Back when I discovered them, it was really cool and I listened to Bat Out of Hell on repeat for what seemed like ages. But I really didn't get into any other albums bar that one, Dead Ringer and the second installment. I guess there could be a good album made from some of the stuff off Midnight -> Attitude -> Blind Before I Stop, but as a whole those albums bored me and that Steinman solo album could have been cool if somebody else sang it.
When I say Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf, I mostly mean Jim Steinman, lol. Currently that’s what my obsessions are over. I definitely agree with you that Bats I and II are the high points and that Dead Ringer is up there too (although Meat’s voice was shot, but most of the songs kick ass so it’s one of those “I can look past it” kinda things). I will say that Bat III and Bad For Good are both good for what they are, and the former is a very solid slab of Meat Loaf material but it’s just nothing like the first two.
I mean the music I love is typically bombastic — Nightwish of course, and even Maiden have a lot of moments that fall under the category, although they never throw in any kitchen sinks. Steinman’s songwriting is brilliant in how completely he both regards and disregards conventions. His entire catalogue is just sex and love and rock ‘n’ roll but he always manages to flip things on its head. His lyrics are typically cheesy as hell but so much more interesting and intricate than anyone else, attempting the same topic, would dare to make them. And coupled with the music, which is just so over the top and immaculate, it just makes what would for any other writer become a heaping mound of cheese whizz instead become an exquisite white stilton.
A really good example of what sets him apart is Bonnie Tyler’s
Secret Dreams And Forbidden Fire, which he produced. He wrote four songs for that record and they’re all class acts. “Ravishing”, the opener, sounds exactly like you’d expect based on the title, particularly the sweep into the chorus where Bonnie and the choir and the backing music all combines to really just sound
ravishing. “Loving You’s A Dirty Job (But Somebody’s Gotta Do It)” meanwhile has a lot of lines that are similar but not quite to sell parallelism without just repeating the same thing, and it’s got both a refrain and a chorus and both will get stuck in your head. “Rebel Without A Clue”, an eight and a half minute song and the longest on the record, feels like Jim wanted to write a rock song for a pop artist but with his typical over the top style, and man does it work. There’s guitar and there’s bass and there’s keys all present in the music, the verses are like slick ‘50s kids cruising down the street, it employs the Steinman-trademarked “here’s the pre-chorus, no here’s the pre-chorus, no here’s the pre-chorus and here’s the chorus” and goes all out, with soft, lush moments and then bigger ones and then it all gets nailed down with a beautiful chorus that you can sing along to. And of course there’s also “Holding Out For A Hero”, a great number he co-wrote with Dean Pritchard that really calls back a lot of cowboy films and features a gorgeous intro refrain that he stole from a previous song called “Stark Raving Love”.
Now with those four amazing songs acting as pillars for the record, it works solidly well, but the other five songs are nowhere close to them. With all respect to Desmond Child, “If You Were A Woman (And I Was A Man)” just feels commercial. It’s got its moments but there’s not enough substance to it. Jim wanted something “hermaphroditic”, but if he had written it himself it would have been all sorts of wild and fun. This one’s just catchy. “Before This Night Is Through” has a nice melody, but it feels more like a filler track than anything else. “Band Of Gold” is the best non-Steinman song on the album and even it doesn’t feel like a complete vision like the mini-operas Jim throws together.
Anyway, yeah, Jim is a genius at things no one should ever be a genius at, lol. “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” is excellent, certainly one of his most defining songs, at least in the Dramatic Emotional Ballads (alongside “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”). In the Teenage Rock N Roll Thrills category I think “Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young” (by Fire Inc.) is the best example of Steinman-isms. It’s got a lot of theatrical stuff and a lot of song-along moments and is just overall 100% Steinman through and through. Long live Wagnerian rock.
