Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose
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CD Details
Artist: Meat LoafEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2006-10-31
Music Label: Virgin Records Us
Soundtracks:
- The Monster Is Loose
- Blind As a Bat
- It's All Coming Back To Me Now
- Bad For Good
- Cry Over Me
- In The Land of the Pig, The Butcher Is King
- Monstro
- Alive
- If God Could Talk
- If It Ain't Broke Break It
- What About Love
- Seize the Night
- The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
- Cry To Heaven
Music reviews of Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose
Music Review: DIY, Meat Loaf style
Rating: 3 Stars
I first reviewed Bat Out Of Hell 3 on Amazon shortly after its release. One year on and many more listens later I wanted to do a double take on Bat Out Of Hell 3, minus the rose-tinted glasses I had on first time around. I couldn't help myself after all I'm a big fan, listening to a new Meat Loaf album, with 'new' Jim Steinman songs, why would it not be worthy of anything but five stars?
POSITIVE: Meat Loaf is singing better than ever. Pulling of the likes of "Blind As A Bat" is nothing short of remarkable. "Blind As A Bat" is the standout song on Bat Out Of Hell 3, verging on being one of the best songs Meat Loaf has ever recorded. It was written by James Michael and Nikki Sixx. There are other songs too: "Alive" and "What About Love", both worthy of being on a Bat album and both incidentally were not written by Steinman.
Meat salvages older Steinman songs like "Bad For Good" and "It's All Coming Back To Me" from previous Steinman projects and he succeeds in making them his own, even if they do lack the rawness of their predecessors. Desmond Child is on the production helm and holds this mighty ship together with plenty of bells and whistles. "Monstero" is an organ fuelled overture and is of the substance that Bat albums are made off. Many of the original Bat Out Of Hell musicians, including Todd Rundgren, turn out for this grand outing. Nikki Sixx and John 5 are on here too. Brian May makes an interesting if somewhat pointless appearance for the opening of "Bad For Good". Some of Meat Loaf's long standing road band get the opportunity to dazzle, none more so than Patti Russo who makes her last outing as Meat Loaf's other half for "What About Love". Patti Russo should have taken the lead for all female vocals, no one else comes close to her. Try searching the internet for a leaked version of Russo singing "The Future Aint What It Used To Be" - let's hope she graces more Steinman songs with her voice.
NEGATIVE: Don't be fooled. The extent of Steinman's involvement in Bat Out Of Hell 3 was principally the lawsuit Meat Loaf filed against him over the right to use the Bat Out Of Hell title. OK so Steinman has allowed Meat Loaf to use his older material, plus a couple of newly penned cast-offs. Funny, but in the 1980's/early 1990's Meat Loaf could be heard slagging Steinman for writing "Bad For Good" claiming that Steinman was pandering to the whims of the record companies who were looking for "another Bat Out Of Hell", but it now appears that when Meat Loaf is in desperate need of Steinman songs to record for Bat Out Of Hell 3, he seems to forget his moral standing on this matter and suddenly "Bad For Good" is good enough for him to record. "In The Land Of The Pigs" and "If It Aint Broke Break It" succeed only on the typically punchy Steinman titles; lyrically and musically they are pointless rants. "Seize The Night" is essentially a sloppy recycle job of "Good Girls Go To Heaven."
It's nothing against Steinman or his most recent writings. Steinman had more tracks for Bat Out Of Hell 3 and of the calibre that you'd expect from this musical genius: "What Part Of My Body Hurts The Most" and "(It Hurts) Only When I Feel" were even performed live by Meat Loaf who claimed they would be recorded for Bat Out Of Hell 3. However, Steinman is a canny guy and he wasn't going to be pressurised into jumping through Meat Loaf's hoops when delivering the final Bat album. Unfortunately for us we'll probably never hear Meat Loaf record these Steinman songs, but the leftovers on Bat Out Of Hell 3 will undoubtedly suffice the marketing machine, or at least make it OK to slap on a sticker boasting "new songs by Jim Steinman".
Desmond Childs production is alright, but it's not Jim Steinman, and the result can sometimes be an overproduced sound reminiscent of early 1990's pop/rock. Diane Warren shows up to contribute "Cry Over Me", but it has no place on Bat Out Of Hell 3, even on an album like this that is a little disjointed at the best of times, the song is simply dire. Patti Russo has been sidelined in favour of two other female vocalists for the remaining duets. You'd think that Meat Loaf would have worked out that after thirteen years that Russo can't be topped. (Now Russo has been dropped from the band you can't help wondering if the Loaf is on some irrational power trip or is shamefully and uncharacteristically crawling to the record label suits). In the end it looks like Steinman is having the final laugh by allowing Meat Loaf to record "Cry To Heaven" as the albums closing track - as if it were meant to be another "Lost Boys And Golden Girls" or "Heaven Can Wait". Sadly it is neither, and by the time some whistles are thrown into the mix, the sentiment is vomit inducing.
IN CONCLUSION: Bat Out Of Hell 3 is fine enough but it's not the album it should have been. It's not what it says on the tin. I would however pay the full price just to hear "Blind As A Bat" but in essence Bat Out Of Hell 3 is cobbled together. In all fairness to Meat Loaf he's cobbled it together with some of the finest musicians in the business, a testament perhaps to the mighty dollar, but it doesn't make it right. It's your call to decide what a Bat album should be to you.
But when all is said and done, Meat Loaf is still one of the greatest performers of all time; the master of all things over the top and the king of thrilling rock and this perhaps makes it easy to be critical when certain elements of his work don't quite come up to par. Regardless of what Meat Loaf does he will undoubtedly remain, as he does here, in his own league.
Description of Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose
Bat Out of Hell III is Meat Loaf?s long-awaited 3rd installment of the most successful rock music series of all time, with the two previous albums selling a total of 45 million copies around the world. Bat Out of Hell, released in 1977 and produced by Todd Rundgren, is the third best-selling album of all time, with 30 million copies sold worldwide, featuring such Meat Loaf/Jim Steinman standards as "Two Out of Three Ain?t Bad," "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth" and the show-stopping "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights."The Steinman-produced Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, which came out in 1993, has sold more than 15 million, with the classic "I?d Do Anything for Love (But I Won?t Do That)," earning Meat Loaf a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance.
Bat Out of Hell III continues the epic story in grand fashion, with contributions once again from Steinman and Rundgren, and produced by hitmaker Desmond Child. Bat Out of Hell III marks the triumphant return of the Bat Out of Hell saga, completing this remarkable trilogy!
The long-awaited third record in the Bat Out of Hell trilogy, The Monster Is Loose, wears bombast, pretension, and pyrotechnics proudly on its album sleeve and across the bulging disc's 14 tracks. More a pop orchestral mishmash than a well-defined rock opus, Bat III is dark, seemingly hopeless at times, and über dramatic. Oddly enough, that's also its saving grace. Meat Loaf and company create a great escape into the realm of grand theatricality, with a bunch of radio-friendly rock tunes that sound 20 years old, and several lyrically memorable AOR ballads to sustain it all the way to Broadway. With collaborator (and occasional defendant in Meat Loaf lawsuits) Jim Steinman, producers Desmond Child and Todd Rundgren, the Meat man consistently has the big sound booming and his despair and his rage on to the point that listeners may feel his pain a little too often. Bat III ain't for sissies. Balanced by the powerful female voices of Marion Raven, Patti Russo, and Jennifer Hudson; along with guest musicians and songwriting help from Steve Vai, Marilyn Manson's John 5, Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx, Queen's Brian May, and others; Meat Loaf's Monster has roared the unlikely rock star back to life like a bat out of Baghdad. --Martin Keller
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