Today is the 40th anniversary of Bat Out of Hell

If you get a chance, listen to the Producers segment I posted.

In addition to the guitar work and a huge amount of the background vocals, Todd did all the arrangements. According to Meat Loaf, Jim Steinman can't actually write music and would hum what he wanted to Todd.

As Andy Partridge of XTC said of Todd "He has the people skills of a Dalek, but he is a god among arrangers."

 

Did Mr. Loaf EVER see a net profit from this tragedy (the tragedy being the years-long business battle, not the music)?

 

Years later Todd sold his part of Bat Out of Hell outright to Jim and Meat so he could buy his land on Kauai, so they must have had enough to buy him out. I understand that Todd actually wound up getting a larger percentage than either of them - which I suppose was one advantage of working for Albert Grossman and having him negotiate the deal on your behalf.

 

heard a part of it after it came out decided then and there i was not a fan of the loaf

 

After 40 years, I still haven't heard this album. I guess I will hear it someday, but I'm in no great hurry.

 

I’ve never heard the whole thing through. I thought at one point I might want to add it to my record collection since it was so huge, so I started playing it on Spotify and skimmed each song. Let’s just say, it’s not my thing. I’m truly baffled how it sold so many copies.

 

Rundgren is certainly entitled to his opinion, but I think there is a bit of revisionist latitude or license in his interview; he seems to be lumping in various Springsteen themes that evolved over many years, themes that were arguably more predominant after "Bat Out Of Hell" was recorded. In 1977, Springsteen had only released three albums and thematically, there was not a lot of "50's" and "switchblades and leather jackets and motorcycles and that sort of junk" lyrical content in his overall body of work. Some of it was there on "Born To Run," with the title track, "Jungleland," and loosely with "Night" and "Backstreets."

I do not doubt that there was disgust in the music community with the over-the-top "savior of rock and roll" rhetoric, but in all fairness, that was not necessarily Springsteen's doing. Still, I can understand why Rundgren thought Springsteen was "going backwards" musically, but I am not sure if that was a bad thing either, nor did Springsteen ever assert he needed to be musically progressive. In 1974/1975, Springsteen was trying to make a great rock and roll record, echoing the grand production of Phil Spector and the vocals of Roy Orbison. And Springsteen did release a classic album with "Born To Run." Did it "save" rock and roll? That is a stretch, but the album certainly was a celebration of rock and roll, fusing elements of Spector, Orbison and Dylan. It definitely was an artistic statement, one that I do not think needed to "spoofed." That said, if creating a "spoof" was a creative and artistic inspiration for Rundgren, it worked because he produced a classic of his own with "Bat Out Of Hell." And the irony is that for all of Rundgren's progressive leanings during the 1970's and beyond, the biggest hit album he was ever associated with, "Bat Out Of Hell," embodied the "backwards" musical sounds he appears to have such disdain for.

 

2 quick stories:

One of my college girlfriends thought the Phil Rizzuto "bit" was really about baseball and was embarrased when it was explained. She was adorble!

I was at an NFL game (again back at college) and this group of "tailgaters" hand quite an elaborate grill/party setup and I remember All Reved Up was cranking from their speakers!

 

Did you discuss the idea of it being a Springsteen spoof with Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf at all? Were they in on it?

Well, I don't know whether I used the term "spoof." [Laughs.] But as it turned out, you know, Max Weinberg and Roy Bittan from the E Street Band wound up playing on the record, so that kind of made it even spoofier. But I don't think I instructed them in any way to think of it differently than they would have otherwise. But quite obviously they were cast because they could bring that Springsteeniness to the whole project.

So the E Street Band guys weren't aware that they were being spoofed at all.

Nobody was aware that they were being spoofed. The reality is that everyone kind of puts the focus on Meat Loaf, but everything's coming from Steinman. Meat Loaf is essentially someone that Steinman cast in an imaginary musical that never got produced. So it isn't like a calculated attempt to break into radio or anything like that; it's really Steinman trying to realize his vision of a musical, albeit somewhat compromised from the original because his original idea was to retell the story of Peter Pan. And that's kind of been the albatross. He keeps retrying to tell the story of Peter Pan in one form or another. And so just imagine Meat Loaf as Peter Pan.

___

So the artist, the composer and the players don't have any idea about this alleged spoof. How much of a spoof is it really if only one guy is in on it.

 

I'm not really a Meat Loaf fan, or all that much of a Springsteen fan either for that matter, but it kind of bugs me the way Rundgren talks about this. Because it's like he wants to simultaneously take all the credit while always making sure we understand that it's all really beneath him and just a goofy spoof. And then on top of it he has to throw in a gratuitous slam at another artist. It's just a bad look all around.

 

It was enough to get the producer to invest in making it happen.

He didn't say it was "beneath him" did he? He is incredibly sarcastic and always has been, and if thinking of it as a Springsteen spoof was what made it fun for him, than it obviously worked.

 

A great album that I bought on cassette around it's 10 year anniversary and the CD not too long after. I loved the video for "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" when it was played on MTV when I was a kid. He (Meat Loaf) just seemed like a regular nut on stage in his videos but I mean that in a good, cool way. After my parents divorced in the late 70s, I used to go over to my Dad's apartment and he had some records sitting on the floor leaning up against the wall and I remember seeing this one right up front. I couldn't get over that album cover. I knew I had to get it one day. Damn, time flies.

 

Wow, 40 years of listening to other, more interesting, music. How lucky I've been.

 

He didn't say it was beneath him but I think he's made it pretty obvious over the years that he feels that way. He seems to have a bit of a complex about this record. Just my opinion, but I think it bugs him that it's the most successful thing he's ever been involved with but it's a record he doesn't really like.

 

Todd's sarcastic about everything. When he shared a song that was written for a Cameron Crowe movie, but not used, he called it "a sappy little ditty." When I said he stopped writing simple pop tunes because it was too easy, it was true. "Hello It's Me" was the very first song he ever wrote. "Bang On The Drum" was written in his sleep - he woke up and wrote it down. "Bat Out of Hell" was something he worked on because it was an amusing thing to do, and it must seem absurd to be asked about it 40 years later.

Hell, when he was asked to deliver the commencement address at Berklee, he was sarcastic about why he was asked to do so!

 

The cassette came standard in the glovebox of every car built in the 80s .

 

Mighty Max and Professor Roy and Todd on the one record cannot be all bad.
I don't think the 'spoof' element is central to this album, it really came with TR / Utopia's Beatle pastiche Deface The Music!

 

TR must have made vastly more money out of BOOH than anything he's done as a solo singer/songwriter or member of Utopia.

I wonder if that amuses him, as everything I've read about his participation in the project suggests he didn't take it at all seriously?

I have memories of this album making its impact in Britain in 1978. I was too young for it but kids slightly older than me liked to be seen with it under their arms: it had a credibility then that it doesn't have now.

Personally, I'd file it under 'fun' - great to have one while you're tidying the house, breaking off to play a bit of 'air guitar' and I like Jim Steinman's songwriting in small doses.

 

Still love the album and I'm glad I got the opportunity to see Meat Loaf perform the entire album live. I think I'm going to play the album later today.

 

Great cover, shame about the music, apart from Todd Rundgren's opening guitar salvo, after that it's all downhill ....