Monday Mix: An Introduction to Meat Loaf
I am a big Meat Loaf fan. Bat Out of Hell II , alongside Ace of Base's The Sign , was the first album I bought at the Greendale Mall Lechmere with my own money back in 1994. "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" was one of the first music videos I ever remember seeing on VH1. As a nerdy theater kid, Meat Loaf's (and, to a further extent, Jim Steinman's) flair for the bombastic and dramatic definitely appealed to 13-year-old me, and the fact that it was loud and often-profane rock music in an era where I was finding Weezer to be a little too heavy for my tastes made it feel like a little rebellion with every listen. Meat Loaf probably hasn't aged well, musically speaking. Yeah, there's Rocky Horror , but Bat Out of Hell , a debut solo album that went neck-and-neck with Thriller in lifetime sales for a while, sounds very old in particular (and "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" especially couldn't get made today). The albums between Bats are larg...