Unknown Soldier

Bat Out of Hell was possibly one of the silliest albums ever made when it came out back in 1977, but then again it was silly in the most grandiose style possible, certainly no easy achievement here! Bat Out of Hell was a hard rock, heavy metal, progressive rock, arena rock, pop and most of all a rock opera all rolled into one, with everything about it being VERY BIG including its vocalist of course, the soon to be legendary Meat Loaf (the name of course for any non-Americans including myself, is based on a recipe of chopped meat in the shape of a loaf, btw I’ve still never ever tried it, or if I have it was under a different name) The brains behind the whole thing, were of course its two principal players Meat Loaf real name Marvin Lee Aday, who had already been in a number of previous bands of which there are too many to mention here. But most notably he had been a singer in the Los Angeles production of the long running Hair, before being scooped up by Motown to record the Stoney & Meatloaf album back in 1971. It was not too long after this, that the much travelled Meat Loaf ran into his future principal collaborator Jim Steinman. So when the duo formulated their battle-plan, we had Meat Loaf with his fuse-blowing voice (yes it was that powerful and was known for blowing monitors) and Jim Steinman both composer and songwriter extraordinaire, and the duo would unleash one of the biggest selling rock albums ever recorded! But the duo also had a vital helping hand, in coruscating recording artist and producer Todd Rundgren, who when he got things right, he certainly got them right!

Bat Out of Hell would go onto to sell more than 30 million copies worldwide and be named on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list. The album surely attracted its original buying public on the strength of its ‘heavy genre’ album cover, but just how prepared were listeners for its theatrical bombastic musical and vocal approach that was contained within? Bat Out of Hell ranks as one of the most important albums ever released, quite simply because it matched fellow grandiose projects such as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Close to the Edge for grandiose and meticulous preparation, but in contrast to those two albums, Bat Out of Hell was having a good laugh at itself. Quite often music listeners are flooded with albums that they should have in their album collection as a sign of good taste, regardless of whether they like the album or not and albums like Exile on Main Street and Dark Side of the Moon come to mind here. Bat Out of Hell is one of those albums, especially if you don’t take things too seriously in life.

Meat Loaf- Vocals
Jim Steinman- Keyboards
+ a whole host of other musicians

Production- Todd Rundgren

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