An eye-roll at the opposite team for being frivolous or self-serious. A sense that we’re a bit cooler, more serious, less serious, more joyful, more in tune with the beating heart of it all. A better listener. We get it, they don’t.

        We should probably all stop it, shouldn’t we?

        • Yep. Have some batshit crazy commitment to entertainment;

          Flicks devil horns, farts, and sees paradise by the dashboard light.

          Interesting note: Apple predictive text guessed the rest of the sentence from ‘paradise’. Beat that, Tiny Desk hipsters!

          • Also if anyone cares, the musical sophistication of Steinman’s tunes is off the scale, according to my mum, who is classically trained. I pointed out that they rock, as well.

            Total Eclipse of the Heart is a tune as well but I digress.

            Meat was an artist where every criticism was also praise. He didn’t care and took it one step further.

  7. Another fan of BOOH here, I remember playing it so loud as a teenager I must have driven the neighbours crazy. Stephen Fry, with whom he shared a Saturday Live sketch has tweeted “He had the quality of being simultaneously frightening and cuddly, which is rare and rather wonderful”. Coincidentally, that’s how I view most Afterworders.

    • I watched 5 minutes of that. Over-blown (not that I think that’s a bad thing) and trad rock entertainment, but ‘bad’? It may not be JAMC, but let’s face it, affected arty miserablism is a bit shit, and from my age perspective of 61, seems a bad way to live your youth.

      • Wasnt just him, sound was bad, no one could see , it was tucked up in a corner of a 100,000 people stadium. But he was bad. Maybe taking the chewy out while singing might have improved things.

      • Given the money worries he had in his professional life, this is probably a paying gig he couldn’t turn down, even though his throat was shot. There’s a Fleetwood Mac gig at the Isle of Wight Festival very much like this that does nobody any favours.

  9. Times Radio have just had Paul Gambacini on which I guess is par for the course with musical deaths but separately my mother has just messaged me about this which means it’s genuinely big news.

    BOOH had it all really, Steinmans mad songs, half the E Street band, Todd Rundgren making guitars sound like motorbikes and Meatloaf fronting it all up. He may never have been cool with the critic’s but he entertained a lot of people along the way RIP.

    • Yup, I don’t think I could knowingly sit through anything else of his but there’s something about BOOH that you just can’t resist. Just one if those magical little moments where all the pieces fit, never to be repeated.

    • Funny you should say that, cos my mum texted me about it earlier too. She’s not a big music fan, but she took a shine to Meatloaf when she had to sort out an oxygen cylinder to have at the side of the stage for him during a gig in Sheffield in the mid-80s. He was an asthmatic apparently, and nipped off stage for a few lungfuls in between songs.

      When I was in the Wellington for rehab, following my spinal cord surgery, Meatloaf was in there too, after a heart scare. My mum was very disappointed not to bump into him when she visited me!

      • I remember that oxygen-between-songs thing being reported at the time. A Meat Loaf fan at school said it was because he gave every song every ounce of his physical strength, he needed it. Otherwise he’d die. That’s how committed he is. Makes more sense now that I know he was asthmatic.

  11. It occurred to me this morning, he was a unique talent.

    Much the same way as nobody else sounded like Queen, until The Darkness came along, nobody else sounded like Mr Loaf.

    Although I suppose Bonnie Tyler had a go, with a lot of help from ML’s ‘freinds’.

  12. I seem to recall a documentary where both Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman said they made nothing from the Bat out of Hell album. Literally nothing – it was a legal case Meat Loaf was pursuing into his final years. To put it into perspective, it sold between 40-44 million copies. There’s being ripped off, and then there’s being ripped off.

    As late as 2017, Meat Loaf issued this statement:

    In June, Sony records in the UK, is trying to release another stupid version of “Bat Out Of Hell” only for them to make more money. For those of you who do not know, Jim and I get no royalties from Bat and never have. They admit they have sold 44 million (what have they really sold worldwide). Jim and I have gotten, I am serious, pennies. They have screwed me and Jim since 1981. It took us almost 13 years just to get statements. So I am asking all of you to not buy this record, to boycott this release completely. It is nothing but a greedy record company, trying to steal your money. Don’t buy, thanks, Meat and Jim

  13. He’d been suffering with his health for a while now, but still not great news to hear.
    Bat Out Of Hell is a truly fine album (even if I think the track listing is in the wrong order mucking the story/narrative up a bit).
    Not sure we really needed Parts II and III though (although Part II certainly has it’s moments)
    Meat needed Steinman, Steinman needed Meat – don’t think they were ever as successful apart.
    I saw Meat Loaf twice in the late 80s – once for about 10 minutes when he walked off stage after taking a bottle to the face at Reading Festival 1988

  16. That song with Cher was an absolute monster and encapsulates all that Meat Loaf was about in 3 and a half minutes. He can leave knowing he made the world a little bit brighter.


