Word: batted
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...TEEN COMMANDments, as revealed in Bat Out of Hell...
...star who's just been kneed by the school football coach -- could belong only to Marvin Lee Aday, known to the world as Meat Loaf. First as Eddie the zombie biker in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), then as star of writer-arranger Jim Steinman's ambitious album Bat Out of Hell (1977), Meat Loaf gave clarion clout to rock's first decadent period. The Bat LP sold oodles; one cut (Two Out of Three Ain't Bad) was a hit single; another (Paradise by the Dashboard Light) became an influential proto-video. And for a moment...
...right, nobody is young anymore -- certainly not kids. And the speaker of Bat II's songs is a bit frayed by time. In I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That), it's the woman whose long wish list needs to be satisfied ("Will you cater to every fantasy I got? Will you hose me down with holy water if I get too hot?") and the man who must oblige. He must also face mortality. In Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are, he is haunted by three pushy ghosts...
Anachronistic? Defiantly. The blood on these guitars is Chuck Berry red. The production reverbs with the heavenly choirs, sleigh bells and mausoleum echoes of Phil Spector's wailing Wall of Sound. The lyric lines are long and chatty, with more pomp to the bomp. Bat II is the '50s, '60s and '70s, packed in steel and wrapped in Mylar. Or go back even further. Meat Loaf is not quite Jussi Bjorling, and Steinman ain't no Wagner, but in rock terms Bat Out of Hell II is a Gotterdammerung you can dance...
Music: Prime cuts from Meat Loaf in Bat Out of Hell...