Ryan's Reviews

When "Bat out of Hell" was released, the audience who'd fallen in love with this classic rock album had to wait four years for a follow-up, which Meat and Jim actually did with two albums: Jim's "Bad for Good" and Meat's "Dead Ringer". The turnaround on "Dead Ringer" and "Midnight at the Lost and Found" had been pretty fast, but in general fans had gotten used to waiting. Look at the seven years between "Blind Before I Stop" and "Bat out of Hell II", which mind you was well worth it. Then after "Welcome to the Neighbourhood", besides the few odd recordings here and there ("Tonight is Right for Love", the Isaac Hayes duet on "South Park" Chef Aid is frigging brilliant), it felt like Meat had packed it in altogether. After 2010's "Hang Cool Teddy Bear", I was surprised that Meat was releasing another album so quickly. The closest I'd seen to anything like that...

In 1977, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman released their epic rock album "Bat out of Hell" produced by Todd Rundgren, which became one of the biggest selling albums of all time, after they had been turned down by every record company in the galaxy. In 2004, American rock group Green Day released their concept album "American Idiot" after the 20 songs they were developing had been stolen, and another musical classic was born. The album was co-produced by a man named Rob Cavallo who also worked on a brilliant little album for My Chemical Romance called "The Black Parade" released in 2006. I have just spent tonight listening to both. I didn't need to hear "Bat out of Hell" again, (or did I???). In 2009, in the wake of Meat Loaf's release of "Bat out of Hell III", it was revealed that Meat would be going back into the studio with Rob Cavallo to produce his new album. If anyone out there reading this is a fan of any of the three albums I...

I remember everything. I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday. OK, I don't remember all the exact details but... I remember the feeling. I can understand what it must have been like when George Lucas announced the prequel trilogy to "Star Wars" just bursting with excitement, which is an understatement. The adrenalin the moment the announcement hits, and you want to climb up to the roof in the middle of a cyclone sweeping through the Kansas prairies, away to the marvellous land of Oz, where your house lands on the Wicked Witch of the East, while you're screaming from the top of your lungs: "SHUT...UP...AND TAKE...MY...MONEY!!!!!!" When that teaser poster first appeared, with the image of young Anakin and the shadow of Darth Vader, people were in awe. It was more than a blockbuster. It was an event. Suddenly at some point in the year 2003, probably after Meat Loaf had just released "Couldn't have said it better" in Germany...

Preface: I can remember the first time I typed the names "Meat Loaf" and "Jim Steinman" into a search on the internet, around early 1999. This is how I discovered the web site "Dream Pollution" the Rockman Philharmonic Society of the Arts devoted to songwriter and producer Jim Steinman. The opening page of the site gave you two options: "Do you dare to dream his dream? Yes or no," and if you chose yes...a library of reviews and information awaited you, all arranged under the category of each different project Jim had worked on since his musical "The Dream Engine" in 1969, but if you said "no..." well, you didn't seem to have an option really, because there was just one page with a picture of Jim and lyrics from 1981's "Stark Raving Love". This and other sites like "Neverland Hotel", "The Jim Steinman Temple" and "Dreamtime Pacifica" and more, were how I learned about all of the J...

It would have been a few weeks before Christmas in 1998 when I was heading toward the music store, which had closed down while I was waiting for an import of Meat Loaf's "Bad Attitude" from the US, and opened up as another Sanity. I can remember walking in, having absolutely no idea there was any new release from Meat Loaf at all, looking under his name and being hit with the cover art of this album. Holy cow! A blazing sky in the background, with a fiery image of the motorcyclist from the "Bat out of Hell" covers, and then the ruins of an enormous bridge overlooking a post-apocalyptic city and a screaming, maniacal bat, it was astonishing. I turned the cover over so I could see what the track list was on the other side, and immediately I noticed three new titles: "Home by Now/No Matter What", "Is Nothing Sacred" and "A Kiss is a Terrible Thing to Waste", along with a remix version of "Life is a Lemon and I Want my Money Back...

Inside my copy of a Meat Loaf CD Sampler from 1995, there is the following piece of info: "From the forthcoming Meat Loaf album Escape From Hell: Welcome To The Neighborhood", and yet the title on release was just "Welcome To The Neighborhood", or depending where you were living it was spelled "Neighbourhood". What gives? Let's go back a couple of years, touching again on the enormous success of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman's "Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell". As I said in my last review, "it was one of the finest comebacks in the history of rock and roll." "I'd do Anything for Love" had roared up the charts to Number 1 in 28 countries worldwide, (amusing bit of trivia in case you didn't already know: it was knocked off the Number 1 spot in the UK by Mr. Blobby), there had been three more singles, "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through", "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They A...

The time was about spring 1993 on a Saturday night, when many Australians were gathered around the TV set watching "Hey Hey It's Saturday", that iconic 80s and 90s Australian variety show, when all of a sudden Meat Loaf appeared standing onstage ready to sing the new single "I'd do Anything for Love (But I Won't do That)" for the first time live, anywhere in the world. Yes, this is what they said, in the video which you should still be able to watch somewhere on YouTube. Meat was all set, fired up and ready to take off like a bat out of hell... when he flubbed the opening verse and asked everyone if he could start again. That's life sometimes hey? Anyway, take 2 Daryl, and what we were about to witness was rock history. I can remember hearing that song for the first time, in the car, on the radio, and just being enchanted with it from the moment it first played. After that, I must have listened to the single everywhere we went. It was two songs, whic...