    • I love the eyeballing in this – amazing dynamic interaction between them. It’s a complete mini movie. Jack Black must have been taking notes.

      Better than BOOH, I reckon.

    • Dead Ringer For Love. Yeah, I quite liked that as well.

      Why is it I can appreciate Meatloaf and (for example) Queen, but I find Springsteen hard to take? As pointed out above, Meatloaf music and Springsteen music bear more than a passing resemblance. It must be the theatricality, I suppose.

      • I reckon ML and Queen (with Fred) could laugh at themselves. Though I don’t think it is true, there’s a bit too much “reverence” for BS in his fans and the critics (though BS seems to be healthily irreverent about himself and what he does).

        • If you have ever seen a Springsteen live show you will know he can laugh at himself and there are many lighthearted Bruce songs, maybe not on Nebraska or The Ghost of Tom Joad but all over other albums.

          Spirit in the Night
          Rosalita
          You Can Look But You Better Not Touch
          Sherry Darling
          Darlington County
          etc etc

            • I don’t think Springsteen takes himself all that seriously; while it’s not his regular territory, he’s quite happy to go big and daft.

              Bat Out Of Hell does sound a bit like Springsteen turned up to 11, but I’m not convinced it’s aiming to do the same things that Springsteen does. Springsteen’s songs nearly always have that earthiness and everyman thing going on, which isn’t really compatible with Meatloaf’s Wagnerian maximalism.

              The artist Meatloaf always reminds (reminded – sob) me of is Andrew W.K. In that they’re both freaking awesome.

            • Well Bruce is an artist, Meat Loaf was an interpreter/actor (with a fine voice). If Bruce had got him in to do vocals on Nebraska that would have been er … interesting, but I think he would have done a fine job on Atlantic City (the E street band version)

              • This is opening up that whole can of worms about authenticity in rock music, isn’t it? I do find it fascinating how two different acts can be sonically so similar (at times) yet have totally different personas, one ‘authentic’ and one ‘theatrical’. The crazy, fickle world of rock, eh?

                • The interesting thing is that Bruce freely admits his ‘authenticity’ is an act – as told in his Broadway show. I would say though that he is utterly convincing and easily the best live act out there when he is with the E street band.
                  Having said that Paradise by the dashboard light is a monster of a song and I could easily imagine Bruce doing it live and having a blast.

                • “Artist” doesn’t necessarily have to mean “authentic”, Bruce uses his writing skills to put his characters into positions that he may not have necessarily have been in himself and will freely admit to that, he never actually shot anybody or worked on a chain gang. He also deals with a personal side that he may well have experienced e.g. Tunnel of Love was apparently about the disappointment of an unhappy marriage that he (unknown to the listener) was going through at the time. Whatever, he has the writing chops to put such material in songs for the listener to interpret as they wish.

                  In general Meat Loaf was given or chose songs to sing and he is interpreting the work of others. these tended to be more on the dramatic, larger than life side, using “Rock n Roll” cliches at every turn. Early Bruce did bear some similarities to this style There is, I guess, room for both and neither is necessarily *better* than the other. You are perfectly entitled to like one or the other without claiming superiority. I prefer Springsteen as a writer to Steinman, I think Bat Out of Hell is a great song, but the rest is generally just too cheesy for me, OOAA.

    • Interesting thing about that song (and album) is that Meat’s voice was pretty shot at that stage. The proposed follow-up to Bat Out Of Hell was re-tooled as a Jim Steinman solo album (Bad For Good).
      The falling out between the pair may have as much to do with that as Meats shot vocal chords.
      When it came to Dead Ringer, the songs were assembled almost line by line to save his voice.
      The other interesting thing about Dead Ringer For Love, and the video, is that in the UK in 1981, Cher just wasn’t that well known.

  21. When BOOH came out I went to visit a friend and as I was walking there I heard it blasting from a couple of different houses and it struck me how popular that album was. When I got to my friends house I went inside and guess what he was listening to…That’s right…Dark Side of the Moon! True story! No he was playing Bat Out of Hell. God that album was huge and rightly so.

  24. My immediate go-to Meatloaf memory was Sir Mark Ellen’s account of trying to interview him. Also, wasn’t there a gig review where someone recalled the audience throwing a wheelchair at him?

  26. Pete Paphides Spotify playlist of Steinman type songs I found myself unexpectedly enjoying a lot.. some loaf in here and a lot of other bombastic stuff

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