Live Free Learn Free Blog » Meat Loaf <title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/wp-content/themes/thirteen/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/" /> <link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" title="RSS .92" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/rss/" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/atom/" /> <link rel="pingback" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/xmlrpc.php" /> <style type="text/css"> </style> <link rel='archives' title='August 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/08/' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/07/' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/06/' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/04/' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/03/' /> <link rel='archives' title='January 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/01/' /> <link rel='archives' title='December 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/12/' /> <link rel='archives' title='November 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/11/' /> <link rel='archives' title='October 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/10/' /> <link rel='archives' title='September 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/09/' /> <link rel='archives' title='August 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/08/' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/07/' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/06/' /> <link rel='archives' title='May 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/05/' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/04/' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/03/' /> <link rel='archives' title='February 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/02/' /> <link rel='archives' title='January 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/01/' /> <link rel='archives' title='December 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/12/' /> <link rel='archives' title='November 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/11/' /> <link rel='archives' title='October 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/10/' /> <link rel='archives' title='September 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/09/' /> <link rel='archives' title='August 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/08/' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/07/' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/06/' /> <link rel='archives' title='May 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/05/' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/04/' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/03/' /> <link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/xmlrpc.php?rsd" /> </head> <body> <div id="headwrapper"> <div id="header"> <h1 id="title"><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog">Live Free Learn Free Blog</a></h1> </div> </div> <div id="wrapper"> <div id="content"> <div class="post" id="post-200"> <h2 class="posttitle"><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/11/10/meat-loaf/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to Meat Loaf">Meat Loaf</a></h2> <p class="postdate"> November 10th, 2006 at 3:11 am (<a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/category/musings/" title="View all posts in Musings" rel="category tag">Musings</a>) </p> <div class="postentry"> <p>Yes, I’m a fan - ever since a kind-hearted bad-boy-wannabe that I miss like all hell introduced me to his music when I was fifteen. I remember speeding through town in his Mercury Lynx hatchback, windows down, cone incense in an ashtray that must have been glued to the carpeted dashboard, our hair tangled around our heads while we screamed along to “All Revved Up with No Place to Go.” And we were.</p> <p>Meat Loaf is pure cheese, of course, but I really don’t have all that much cheese in my life (well, music-wise, at least), so this makes up for it. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.johngorka.com/">John Gorka</a> often adds some extra cheese to the dishes he serves up, and <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ellispaul.com/">Ellis Paul</a> has been known to go a bit over the top, but that’s about it.</p> <p>That said, if you’re not up for a long, rambling review of <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat_loaf">Mr. Loaf</a>’s latest album, stop reading now.</p> <p>Anyway, I’ve been listening to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Bat-Out-Hell-Meat-Loaf/dp/B000FQ4M58/sr=1-1/qid=1163147350/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9303284-7150502?ie=UTF8&s=music"><em>Bat Out of Hell III</em></a> (which came out on Halloween, no less), and I’m not sure what I think about it, yet. It certainly didn’t hit me the way the first two <em>Bat Out of Hell</em> albums did - like a direct link to my heart. Several of the songs will have to grow on me. I swear, I’m hearing Motley Crue (not surprising, considering one of the M.C. guys is playing on the album) and Iron Maiden. Blech! That’s not the Loaf I know! So, three heavy metal songs…. I don’t know that I can handle that. Can heavy metal grow on me? We’ll see….</p> <p>Then, his version of “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.” Yes, it’s a <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Steinman">Jim Steinman</a> song (not all of the tracks on this album are), but they’ve chosen the wrong girl for the duet! She has this perfect, pop-ish voice, and that just doesn’t jive with Meat Loaf. Give me Ellen Foley or Lorraine Crosby - or even Cher (who sang with him on “Dead Ringer for Love”). Someone with a less polished set of pipes. Two bell-like voices just don’t work for a <em>Bat </em>duet. Sigh…. Well, at least it’s better than Celine Dion’s version….</p> <p>Looking to listen to some Queen? Try the fourth track: “Bad for Good.” Yup, Brian May from Queen plays on this track - and it really works. There are a lot of similarities between Steinman/Loaf and Queen. It’s very Queen-like, especially in the guitar (of course) and some of the background vocals, but this song is definitely steeped in pure <em>Bat Out of Hell </em>stylings. Others reminiscent of the older <em>Bat </em>albums are “Alive,” “What About Love” (featuring Patti Russo - who, of course, also would have been a <em>much </em>better choice for “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”), and “Seize the Night” (ah, more Queen guitar).