Bat Out of Hell

其貌不扬的Meat Loaf (Marvin Lee Aday)样子也许确实有点像Meat Loaf，但唱的可真不赖。Meat Loaf在推出这张专辑之前已经多年没有发片，结果这张经典专辑在一开始居然找不到制作人，好在Todd Rundgren慧眼识英雄，在预算遭到唱片公司打压的情况下仍然坚持为Meat Loaf制作了这张专辑，优雅华丽无比，同时又十分热烈。虽然专辑并没有马上大红大紫，甚至也没有进入top 10的单曲，但却日益吸引了越来越多的听众，目前全美销量已经达到1400万张。

这张专辑在滚石杂志选出的500张历代最强专辑中排名第343位。

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

There is no other album like Bat out of Hell, unless you want to count the sequel. This is Grand Guignol pop -- epic, gothic, operatic, and silly, and it's appealing because of all of this. Jim Steinman was a composer without peer, simply because nobody else wanted to make mini-epics like this. And there never could have been a singer more suited for his compositions than Meat Loaf, a singer partial to bombast, albeit shaded bombast. The compositions are staggeringly ridiculous, yet Meat Loaf finds the emotional core in each song, bringing true heartbreak to "Two out of Three Ain't Bad" and sly humor to "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." There's no discounting the production of Todd Rundgren, either, who gives Steinman's self-styled grandiosity a production that's staggeringly big but never overwhelming and always alluring. While the sentiments are deliberately adolescent and filled with jokes and exaggerated clichés, there's real (albeit silly) wit behind these compositions, not just in the lyrics but in the music, which is a savvy blend of oldies pastiche, show tunes, prog rock, Springsteen-esque narratives, and blistering hard rock (thereby sounding a bit like an extension of Rocky Horror Picture Show, which brought Meat Loaf to the national stage). It may be easy to dismiss this as ridiculous, but there's real style and craft here and its kitsch is intentional. It may elevate adolescent passion to operatic dimensions, and that's certainly silly, but it's hard not to marvel at the skill behind this grandly silly, irresistible album.