Meat Loaf

he is definitely deserving of legendary status.

rip even though bat out of hell tortured my ears in my youth.

Oh wow, RIP to the dude, even though I have a complicated history with his music. Loved the original Bat Out of Hell when I was a kid, played the shit out of a cassette copy my parents had. But the sequel came out when I was in high school and represented everything I hated at that age, so I turned on him when "I Won't Do That" became ubiquitous. Revisited it about 10 years ago or so and found the OTT approach weirdly charming. Definitely an interesting cat.

had no idea he was a COVID denier, so RIP and fuck you.

"You got paid?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyeyqSFdMhg

Meat-Loaf-dies-cause-of-death-bat-out-of-hell

His family doesn't appear to be vaccine skeptics:

Meat Loaf’s daughter Pearl Aday posted on Instagram on Jan. 7 ago that several of her friends and family had recently tested positive. “We are not sick, but we have too many friends and family testing positive right now, positive but doing ok,” she wrote. “Thank their respect for science that they’re all vaxxed, otherwise they’d be way worse.”

Also in one of his rants opposing masks, it seems that he believes N95's do work, complaining that he was angry at the airlines for forcing people to wear "paper" masks which he believed were comparatively useless. (They're not useless - catching, say, sneeze or cough droplets does make a substantial difference, but to be fair they are less effective than N95's, something already made clear in the medical community with regards to airborne viruses long before COVID.) But he called people enforcing the policies Nazis and complained it was a power grab so he's basically that kind of guy.

Also, pretty consistent Republican - red flag - and former Trump TV apprentice/pal, so ...

Yeah, it seems to be a familiar situation. I know plenty of families dealing with elderly Fox News viewing members who keep spouting this shit, i.e. the ones everyone's most worried about due to age and health concerns, and yet they're also the only ones being jerks about the whole situation. In most cases they manage to get them vaccinated, but it depends on the family dynamic. (The NY Times profiled one evangelical Trump-loving nut in I believe Virginia who harangued her family into not getting vaccinated even after her elderly father almost died from COVID.)

My friend who worked at MTV in London shared this out today - https://vimeo.com/134303457

This was mentioned over in the Rolling Obit thread...

pic.twitter.com/7aOahATwmR

— SNL Hosts Introducing the Musical Guest (@snlhostsintro) January 21, 2022

The whole episode is streaming on Peacock.

I have a deep fondness for Meat Loaf. A story:

I was up at the hobo museum near Mt. Shasta where we were to be caretakers later that year, but it was late September and the first cold weather of the season had moved in. I just happened to be around working on some projects and taking time off work. Two friends stopped by for the night on their way out to the coast to trim weed, and there were some other folks around. I'd say altogether, there were about 9 or 10 of us on the property, all punks and old train bums and problematic tweaker types.

We were in the old barn, everyone gathered by the stove or playing pool while Mikey and Mike worked on some carpentry project. We were all drinking beer and Evan Williams, and a few people were smoking PCP and getting real lit up.

In the midst of all of this, there was a sort of torrid love affair coming to an end between my friends Grizelda and Cody. They'd been on-again-off-again for years, and they were both extremely loaded, as was I, when "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" came on the barn's enormous and loud stereo. We were sort fooling around, dancing, and then Cody said to Griz, "Heeler time," and the two of them sort of herded me into a corner, sort of playing it off like it was a dance, and I sort of played along. In the meantime, Meat Loaf was just belting it out, yknow, everyone was singing along drunkenly, the dogs could barely keep their heads up because it was 2:30 am and they'd been running around all day.

In any case, I tried to escape the corner, but they kept triangulating around me, sort of dancing menacingly but also in a weirdly desirous way, sort of like predators stalking prey. We were dancing for a while in this way and I was getting more and more uncomfortable, because while I found and find both Griz and Cody to be pretty hot, I didn't want to get involved in some weird sex shit with them...and they were also high as pterodactyl dick. Eventually, the song ended, and I sort of rushed through them to see my friend Jenn to her cabin.

Loved the song before, but now it's sort of branded into my memory because of this strange incident, which even at the time seemed like something from a dream or a nightmare, and now seems like it happened in a different lifetime.

