Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell

If you don't own this, you are WRONG!

This is one of the best epic rock albums ever... right up next to his other great performances. Amazing music, drive, emotion, and imagery unparalleled by just about any other artist out there. Absolutely amazing!

Side note: Read his epic autobiography too... I'm a sci-fi and fantasy fan, but reading his story was amazing as I had a rough past too. Nice to see someone else overcome the odds in real life! :-) June 18, 2008

Great album

Simply great, if you're a meat loaf fan, this cd is for you, arrived in perfect cnditions April 8, 2008

Great purchase

I have been looking for this item retail, but I could never find it. I purchased it through Amazon, and it was BETTER than going through retail. February 29, 2008

Magic in that belfry

Given that a sequel to the original Bat out of Hell took Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman some 15 years to make, it is amazing just how close to the blueprint part two holds. Not like both parties had not tried and missed before. There was Meat Loaf's BooH follow-up, Dead Ringer, in which our hero had lost his voice and Todd Rundgren's sympathetic production. Then there was what was supposed to be Meat's follow-up until Steinman hijacked it as a solo LP, Bad for Good, where it was made terribly obvious why such a gifted songwriter as Steinman needed the dramatic vocals of Meat.

Very telling is that, 12 years on, Steinman and Meat resurrected 4 of "Bad for Good's" songs for "BooH2." While Meat had some success without Steinman, hearing these re-recorded songs shows just how much they need each other to both achieve optimum performance. That is what they got on "Bat out of Hell II." Meat brings on the drama while Steinman pours on the Broadway. Steinman had already carved out his space as a producer of melodramatic adult contemporary hits (Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow, Air Supply, Bonnie Tyler, etc), while Meat was still huge in Europe and fondly remembered stateside for "Bat out of Hell" the first. Given that this was the duo's first collaboration in the CD era, it also meant that they could let there excesses run unchecked. That first hit, "I Would Do Anything For Love" clocked in on the album at twelve minutes, and another hit, "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" hit ten.

They marketed it as an event and succeeded by giving a nostalgic audience exactly what they came for. Loud rock with operatic Springsteen overtones? Check. Huge wall of sound ballads? Check and double check, Hokey teenage melodrama? Mega-check, especially the playlet "Love and Death and an American Guitar" from "Bad For Good" (here as the introduction to "Wasted Youth"). As Meat intoned 15 years before on "You Took The Words Out of My Mouth," the wolf appeared with the red roses, and America offered up a collective throat. The album and the single went to number one (something the original never managed) and it bought Meat Loaf a permanent place on the rock scene.

But does it still hold up? The answer is yes. For all the trickery and bombast, "Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back" still rages hard. "Wasted Youth" can make you pump a fist a time or two, and "I Would Do Anything for Love" stands as one of Steinman's best mini-operas. That is not to say a few checks on the excess would not have been prudent; "Out of The Frying Pan" is filler, and the stagy instrumental "Back Into Hell" is unnecessary. Nevertheless, "Bat Out Of Hell II" is a worthy successor to its namesake, and for memorable than most of Meat's output between these bookends. Get Bats one and two (and skip three), and you've got the essential Meat Loaf. November 27, 2007

jaw dropping.

This album is a masterpiece and one of the most important rock albums ever made along with Bat Our Of Hell 1. This album is the meaning of life. It's all here the bible on audio cd. October 14, 2007

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