In my 54 years, I have never owned a single album by Meat Loaf. But in the same way I described the ubiquity of the music of The Cars and Foreigner, there was an era wherein you didn’t need to possess a Meat Loaf record (or, let’s face it, that specific Meat Loaf record) to know every note off of it. For whatever reason, I never bought a copy of Bat Out of Hell, but could just as emphatically sing along to “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” with every other snot-nosed fifth grader in my class. It may have lacked the doomy crunch of heavy metal, the funky libidinousness of disco and/or the adrenalized bile of punk, but there was no arguing with those songs and that gigantic goddamn voice.
His career extended far beyond that single record, of course, recording 12 studio albums in all, but only a few with storied producer Jim Steinman, who passed away in 2021 (the same eccentric dude behind “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler and “This Corrosion” by my beloved Sisters of Mercy). Meat Loaf also enjoyed a prolific career as an actor. The man was no slouch.
To be honest, I don’t know if “kids today” have any clue who Meat Loaf is. I don’t believe his records have been adopted by a new generation in the same manner albums by, say, Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac have. I don’t know if you can purchase a copy of the LP at Urban Outfitters next to slabs of piffle by Lana Del Ray or Tyler, the Creator. To my ears, those songs off Bat Out of Hell seem inexorably rooted in the hazy late `70s. Drop the needle on any track on that record and watch the faces of the fiftysomethings react ... and invariably sing along with Ellen Foley’s emphatic declaration of ”STOP RIGHT THERE….. as Meat rounds third base and sprints for home.
May he rest in peace.
ADDENDUM: I did not mention it in this original post, which was more about the man's music and his impact, but after reading further details about Meat Loaf's passing, I find it PROFOUNDLY depressing and senseless that he's needlessly dead because he considered COVID protocols some form of fascism. To die that stupidly and to cause your loved ones that undue pain is pretty indefensible, to my mind.
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