Ryan's Reviews

So Meat Loaf's most recent album "Bad Attitude" had managed to hit the top 10 albums in the UK charts, while hovering around the 74 mark in the US, according to our friend Wikipedia, and somewhere in the top 50 in Australia, Germany and Sweden. This was not bad, not bad at all, especially in the UK where Meat Loaf's audience was strong as ever, and "Bat out of Hell" was still charting. Meat had more or less managed to secure the comeback he had needed at this point, and the touring for this album continued throughout 1985, before attentions turned to... the next album. What would *that* be like??? Who would produce this time? The last album had been produced by three people, Meat Loaf himself, Paul Jacobs who had co-written most of the songs, and a guy called Mack who had worked with a little rock group by the name of Queen who managed a couple hits in the 1970s and 80s. They had taken over from a man called Alan Shacklock, who had worked with artists like M...

Up to this point, Meat had performed in the original touring version of "Hair", recorded an album with Motown, acted with the New York Shakespeare Festival in "More Than You Deserve" and Shakespeare's "As You Like It", was an original cast member of the LA and New York versions of "The Rocky Horror Show", as well as the movie which would become one of the greatest cult films of all time, had recorded "Bat out of Hell" which was still reigning on the charts in the UK almost ten years later, had lost his voice on the tour, gone away to make films like "Roadie" and "Americathon" hoping his voice would recuperate, had finally released a follow-up with Jim Steinman called "Dead Ringer", was going through more hell after losing his voice with lawsuits and declaring bankruptcy, and had just put out a new album "Midnight at the Lost and Found", his last with Epic/Cleveland International. What would he...

The year was 1983 and Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman had released their mega hit album "Bat out of Hell" (1977) followed in 1981 by "Dead Ringer", after Meat had lost his voice and Jim had released the material for the original follow-up as his own album "Bad for Good" (see previous posts on "Bat" and "Dead Ringer".) Times had been hard, Meat had been battling to get his vocals back, and he was going out on the road again. The original tour for "Bat" had included the Kulick brothers Bob and Bruce on guitars, Steve Buslowe on bass and vocals, Jim on piano and vocals with Paul Glanz on keyboards and vocals, Joe Stefko on drums, Karla DeVito as the female lead vocal (she had also released her album "Is This a Cool World or What?" in 1981, which is well worth the listen), and Rory Dodd on backing vocals (I will be talking more about him in future posts.) Only Steve Buslowe would return for the next tour, which introduced Dav...

Imagine you are an artist and musician who has just released a monster hit album like "Bat out of Hell" which had been turned down by every record company in the world, and is now selling like hotcakes all over the place, the live tour is an absolute monster, and you've fought day and night for years on end trying to make this thing the hit you always thought it could have been, if it had just been given a chance. You're exhausted, but you still want to keep on going. "Keep Driving" as Meat Loaf sang on his 1983 album "Midnight at the Lost and Found". And now the record company wants *another*. Of course, the record company wants "Bat out of Hell, Part 2", something that will sell equally as well if not better than the first one. Remember, when Meat Loaf and Jim were trying out for these labels in the first place, they were trying to put them in a category, a market which would best enable them to sell their albums. It makes total financi...

Friday 21 October 1977 saw the release of one of the greatest rock albums of all time, "Bat out of Hell" sung by Meat Loaf featuring songs written by Wagnerian rock composer Jim Steinman. When Jim was seven years old, he listened to a broadcast of the complete "Ring Cycle" by Wilhelm Richard Wagner, and after it was finished he put on a record by Little Richard, the two experiences melding together in his mind to form... Little Richard Wagner. The epic duo had met at auditions for Jim's 1973 musical "More Than You Deserve" at the New York Shakespeare Festival, and when Meat sang the title song he felt like he had never experienced that kind of reaction on a stage before, ever in his life. It was a life-changing moment. Meat and Jim spent the next few years working on an album together, which according to Meat's then manager would be turned down by every record company in the world, for some reason or another. They couldn't translate the sound o...

October 1977 saw the release of one of the biggest rock albums of all time, Meat Loaf "Bat out of Hell" featuring Songs by Jim Steinman, produced by Todd Rundgren on Epic/Cleveland International Records. So many of us know those hits, "You Took the Words Right out of my Mouth (Hot Summer Night)", "Two out of Three Ain't Bad", "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and of course "Bat out of Hell", and the album has sold in excess of 45 million copies worldwide, but before that Meat recorded another album... You may or may not be aware of this but it was called "Stoney and Meatloaf" featuring an actress/singer named Stoney (Shaun Murphy) and (of course) Meat Loaf (only his name is spelled Meatloaf on the front cover. His name is supposed to be spelled "Meat Loaf" with a space between and two capitol letters.) Motown Records had signed them both to record an album on Rare Earth Records, which Wikipedia says "was a s...

Hi, it's me again, Ryan from Ryan Reviews. I was just thinking about a couple of "music memories" I have and thought I'd write about them here. * Early 1990s, walking into the music section at K-Mart and seeing row upon row of tape cassettes, everywhere, and not the single sign of a CD (but there would have been plenty of Cassingles!). * Songs I can remember making an impression on me back then, before I ever heard my first single, was Tina Turner "The Best" (which I later found out was originally recorded by Bonnie Tyler), "It Takes Two", another song from Tina interestingly enough and this time a duet with Rod Stewart, and Bryan Adams "Everything I do (I do it for you)" from the movie "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves". "Everything I do" was probably the best song I'd ever heard up to that point, and I still think it's one of the best now, composed by the late great Michael Kamen whose work I absolutely love. * ...

Welcome to Ryan's Reviews!!! I will be writing here about all of my favourite artists and albums, as well as new ones I've been listening to along the way, with some reviews of local acts and productions as well. I am very excited to be posting here and look forward to sharing my thoughts with the blogging world!!! My first album was the 1993 Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman classic "Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell", which completely blew my mind. It's a feeling I've never forgotten, among my favourite musical experiences along with Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Queen, Beatles, Elton John, and so much more. I hope you enjoy my blog! Thank you. Ryan.