Meat Loaf

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