"GLOWING LIKE THE METAL
ON THE EDGE OF A KNIFE"

Indeed.

that is a great memory tabes <3

when an old high school friend turned 21 she had a big party at this old school campground with cabins & a mess hall so we could stay overnight & party til dawn etc
She was a drama student & had an older brother who was also an ex drama student, but he was way older than all of us, he was probably 30 or 35 at the time. huge guy, built like a wrestler - he was the nicest, coolest dude. He also instilled my friend, probably since she was born, a love of Meat Loaf

so both of them loving a performance, they pulled 2 chairs into the middle of the hall & acted out “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” lipsnced word for word right down to the play by play interluude

it was awesome, i never forgot it

(it also occured to me later that it was weird to perform THAT song with your brother? lol.)

I was up at the hobo museum near Mt. Shasta where we were to be caretakers later that year

this is a great first line for a novel

yes, would read!

Also a great opener for a Bizarre World early Springsteen track.

White House dodges on critical question: https://t.co/SJwDP42Gsr

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) January 21, 2022

Meat Loaf

Insane Clown Posse

RIP Meat Loaf. You’ll never use siqqq album art to trick children into listening to showtunes again. pic.twitter.com/TSUBSJjgbq

— Joe Thrashnkill (@JoeThrashnkill) January 21, 2022

Yeah, I heard his music way the hell after seeing those album covers, and definitely went, "Huh?".

That said, was listening to "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad" today, and am thinking about how it's sort of the prototype for the '80s Hair Metal Power Ballad.

really feeling For Crying Out Loud today

https://www.loudersound.com/features/meat-loaf-a-flying-wheelchair-and-the-greatest-story-ever-told

That first cover definitely reminded me of the "Psychomania" movie.

It's a matching cover for the LP title, but has nothing to do with the song itself.

1/ Didn't come with this straight away so I didn't feel like I was shitting on Meat Loaf, who I kinda rooted for despite his music and, well his entire career being the avatar example of Sludge, as described by @timmidyett and co-author Tom Kipp here https://t.co/lheEsFKDL9

— steve albini (@electricalWSOP) January 22, 2022

Ridiculous article

The thread or the essay? I didn't read the essay but the Albini thread is funny.

The essay

xp He could have done it in 3 or 4 tweets

(also – "Didn't come with this straight away..."; he waited an entire day before sharing his red-hot Meat Loaf story?)

LMAO, yeah it took a long detour into his work (or inability to work), but it created an unpredictable build-up that made the story funnier.

Unrelated to Meat Loaf, but my next big writing project is indeed a novel set in the Mt. Shasta area.

The essay on sludge linked to by Albini contains one troubling line.

It speaks of Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" as a choogle.

My understanding from ilm is that the only entity that has ever choogled is CCR. Could it be that this is a non-Creedence instance of chooglin'?

lol i also noticed that

I was annoyed that a guy who apparently reveres 50s music didn't trace that staccato piano intro he describes to New Orleans / Fats Domino.

Mississippi Queen is more of a thud than a choogle. Only CCR ever truly choogled. And to get back to the topic at hand, Meat Loaf didn't even try to.

Mississippi Queen is without a doubt butt rock, but it does not choogle. Or boogie, for that matter. Meat Loaf doesn't choogle, either, and he's not butt rock, but I'm pretty sure he does occasionally boogie. Unless I'm thinking of Rocky Horror.

I dunno what you call Mississippi Queen but whatever it is it fucking rules

"Mississippi Queen" is one of the great cowbell songs, and CCR is one of the great cowbell bands.

I don't think a cowbell has ever featured in a Meat Loaf song. Except maybe the ones he sang for Ted Nugent.

I knew I could count on this board to defend the semantic borders of choogleville

I'm not a fan of the guy's music, but he's been a good presence in some commendable films:

I don’t keep pictures from films around home. But I have this one in my office in a frame bc it makes me smile every time. It’s engraved ‘Love and Hugs, Meat’ it sums him up well. He was so funny. And gentle. And warm to everyone. A sweet soul. RIP Meat Loaf pic.twitter.com/aMrIgXByEc

— Edward Norton (@EdwardNorton) January 21, 2022

'i would do anything' is kind of a great* song but i ruined it for myself by making the opening piano bit the ringtone for when my mom calls

(basically whenever my mom calls i instantly assume something awful has happened)

There's a lot RONG with the "sludge" piece but RIP Meat Loaf so I'll focus on this:

Lyrically, misbegotten approximations of personal detail in Sludge are so epidemic and easy to demonstrate, it is nearly a trivial point. To wit:

