Ryan's Reviews

Music has always had the power to comfort and bring joy and enrich the lives of its listener. This goes back, oh time immemorial. To me, some of the greatest pieces I've ever heard include Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" from his opera "Die Walküre", "Libera me" from Verdi's "Messa da Requiem", Elvis Presley "Suspicious Minds" and "Devil in Disguise", the Beatles "A Day in the Life" and the B side to "Abbey Road", Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" and "Wish You Were Here", Elton John and Bernie Taupin's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", and so much more, among them songs like "For Crying out Loud" and "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" from the hit "Bat out of Hell" albums by Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman. The first most lurid musical experience I can r...

I am writing my thoughts on the "Bat out of Hell" musical cast album, having heard the news this morning that composer, songwriter and producer extraordinaire Mr. Jim "Lord of Excess" Steinman has left the building. Seller of nearly 200 million records, including the third largest selling rock album of all time "Bat out of Hell" and its sequel "Back into Hell", author and dreamer of "Total Eclipse of the Heart", "Holding out for a Hero", "It's All Coming Back to me Now" and so much more, composer of the ultimate showdown with Jim's music "Tanz der Vampire: Das Musical" and lyricist the year before on Lord Webber's "Whistle down the Wind". For fifty years, he had been labouring away on and off on a futuristic rock musical based on "Peter Pan", which was realized in some form in Manchester 2017 as "Bat out of Hell: The Musical". Can you imagine the expectations for so...

In October 1986, "The Phantom of the Opera" opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in London and as of early 2020, nearly 35 years later, the same production was still running in both the West End and Broadway. The success of this musical was sort of like catching lightning in a bottle. First there was the score, with songs like "The Music of the Night", "All I Ask of You" and "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" and "Phantom", all of which were released as singles (the last one directed by Ken Russell who did the video for Pandora's Box "It's All Coming Back to me Now"). There was also the way that it was performed by Michael Crawford, Sarah Brightman and Steve Barton (remember that name). It had been directed by musical theatre legend Harold Prince, the Prince of Broadway. The sets and costumes designed by Maria Bjornson were a masterpiece of design. At the end of the first act, when the Phantom drops the chandelier on...

The 1980s had been a big decade for songwriter and producer Jim Steinman, with the success of songs like "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Holding out for a Hero" for Bonnie Tyler, and "Making Love out of Nothing at All" for Air Supply, as well as his work on films like "Streets of Fire" and "Footloose", his recent production work for 80s group Sisters of Mercy ("Floodland", highly recommended), and at one point he was even talking with Andrew Lloyd Webber about writing lyrics for a little musical you may have heard of called "The Phantom of the Opera", but there was something missing here. Jim had not written a full album's worth of songs since Meat Loaf's 1981 "Dead Ringer". "Bad for Good" and this album were the last ones he had actually fully written. Why was this? I think if you go back and listen to both of them, you can sort of see why, without getting the official story. How many w...

In October 1977, Jim Steinman emerged onto the music scene writing all of the songs for the third largest selling rock album in history, "Bat out of Hell" sung by Meat Loaf and produced by Todd Rundgren. It yielded the rock evergreens, "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". More hits with Meat Loaf followed with 1981's duet with Cher "Dead Ringer for Love" and "I'd do Anything for Love (But I Won't do That)" with Mrs Loud, a Number #1 in 28 countries worldwide from "Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell". Success would follow with Jim's simultaneous Number #1 and #2 writing and producing both Bonnie Tyler "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and Air Supply "Making Love out of Nothing at All". Yes, you know these songs, while you might not be familiar with th...

Before the Beach Boys and the Beatles, before Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan, Tina Turner and the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, the Doors, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Janis Joplin, Elton John, Billy Joel, Led Zeppelin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Eagles, Michael Jackson, ABBA, Bruce Springsteen, Queen, the Police, Prince, Madonna, Nirvana and so many other great acts over the past seventy years, there was... the King himself, according to Wikipedia (to which I would whole-heartedly agree) one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, ELVIS. Presenting his musical biography yesterday 6 April at Drysdale's Potato Shed was local entertainer and presenter Colin Mockett through his Drop of a Hat Productions, with music performed by All Shook Up! By the end of this morning's show, I was well and truly all shook up indeed, like somehow I'd become a passenger on a time-travelling DeLorean in the 80s classic "Back to the Fut...

In 2012, songwriter and producer Jim Steinman was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. His list of achievements include: the third largest selling rock album of all time "Bat out of Hell" performed by Meat Loaf, his own platinum solo album "Bad for Good" which had been planned as the follow up to "Bat", a Meat Loaf duet with Cher called "Dead Ringer for Love", a simultaneous Number 1 and 2 with "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for Bonnie Tyler and "Making Love out of Nothing at all" for Air Supply, movie soundtracks including "Footloose", "Streets of Fire" (stop everything and look up "Tonight is What it Means to be Young" if you haven't already), and "The Shadow". A 1993 Meat Loaf reunion would follow, as well as the monster hit Celine Dion single "It's All Coming Back to me Now" which Andrew Lloyd Webber called the "record of the millennium", the hit rock...