Meat Loaf (Marvin Lee Aday) is another musician (like all included in the Artist of the Month feature) that has fought long and hard for his art. Through lives, movies, TV shows and musicals he met the right people that helped him rise to prominence, but above all he met Jim Steinman, to whom he owes the best songs he has sung.
.It is remarkable that, having released only 10 studio albums in his 40-year-long career, Meat Loaf is not considered and he actually isn’t a non-productive artist. The Steinman material that he has uniquely interpreted is so overwhelming that even after listening to the songs literally hundreds of times you realize that you still haven?t grasped them in their entirety.
Curiously the length is not discouraging as several of the songs are unusually long, the longest “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won?t Do That)” running for 12 minutes. One would imagine that 12, 8, 9 or even 7-minute-long popular pieces (popular meaning songs that people usually listen to) would irreversibly bore the listener. Boredom, however, is highly unlikely to occur during a “Steinman experience”, sung preferably by Meat Loaf or the equally impressive Bonnie Tyler. The originality and immediacy of the melodies, the straightforward and accessible to all lyrics and the perfect union between music, words and interpretation, hold the listener willingly captive, leaving him/her awestruck.
From a technical point of view the sound is not fully compressed, an effect which musicians have started using in the productions in the late 80’s early 90’s and on. The compressor is barely used in the early Meat Loaf albums increasing in the latest, but still considerably less comparing to the rest of the music that is around at the same time. It seems like Meat Loaf and the production team, choose to remain a bit old-fashioned in this case, possibly because they feel that this style better suits the rock n roll ballads that these songs fundamentally are.
A lot can be said and have been said about Meat Loaf?s interpretation; he is theatrical, expressive, often excessive, dramatic, outstanding, one of a kind. But most sensational, even mystical is the fact that Meat Loaf and Steinman found in each other their other “musical” half. What would Meat Loaf have been without Steinman’s songs? An excellent singer with mediocre repertoire. It is true that Steinman would have definitely made an impression with the help of Bonnie Tyler, Celine Dion and Air Supply but it is Meat Loaf who carries the burden of Steinman’s genius and boyish excitement like nobody else does.
After the non-remarkable debut “Stoney & Meatloaf”, comes a gem of an album, “Bat out of Hell” entirely written by Steinman. “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is the only less interesting song while most impressive is “For Crying out Loud”, bare of arrangement during the first half, but still as full and exciting as a fully orchestrated piece would be.
Dead Ringer’s good moments are “I’m gonna love her for both of us”, the memorable ballad “Everything is permitted” and the energetic rock n roll “Dead Ringer for Love”. “Midnight at the Lost and Found” is a completely indifferent album (naturally since Steinman is absent) and “Bad Attitude” and “Blind Before I Stop” are mediocre, with typical 80s sound, where even the few Steinman songs fail to be special.
Then after a nearly 10-year wait Steinman is back (not for good though); the “Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell” album contains among a few good but not exceptional songs, the iconic pieces “I’d do Anything for Love (But I Won?t do That)”, “Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are” and the song that first drew me to Meat Loaf “Rock n Roll Dreams Come Through”.
It seems like it has become a tradition for Meat Loaf to come up with a bunch of brilliant songs and then hibernate for an unidentified period of time producing albums like “Welcome to The Neighborhood” and “Couldn’t Have Said It Better” that manage to sell and climb the charts only because of the fan base that the good songs have assembled.
Worthy to mention from “Couldn’t Have Said it Better” is Meat Loaf’s version of “Tear Me Down” originally written by Stephen Trusk and performed by John Cameron Mitchell in the Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack. However much I admire Meat Loaf for his interpretation skills I must admit that I clearly prefer the Mitchell version, because Hedwig herself sings through Mitchell alone and no other.
Although “Bat out of Hell II: The Monster is Loose” attempts to recreate the Bat albums atmosphere, it ends up disappointing once more simply because it appears that the exaggerated greatness of the hit songs that made Meat Loaf a star is extremely difficult to occur more than a few times in one’s career.
If anybody dislikes Meat Loaf they must at least admit one thing: that he is the only singer that persuaded his audience to follow him and take him seriously while he has given himself such a ludicrous stage name.