</p> <p>But, strangely, my favorite track is “Blind as a Bat” - a song that would do well on just about any alternative radio station, I think, and <em>not </em>a Steinman creation. The lyrics can hold their own - despite their Steinman-less status:</p> <blockquote><p>And I wish that I could give you something in return<br /> For the precious time you wasted on the tears I’ve never earned<br /> For reaching out to help me ‘cross the bridges that I burned</p> <p>…Your love is blind, blind as a bat<br /> The way that you’re leading me home like that<br /> Your love is blind, blind as bat</p></blockquote> <p>Don’t judge by the snippets at Amazon or B&N, though - they capture the intro only. Instead, check it out at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.myspace.com/meatloaf">Meat Loaf’s MySpace page</a>. It’s intense and catchy - as all good Meat Loaf songs are. But, the chorus doesn’t sound like a typical Meat Loaf song. At all. It’s <em>much </em>more mainstream than that, which is why I can’t understand how it’s become my favorite…. Go figure. I’ll just put that bag over my head, now, and shuffle away quietly….</p> <p>All in all, the album feels pieced together to me. It’s not cohesive the way the first two are. That’s not surprising, I guess, given that Steinman didn’t write all the songs, didn’t produce it, didn’t really have anything to do with the making of it…. But, there are a few songs that will undoubtedly find a place among my favorites. Perhaps I should just make my own little compilation cd. Hmm…. Off to look for blank discs…. </p> </div> </div>  <h3 id="comments">2 Comments</h3> <ol id="commentlist"> <li id="comment-747"> <h4 class="commentauthor">Andrew said,</h4> <p class="commentdate"> November 11, 2006 at <a href="#comment-747" title="Permanent link to this comment">6:55 am</a> </p> <p>I just want to point out that Seize the Night doesn’t have Brian May on guitar. The song was good, but it wasn’t as strong as it could have been. It was originally written for a Steinman Rock Opera called “Tanz Der Vampire” or “Dance of the Vampires” in english, based on an old Roman Polanski film. If you want to check out how it could have sounded, check out the English demo in the Multimedia section of<br /> <a href='http://www.carpe-jugulum.com/' rel='nofollow'>http://www.carpe-jugulum.com/</a></p> <p>Or check out the better quality version here:<br /> <a href='http://www.realmofdreams.com/steinman/dotv.html' rel='nofollow'>http://www.realmofdreams.com/steinman/dotv.html</a></p> <p>You just have to scroll to almost the bottom of the page to find the demos. It’s listed as: 10. Carpe Noctem (Sieze The Night) - Kyle “Scarpia” Gordon.<br /> The page is a rant about how Micheal Crawford ruined the show, which is true. There are some great songs, including some rewrites of classic Meat songs as well as some others of Steinman’s great songs. I particularly like Vampires in Love, Confessions of a Vampire and my personal favorite For Sarah. It’s too bad that the english version was ruined, because it would have been great to have these songs out there as a Soundtrack.</p> <p>To be honest though, there is one part of Meat’s version of Seize the Night that I do really like, and that is when the Boy Soprano, Graham Phillips sings the latin. It gave me goosebumps when I first heard it, and still does.</p> <p>If you like Steinman’s Music, look into Dream Engine, a new band covering his music, they can be found on Myspace also. </p> </li> <li id="comment-899"> <h4 class="commentauthor"><a href='http://tb-pics.de' rel='external nofollow'>Tim</a> said,</h4> <p class="commentdate"> January 2, 2007 at <a href="#comment-899" title="Permanent link to this comment">11:18 am</a> </p> <p>No no, Seize the night was not originally written for Dance of the Vampires… its from the first and only Jim Steinman Album “Bad for good”…. the melodie namend “the Storm” on this album. And then Steinman used it for “Tanz der Vampire” later. </p> </li> </ol> <h3 id="postcomment">Post a Comment</h3> <form action="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/wp-comments-post.php" method="post" id="commentform"> <p> <input type="text" name="author" id="author" value="" size="28" tabindex="1" /> <label for="author">Name (required)</label> </p> <p> <input type="text" name="email" id="email" value="" size="28" tabindex="2" /> <label for="email">E-mail (required)</label> </p> <p> <input type="text" name="url" id="url" value="" size="28" tabindex="3" /> <label for="url"><abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr></label> </p> <p> <textarea name="comment" id="comment" cols="60" rows="8" tabindex="4"></textarea> </p> <p> <input name="submit" type="submit" id="submit" class="submit" tabindex="5" value="Submit Comment" /> <input type="hidden" name="comment_post_ID" value="200" /> </p> </form> </div> <div id="sidebar"> <ul> <li id="meta"> <h2>Meta</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/wp-login.php">Login</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/" title="Syndicate this site using RSS">Entries <abbr title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</abbr></a></li> <li><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/comments/feed/" title="The latest comments to all posts in RSS">Comments <abbr title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</abbr></a></li> </ul> </li> <li id="search"> <form method="get" id="searchform" action="/blog/index.php"> <p> <input type="text" value="" name="s" id="s" /> <input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" class="submit" value="Search" /> </p> </form> </li> </ul> </div> <div id="footer"> <p> <a href="http://wordpress.org" title="Powered by Wordpress, state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform.">Powered by Wordpress</a> · Design by <a href="http://beccary.com" title="Theme designed by Beccary">Beccary</a> and <a href="http://weblogs.us" title="Theme sponsored by Weblogs.us">Weblogs.us</a> · <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer" title="This page validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional"><abbr title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</abbr></a> · <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer" title="This page validates as CSS"><abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr></a> </p> </div> </div>  <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> var sc_project=605365; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_partition=4; var sc_security="d224bf47"; </script> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter/counter.js"></script><noscript><a href="http://www.statcounter.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://c5.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=605365&java=0&security=d224bf47&invisible=1" alt="free stats" border="0"></a> </noscript>  </body> </html>