Whatchoo think? What else you got?

Just re-visited 'The Classic Rock Show' rendition (2016 line-up) of Meatloaf's 'Bat Out of Hell's side-1 single of the album of the same name.

Spectacular. Gotta give it a A+

Meat Loaf "Bat Out of Hell" performed by The Classic Rock Show

Performance + Arrangement are like a studio version. No weakness. Intro is epic -- just like Meatloaf's -- BOOH, one of the All-Time great rock-intros. Vocals extremely strong (2-vocalists). Guitars right on. Keyboards on the mark. Ends with as great an outro as the Meatloaf studio version.

Hard to believe -- Meatloaf (or rather, Marvin Lee Aday) was a stage performer before he, Jim Steinman and Todd Rundgren decided to do this album as a "spoof" of Bruuuuce Springsteen. True story -- according to Todd Rundgren who largely financed the project. Also noteworthy -- Bruce's band-mates respectively played drums (Max Weinberg) and Roy Bittan (keyboards.)

'Bat Out Of Hell' has been re-discovered by every gen since, becoming the #3 all-time best selling album.... (yet strangely in the year of its release only made in it to #14 back in 1977.)

What a tune. And what a debut album.

Original Bat Out Of Hell/Meatloaf video (lacking the full intro)

Was the Core-Era of the purest Best of Rock: 1973-1981?

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Posted by Liberator

Ephesians 6:10-16

Member since Jul 2020

8463 posts

Posted on 3/9/23 at 10:37 am to Liberator

(Todd Rundgren interview / Billboard article, 2017) Todd Rundgren Talks Spoofing Bruce Springsteen and Seeing Meat Loaf Propose With a Salmon While Producing ‘Bat Out of Hell’

Todd Rundgren talks about producing Meat Loaf's 1977 smash record 'Bat Out of Hell' on his own dime because he thought it would be a funny Bruce Springsteen parody.

*snip*

Billboard caught up with Rundgren in honor of Bat Out of Hell’s 40th anniversary to discuss its legacy, how Steinman and Meat Loaf brought humor to their material “in a way that Springsteen never did,” and just who else was in on the joke. (Spoiler alert: no one).

Why don’t we start at the beginning? Tell me a little about how you were first approached to produce Bat Out of Hell.

I saw it as a spoof of Bruce Springsteen. Because the songs were sort of very basic changes, the themes were all… [Laughs.] By the time it was the ’70s, the themes were kind of nostalgic. Even though Bruce Springsteen would represent them as still being real, the iconography was still out of the ’50s, you know? It was switchblades and leather jackets and motorcycles and that sort of junk. So I saw the whole presentation as being a spoof of Bruce Springsteen, and that’s why I decided to do it.

And what was it about the idea of a Springsteen spoof that appealed to you?

Well, there was a lot of interesting stuff in there, like the fact that Jim Steinman kind of wove this sense of humor into the material in a way that Springsteen never did. But it was also so annoying to me personally that Bruce Springsteen was being declared the savior of rock and roll. You know, he was on the cover of TIME magazine, and I thought, “this music is going nowhere.” He may represent the image that people want, but from a musical standpoint, it’s going backwards. So I thought he needed to be spoofed.