In the 35 years since it was released BAT OUT OF HELL has been in the UK charts for a total of 474 weeks - that's over nine years! Globally it's still sells 200,000 copies annually. In total it has sold over 40million copies. Staggering. But in a way, what's more amazing isn't the fact that 40million people on planet Earth have bought a copy, it's that 560 million people haven't. What's wrong with these people?
Contrary what people with better taste may tell you, despite what your own best instincts may say and putting aside your utter revulsion at the sight of that sweaty man who will do anything for love but won't shut the hell up, one thing is unavoidable, this album ROCKS!
If somehow you call yourself a 'music fan' and you've managed to get this far life without actually having ever heard the whole bonkers Wagnerian-rock opera it's essential that you do. It's epic. It's operatic. It's completely overblown. Silly almost to the level of Spinal Tap pastiche. A production that is quite simply monstrous. A huge wall of sound that crashes over the listener time and time again like a tsunami of cheesy pomp-rock.
Wonderfully it is also (and I know some people will hate me saying this) cut from the exactly the same cloth as Springsteen's classic BORN TO RUN. If you like that classic album you must by default like BAT OUT OF HELL.
Lyrically both albums are tributes to the classic era of American youth, its romances and rebellions. The same motifs frequently appear whether they of teenage sweethearts stealing moments in the moonlight or boy-racers behind the wheels of their glorious metal machines. Both albums are action-packed 60's & 70's teenage rebellion and the first flights of freedom.
Lines like "Gonna hit the highway like a battering ram on a silver black phantom bike" could easily appear within 'Born to Run', but here it's big ol' Meat belting them out. Just has Springsteen seems to have an obsession with hotrods and American Graffiti style street-racing, so does Meat's songwriting partner Jim Steinman. The track 'Bat Out Of Hell' was written to be the ultimate crash song. It's the story of a boy riding so fast and in such a state of ecstasy that he's not able to see an obstacle in his way until it's far too late.
Musically both this album and 'Born To Run' are overblown, Phil Spector-indebted wall of sound led by guitars, pianos, saxophones and big rock n roll band arrangements. There are obvious similarities in song structure too. On the song 'Bat Out Of Hell' once the initial bombast dies down it restarts with a simple piano and builds in not entirely a dissimilar way to 'Thunder Road'. 'All Revved Up's saxophone stomp is only a short stretch from The Boss's 'Tenth Avenue Freeze Out'. There are plenty of other moments where the the music will seem familiar to Springsteen connoisseurs. In fact when BAT OUT HELL's producer Todd Rungren agreed to take the gig he did so believing the songs were hilarious, a parody of Springsteen. In his autobiography Meat quote Rungren as saying: "I've got to do this album. It's just so out there."
Unsurprisingly both albums also share a number of key musicians: Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg were drummer and pianist from Bruce's E Street Band. You'd also be forgiven for thinking Meat's saxophonist was the legendary Clarence Clemons, though sadly it's not.
All the songs are written and arranged by Jim Steinman. Three of them, 'Bat Out Of Hell', 'Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad' and 'All Revved Up With No Place Left To Go', were originally performed as songs for theatre project called 'Neverland', a science-fiction musical retelling of the Peter Pan story. The frankly nuts opening monologue between a woman and werewolf on 'You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth' were taken from this project also. All things considered I bet it was a hell of a wild show!
BAT OUT OF HELL is only seven songs long but four of them were gargantuan singles, classic stadium-sized belters: 'Bat Out of Hell', 'Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad', 'All Revved Up...' and 'Paradise By The Dashboard Light'. Add to these the overwrought balladry of 'Heaven Can Wait' and 'Crying Out Loud' and you have a definitive collection of the best operatic-rock tracks on a single album.
If you are a true fan of rock music, if you have ever known the joy of making the devil horns with your fingers, or held a lighter aloft at gig until your thumb burns, then you should already own this album. If you don't then you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself!
'BAT OUT OF HELL'
'TWO OUT OF THREE AIN'T BAD'
'HEAVEN CAN WAIT'
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