As Meat Loaf announced in a video through his Twitter account, he is currently in the studio preparing his new album.
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June 17th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Thanks very much for that big essay. It looks like you are very much dedicated to Meatloaf…
June 16th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
@ Vicky: Steinman and Loaf have a love-hate relationship that you’ve just gotta love. See, 40 years ago when “Bat Out of Hell” came out, Steinman (who is not that short on ego) wanted the album to be called “Jim Steinman Presents” (i.e., “Jim Steinman Presents MEAT LOAF”) or for the album to be credited to both of them (as “Meat and Jim,” “Jim and Meat,” and at one point, “Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman,” which he joked sounded like a strange dish at a Chinese restaurant). However, the label felt Loaf’s name alone was better for marketing purposes, it gave the audience a specific image to focus on, and Steinman’s name was “too Jewish,” so instead he wound up with the credit “Songs by Jim Steinman” at the bottom of the cover (only moved to more prominence when it came to CD). After that, they began progressively losing camaraderie.
In 1979, the label wanted a follow-up, and Steinman had written a full album, but Meat Loaf had lost his voice, his house, and (slowly) his mind. Steinman spent seven months working with him on it, and finally told him to just take a break because his voice wasn’t getting better. When Loaf was finally in good enough shape to record something, he didn’t want to do the songs Jim had written because it was too traumatic after that whole experience, so Jim was left to fend for himself and issue “Bad for Good” as a solo release featuring his own vocals (he couldn’t bear for people not to hear those songs). He wrote (and co-produced the band tracks for) the “Dead Ringer” album for Meat Loaf, but after that was over, he felt he couldn’t get Loaf to sing, and didn’t want the task of making the tapes sound like he did, so he walked out. When everyone suddenly began suing each other and Loaf’s spiral into bankruptcy began, Steinman had sued him as well, ending whatever they had together at the time.
While buried under bankruptcy and struggling to feed his kids, Loaf recorded many of the mid-Eighties albums that were fairly middle-of-the-road compared to most of his work with Jim in order to live. He wanted Jim to write for him again on what became the “Bad Attitude” album, feeling enough time had passed, but Loaf has little to no understanding of legal issues (something still true to this day) and was forced to accept two previously released songs by Jim because Jim was not in a legal position to work with him.
In 1985, everything was resolved, Steinman ran into Loaf at a New York studio and complemented his singing voice on the new albums, because he felt Loaf was back up to scratch to play hired hand. From 1985-1993 (when it was released), “Bat Out of Hell II” was in the works behind the scenes, and after the massive success it had, it once again devolved into a pissing contest about who was more responsible for its success, and aside from a couple of Steinman songs on “Welcome to the Neighborhood,” they didn’t work together again for a while. They failed and still fail to realize that it is their team effort that produces the best work, and not the individual contributions of either.
Finally, 1999 was the last time they worked together, mainly at the request of Andrew Lloyd Webber, who was working on a musical with Jim at the time and wanted some of the better known artists Jim’s worked with on an album that featured celebrities singing the score. Meat Loaf recorded two songs from the show with Jim in the studio at the controls, and also did a song written for Celine Dion that was rejected, and all three went onto his greatest hits album, “The Very Best of Meat Loaf.”
Around 2001/02 period, Jim grew nostalgic once more and began writing “Bat Out of Hell III” for Loaf. Then there were a series of small strokes, followed by multiple heart attacks, and Steinman needed six months of therapy to even be able to play the piano, his instrument of choice. Loaf selfishly needed the press and the cash that comes with “Bat Out of Hell III” so he hired Desmond Child and Diane Warren to write half the album and picked seven songs by Jim to fill the rest. It ended in another morass of lawsuits, and it’s anyone’s guess what’s next with these two.
June 13th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Meat loaf is great liked his music when I was young and still do now even his modern day stuff a powerful voice
June 12th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
That’s wonderful that Meat Loaf is working again. I heard he stopped working with Steinman a few years back though.
I love Meat Loaf and I’m afraid I have to say “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is an absolute karaoke classic!
But yes, I agree with everything else you’ve said :)