If all he had ever done was record the album Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf, who has died aged 74, would still be guaranteed his own plinth in the museum of rock’n’roll. Released in Britain in early 1978, the album might have been conceived as the antidote to punk rock, which had been wreaking havoc on the music industry. The unlikely-looking figure of Meat Loaf stood at the centre of a bombastic maelstrom of sound, an operatic blend of heavy rock, fantasy lyrics, a choir of backing vocalists and long, multipart songs. It was rock’n’roll redesigned as gothic movie and Broadway spectacle.
Meat Loaf had met the songwriter Jim Steinman, his collaborator on Bat Out of Hell, when he auditioned successfully for Steinman’s musical More Than You Deserve in New York in 1973. The pair worked on the Bat Out of Hell material for several years and were rejected by numerous record companies before the album appeared on Cleveland International label, distributed by Epic Records. The album reminded many listeners of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, and its producer, Todd Rundgren, initially thought that Steinman and Meat Loaf were deliberately parodying Springsteen.