I remember every little thing
As if it happened only yesterday
Parking by the lake
And there was not another car in sight
And I never had a girl
Looking any better than you did
And all the kids at school
They were wishing they were me that night

And now our bodies are oh so close and tight
It never felt so good, it never felt so right
And we're glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife

Though it's cold and lonely in the deep dark night
I can see paradise by the dashboard light
"Paradise by the Dashboard Light"
Written by Jim Steinman
Performed by Meat Loaf

Steinman's tropes are self-evidently not autobiographical. They lack either fine detail or plain-spoken restraint—hallmarks of a prototypical non-Sludge Everyman like Bruce Springsteen, who is well-schooled in the art of either elevating a cliche or letting it lie. Steinman cannot be bothered with meaningful minutiae, and he cannot resist making everything ABSOLUTE. EVERY little thing. NO OTHER CARS. NEVER had a girl. ALL the kids at school. NEVER felt so good. NEVER felt so right. The bid for mass communication is as obvious as skywriting, and it is surfeited by the overwhelmingly bombastic arrangement and production of the album (Bat Out of Hell) (sold 25 million copies) (still big...in Belgium).

The point of the song is that it flips these cliches on their head - it's a flashback to when the boy wasn't thinking about minutiae or nuance, he was completely riven by hormones and made a promise he didn't mean - and the punchline is that now he's trapped in a miserable marriage with someone he can't stand and "praying for the end of time". Attack it for being campy as hell in its comic melodrama but it's not delivering cliched bombast straight like a Bryan Adams ballad might.

it’s v dumb to decry it for lack of autobiography or meaningful minutiae

steinman is pure text, no subtext.
his entire ouevre is “And Then I Kissed Him” performed by a brass band AND symphony orchestra with a smokemachine & live doves

i mean, it’s as-advertised. whatever it’s lacking was never promised & that is 100% of it’s appeal, for me anywat

*anyway

Well yeah, also not all songwriting needs to be confessional insight.

And they're obviously demonstrably wrong about this repeated claim, with regards to a lot of the artists they cite as sludge (Boston, Journey, Toto, Oasis, Smashing Pumpkins):

Sludge artists enjoy success that is by definition transient, if in fact they enjoy it at all. In 1971, Grand Funk Railroad was the most popular American rock band. In 1978, Foreigner's Double Vision vastly outsold the Rolling Stones' Some Girls (the Stones' best-selling album to that time), and in 1981, Foreigner's 4 outsold Tattoo You. In 1983, Journey was the most popular American rock band. Yet in 2003, these acts' once-stunning success has vanished, except in the memories of the diehard loyalists most deeply affected by their generalized profferings. None of these three bands retain major-label record deals. They have failed to enjoy the continued prosperity of Aerosmith or KISS—...

If the popularity of specific Sludge acts is abjectly fleeting, however, the hold of Sludge in general is fast through time. Today, acts as diverse as Oasis and Linkin Park, to name the first two that occur to me as I type this, unwittingly fly the Sludge banner. In a few years, no one will pay any attention to either one of them, and new Sludge acts will have taken their place.

The Sludge act has a brief shelf life...

Trudge bands.

They sell loads, they trudge around doing tours, they get megarich but seemingly are level headed enough to decide one day: Hey, am rich enough - time to stop trudging.

So, they jump off the trudge and settle for the low-key.

And one day they are less famous. And they are pleased.

Of course.

clearly this is a different usage of the word 'sludge' than I'm used to.

unless Steinman/Meat Loaf had an album that sounded like Yob

Just skimmed it, but that "sludge" essay seems like a good answer to the question "what was rockism?"

I feel like you have to move in certain circles to think people don't still like Foreigner. I would venture to say the singles from Double Vision and 4 continue to be more popular than the singles from the Stones albums they outsold. When was the last time you heard "Start Me Up"?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jan/24/warm-loving-generous-but-he-had-demons-inside-the-life-of-meat-loaf

I would venture to say the singles from Double Vision and 4 continue to be more popular than the singles from the Stones albums they outsold.

100 percent I hear those Foreigner singles more often on the local '80s oldies stations than "Start Me Up" or "She's So Cold."

Real Gone reissues Stoney & Meatloaf:

https://realgonemusic.com/collections/cd/products/stoney-and-meatloaf-everything-under-the-sun-2-cd-set