Meat Loaf: Dead Ringer Songs by Jim Steinman (1981)

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 financial, commercial sense to ask for a "Bat out of Hell, Part 2", but asking for *any* album after "Bat" would have been a challenge.

Thinking back to what I said in my previous review (see "Bat out of Hell"), I really believe that Meat and Jim could have retired after making that album if they wanted, and now they have to follow it up. Now Jim has to write songs that are on the level of "Bat", "You Took the Words", "Two out of Three", and "Paradise". Good grief, he has to write a song that is as good as "For Crying out Loud". You'd almost want to run away and hide under your bed for the next five/ten years, wait until the whole thing has blown over, and hopefully everyone's still listening to the first one, which they were. "Bat" lasted 522 weeks on the UK charts.

And then you've got Meat Loaf's vocals, which are some of the best of all time. As a performer and singer, at his best, Meat ranks up there with Elvis and Roy Orbison for me, and now he and Jim have to deliver another album. Oh and also, the cover art has got to look just as good. No tall order or anything, you know. Go on, get to work. Off you go then! Let's sell another couple of million. And then it happened...

Jim had completed writing an album's worth of songs, working with Roy Bittan from the E Street Band and the first "Bat" on piano arrangements, and Todd producing the tracks, and Meat goes to record those first vocals... and nothing happens. He can't sing anymore.

Not only does the record company want "Bat out of Hell, Part 2" and everybody has to live up to that on some level, Meat Loaf has lost his vocals. Those songs become like demons for him. He tries. He gives it all he's got. He gives it even more. "The sea is whipping the sky, the sky is whipping the sea," but he just can't get there. It's over. And Meat and Jim are crushed, because Meat can't sing the songs and Jim can't release his songs to the world. This is what results in the two albums "Bad for Good" (the "Bat out of Hell, Part 2" I've been writing about) which is released as Jim's solo album, and "Dead Ringer", the eventual follow-up Meat releases in the same year. Jim writes him a whole new set of songs for the other album, while he records the first set himself (or rather he attempts to, and Rory Dodd records the last three.)

Meat Loaf "Dead Ringer" is released Tuesday 4 September 1981, four years on from "Bat out of Hell", and this time it doesn't seem to match "Bat's" gigantic success, but referring to what I said before, how many albums could? It does well in places like the UK though, which has always been one of Meat's biggest audiences, but something happens in the US which is never really put right until 1993's "Bat II". The biggest single from this album is "Dead Ringer for Love", a duet with Cher, which scored as high as Number 5 on the UK Singles Chart, higher again on the Irish Singles Chart at Number 2. This is pretty good work, and when you listen to this song you can tell that it gives you something that "Bat" might have been missing, just a four/five minute love duet when the closest thing was "Paradise" which was a whopping eight and a half minutes long.

Here's the thing though. In my opinion (and that's all these reviews are, mind you), "Dead Ringer for Love" is the song I like least from this album. I don't know, it just doesn't quite captivate me the way the others do, but I do like it. Anyway, my thoughts on this album:

"Peel Out"---the album begins with the growing thundering sound of a motorcycle roaring, and then a volley of guitars come in on a big rock intro. I like this song, but for people awaiting the next Wagnerian Steinman epic, I can see why they might have felt a bit short-changed, but damn it. I really like this song. I say like, when actually I love it.

"I'm Gonna Love her for Both of us"---this song is a monster. From the dark piano chords in the beginning, to the all out wave of music in the instrumental, this is a killer piece. The middle section with the "screws are tightening" lyrics is probably my favourite part. The video is fantastic.

"More Than You Deserve"---Meat records the first Steinman song he so triumphantly sang in the musical back in 1973. It was also recorded and issued as a rare single on RSO Records, but the world never really got to hear that. Meat and Jim would play it during the original Bat tour, and I'm glad that it got recorded here. It was also given a new intro, which resurfaces a few years down the track on "The future ain't what it used to be", Jim's soaring finale for Pandora's Box: Original Sin. The video is just everything to me.

"I'll Kill You if you Don't Come Back"---firstly, what a title! I mean, heavens. Secondly, it never really grabbed me at first, for like the first four minutes. It was a good song you know, it was a good song for Jim, but then suddenly the piano bit comes in...and it transforms into a mesmerizing Steinman classic. I can't describe the way it makes me feel.

"Read 'em and Weep"---the song which was later given to Barry Manilow in 1983, and was a big single for him. It should have been a big single from this! Meat just gives it everything he's got, and that bit at the end just goes berserk. They definitely go over the top here. The music for the choruses I believe is "It was a hot summer night and the beach was burning/There was fog crawling over the sand" from Bat out of Hell, and I really like that connection.

"Nocturnal Pleasure"---I love every single moment of this piece of writing. It's so vivid. "The entire city is burning. You can see the flames like the inside of a mad jukebox."

"Dead Ringer for Love"---here it is, the big single from the album. Actually, when I listen to the full album altogether, I have absolutely no "problem" with this song at all. It fits. I wouldn't have it any other way. It would be a poorer album without it. The best bit for me is the ending (smart-arse!). No, seriously, I love the way they just keep singing "Dead ringer for love! Dead ringer!" and Meat must have thought that would be really exciting to do live.

"Everything is Permitted"---oh my! And I don't often see a lot of people agree with me on this, but this is not only the lost classic of this album for me, but one of the lost classics of both Meat and Jim's catalogue. If I had my way, this would have been covered like all the different versions of Bob Dylan "To make you feel my love", and it certainly would have been a single, but oh well. It is what it is, I suppose.

All in all, that's "Dead Ringer". When I first came across this album, I basically thought there were only two Meat Loaf albums, "Bat" and "Bat 2". This startled me that it actually existed, and then there was that cover art. It's just brilliant. A man on a motorcycle surrounded by blond ladies in the middle of the ocean, holding up a huge banner in the middle of a storm at sea, it's just a phenomenal piece.

When I heard the album, all I can remember now was that I really liked it, but at the same time I think I knew I had to work at it, for reasons I don't think I would have understood. Now I think of it as a classic collection of songs, except the production is not as good as the work on "Bat", or it needs a remaster of some kind, bearing in mind I was not listening to the original vinyl either ("Bad for Good" and "Dead Ringer" fare better on vinyl I believe.) But make no mistake, this is still a Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman classic for me, and I wish other artists had shown the same interest Manilow had, resurrecting such songs as "Everything is Permitted" and "Peel Out" (I'm honestly not sure about the others. Meat owns them so thoroughly and indelibly, I don't know how other artists would fare.)

With that said, I welcome the day we do get a remaster, of both this and "Bad for Good", along with a great documentary/retrospective DVD that explains the full history of trying to follow-up "Bat out of Hell". I think that's a fascinating story, a compelling one for any musician to hear. When you think of all the pressures various musicians have faced over the years, for instance Pink Floyd following up "The Dark Side of the Moon", and Alanis Morissette with "Jagged Little Pill", I think this is a great example of learning what it's like to see an artist consolidate their first success.

Thank you for reading,

Ryan.