What do you get when you take the bravado of Mick Jagger, the theatrics of David Lee Roth and the voice of Steve Perry? You get Meat Loaf. Larger than life. There are very few like him in rock and roll and maybe even few like him in modern music. Springsteen doesn’t have Meat Loaf’s voice, Axl Rose doesn’t come close to Meat Loaf’s stage presence, and Freddie Mercury doesn’t know what it’s like to sell 40 million plus copies of one of his albums. You have to turn to someone like Michael Jackson to find a comparison of performer plus talent – who’s arguably more R&B/pop than rock n roll.
Growing up as a hair-band singer in the late 80s, I didn’t idolize Jon Bon Jovi. I wanted to be like Meat Loaf. The guy would go full tilt from the moment he hit the stage until the encore was over and the lights came on. His debut is the fourth best-selling album ever, produced by Todd Rundgren and written by Jim Steinman (who we lost last year – click here for Colin talking about Watershed working with Jim Steinman on CD92.9 with Brian Phillips)). Bat Out of Hell has sold more copies than Hotel California, Dark Side of the Moon, Rumours, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Led Zeppelin IV. Only Thriller, Back in Black, and The Bodyguard soundtrack have sold more.
To this day I’ll listen to the opening title track of that album and still hear the skips I put in my sister’s record from playing it over and over and over. It has stayed with me for the past decades of my life, never losing its luster. And to me, Bat Out of Hell II, was almost equally as awesome – almost.
I saw Meat Loaf at the Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio in March of 1991. This was about two years before Bat Out of Hell II and I gather most people in the audience were loyal fans excited to get that intimate of a show as Meat Loaf came through town. I stood about 10 paces from the stage and it was the best show I’ve ever seen there. His voice just rocketed through the PA and he had the audience in the palm of his hand. Earlier that week, I was at a packed show watching Winger/Extreme/Tangier. This was right when “More Than Words” was getting serious radio play. That show was killer but nobody couldn’t hold a candle to Meatloaf.