There can never be another meatloaf.

The artist, born in Dallas in 1947 as Marvin Lee Aday and who died Thursday at the age of 74, was a singular cultural icon whose talents were varied but who shone brightest in his own art. If you live in the United States, there is a 1 in 20 chance that at that time there is a copy of some form of Bat out of hell in your music collection. This album, the fourth best-selling album of all time, is a monument to Meat Loaf’s unique approach to inhabiting any performative medium.

Unlike some other best-selling albums of all time like Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors or Pink Floyd The dark side of the moon, Bat out of hell is somehow trapped by his own ambition. Its artwork doesn’t adorn college t-shirts and dorms, and the album’s songs haven’t taken on new life thanks to TikTok. Meat Loaf is often relegated to one-album wonder status, a blatant lie proven by a zoomed-in look at his work as a singer, actor, and stage performer. He possessed extraordinary aptitude in almost every facet of his career.

Meat Loaf was not a songwriter; most of his tracks were either composed by others or taken from the contemporary rock songbook (see his gorgeous version of 2012’s “California Dreamin'” hell in a basket), but he was still able to rip blood from a stone with his operatic tenor, something that will no doubt be the focus of many Meat Loaf obituaries. Rather, his voice was a tool to facilitate his attitude towards rock ‘n’ roll and performance in general: have fun, don’t take it too seriously, but don’t treat it like a joke either.

If there’s anything that’s entirely unique to Meatloaf, it’s the essence of rock ‘n’ roll as a form of theatre. He was part of the original Broadway cast of The Rocky Horror Show (and later reprized one of his two roles when the musical was adapted into a film as The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and was part of the original Los Angeles production of Hair. Cutting his teeth in live theater added an explosive edge to his stage persona that suited him well when he befriended songwriter Jim Steinman after starring in one of the musicals. by Steinman. The duo finally decided to engage in music and come together to make a record.

Steinman, who died in April 2021, had taken Bruce Springsteen’s songwriting ambitions and run with them, writing songs that could only be brought to life by the voice and stage presence of Meat Loaf.
While scouting record labels, Meat Loaf was constantly praised for his vocals, but was asked to dump Steinman, whose songs were considered too goofy for the “serious” music landscape of the mid-70s. Meat Loaf supported his friend and was eventually able to record a record with the help of producer Todd Rundgren.

Rundgren initially took the project facetiously, recalling in Paul Meyers’ book A wizard a real star: “…the songs were so over the top that I didn’t see it as a rip off [of Springsteen]; it felt more like a parody. Eventually the team gelled, with Rundgren bringing in E Street Band members Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg on keys and drums, respectively, to heighten the sense of musical seriousness, while bringing in his own bandmates. Utopia Kasim Sulton, Roger Powell and Willie Wilcox. for lightness. Rundgren also ended up playing all the guitar parts on Bat out of hell.

The result was a commercial success and a critical shrug. After a period of limbo in which Meat Loaf lost his voice to exhaustion from touring and drug use, the label’s interest waned and his and Steinman’s later projects passed. relatively unnoticed. Steinman wrote hits for other artists, including Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, while Meat Loaf ventured out with a starring role in the cult 1980 comedy. Roadie with Alice Cooper and Deborah Harry.

Despite the haphazard commercial nature of Meat Loaf’s other projects, his commitment to ironic levity was ever-present. Watch the movie Black Dogin which Meat Loaf plays the villain of Patrick Swayze’s hero truck driver and compares that with his role in 90 seconds in Wayne’s World as a bouncer. For Meat Loaf, any role, on stage or in front of the camera, was an opportunity to exhibit this essence of rock ‘n’ roll theatre.

At the risk of sounding like Dr Strangeloveby General Jack D. Ripper, this essence is embodied in the chorus of “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)” when, Meat Loaf shouts “You know there’s not another moment, Not Another Moment! PAS UN ANOTHER MOMENT TO WASTE!” It’s easy to give credit to composer Steinman or producer Rundgren for making this moment work – bells, chorus and all – but put this song in the mouth of another singer, no matter how talented, and the result is either ridiculously exaggerated or uninspired.

Steinman or Rundgren were not the “heart” of Bat out of hell — this title belongs solely to Meat Loaf. Rundgren has made dozens of records, many of which chatter a series of facetious teeth without laughing out loud, but none of them have that feeling of serious desperation that shoots from Meat Loaf’s throat. Steinman has made records on his own, with the same sharp spirit brought to his songs on Bat, but none of them can carry the weight like Meat Loaf did. Try singing “We Shine Like Metal On The Edge Of A Knife” and being as sexy as Meat Loaf. It’s impossible.

In that sense, the essence of the album was, and always will be, that of Meat Loaf. His later records may have lacked the turn of phrase of Steinman, the golden touch of Rundgren, or the instrumental finesse of The E Street Band and Utopia, but they still had that larger-than-life bombshell that was actually the quantity exact amount of life needed. No one has ever been able to replicate the unique hatches of camp and sincerity that Meat Loaf channels on Bat out of hell.

Not even Springsteen, the main sonic inspiration of Bat out of hell, was able to recreate the spirit of Meat Loaf. The boss’s MO was to portray pure, youthful desperation and escapism in the face of societal pressure. His stories were dramas, not melodramas. There’s no skull and crossbones or monologue on a record like Nebraska. For Springsteen, life was too serious. For Meat Loaf, life was only as serious as the way he sang a song.

Curiously, the melodrama that Meat Loaf telegraphed Bat out of hell in 1977 became the model for the specific type of power ballad that populated radio in the twilight of the 80s and the wee hours of the 90s – Not the “rock” power ballads of MTV’s heyday, but rather the pop ballads that now only exist in Time Life’s informative, after “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and before “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You”. Even then, there is a lack of seriousness in these ballads which Meat Loaf had a surplus of in his own music. It’s fitting that Meat Loaf’s second biggest commercial success was a 1993 sequel called Bat Out of Hell II: Back to Hell with the number one single “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do This)”.

It just brings a smile of pure satisfaction to think of the song, the title of which is silly enough to make you laugh but is heartfelt enough that when you listen to the record, there’s not a laugh to be found.
This is what made Meat Loaf a singular artist – his defining ability to cultivate a sensibility in whatever material he was given. He’s the guy who, in the space of just two years, was able to play both a grieving cancer patient turned underground fighter and a radical terrorist in David Fincher. fight club and played the Spice Girls tour bus driver in their film schlock-fest spice world in which he does a show-stopping joke on one of his own songs. Incredible.

None of the other stadium-filling artists of the 70s and 80s were able to do what Meat Loaf did: deliver the youthful thrill of being lucky, the terrifying excitement of driving too fast into an unknown future. Queen was too populist, Springsteen was too authentic, Madonna was too sexy, Michael Bolton was too tearful. Only Meat Loaf could find heaven in the dash light.