While the Bay City Rollers have always been my favorite group, I love Meat Loaf too. I know these acts are so different from each other that it can be really hard to believe that anyone could like both. So go ahead and call me crazy.
I don’t know if I can put my finger on any one quality that Meat Loaf has that I like about his music any more than I could about the Bay City Rollers.
For me, it’s a combination of things. I like hard rock anyway, especially since some the best rock bands, like Heart, comes out of Seattle and I just live on the other side of the state in Spokane. But I digress.
What I like about Meat Loaf is that he can be so hard rock in a song and in that same song do this about face and the song becomes slower, kind of tender and, well, sometimes almost loving.
I particularly like Meat Loaf’s CD, Bat of Hell 2: Back into hell. All the music on this CD is well written. By this I mean that the songs on this CD are just filled with the stuff and the feelings we go through. Especially those situations and feelings we associate with awkward teenage years and young adulthood.
His CD, Bat of Hell 2: Back into Hell, is a good example of what I mean. The first song is “I would do anything for Love.” He does exactly what I am talking about with this song. He’s hard rock one moment and does his flip-flop the next. It’s raw, hard, and definite about doing anything for love but turns tender and sweet about not cheating and trying to make his girl feel secure. It seems like he does it very easily.
One song, Objects in the rear view may appear closer than they are, is very sad and bittersweet. It is about the death of a close friend, being beaten up and kicked out of the house, and young love. Meat Loaf sings it with great feeling that I find myself always being drawn into it to the point of tears.
Another, Life is a lemon and I want my money back, you hear all the frustration a person might feel when he/she feels that nothing is going right. How many of us have been there where all you want to do is find a return window at K-Mart and tell them that you want to do is trade up?
It seems like all the songs deal with something from light-hearted to gut-wrenching. Meat Loaf seems to put everything into the songs. It is always great to hear a performer do his best work.
And Meat Loaf is so easy to understand. So many musicians can be very hard to understand just what it is they are singing. Some singers don’t do that. I listen to music for entertainment and enjoyment. If I have to listen to a song more than once just to figure what they singing, the enjoyment and any entertainment value are long gone.
The only thing I didn’t like was that the songs ran 8 minutes or longer. They tend to be too long.
This is a CD that I highly recommend. The music is great, easy to understand, and can be downright moving at times.