LogFAQs > #955494565

1. Paradise by the Dashboard Light
2. Two Out of Three Ain't Bad
3. You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)
4. Bat Out of Hell
5. All Revved Up with No Place to Go
6. Heaven Can Wait
7. For Crying Out Loud

Love, love, love this album. A perfect rock opera front to back, gleefully and earnestly mixing hard rock, 50s rock and roll, heavy metal imagery, the corny cheese of hair metal before hair metal was a thing, and pop lyrics for songs that are given a grand, epic sense of scope as if they can fill an opera hall, but are unabashedly songs about the teenage experience both as it pertains to the 1970s and to the present day offering timeless messages that will always be relevant for any kid going through adolescent heartbreak. No else but Meat Loaf could infuse these songs with the passionate, manic energy needed to make them work, and to think he was already 30 friggin' years old when this album came out; but, there's no Dawson Casting here, you believe every word that comes out of Meat Loaf's mouth, with only added credibility from having 12 years of adult experience best shown in my favorite track from the album and its most famous, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, in which Meat Loaf, in a magical night of "getting lucky", must subsequently wrestle with the next 60 years of his life in the blink of an eye as his partner wishes for something more than a one night stand. With a 50s rock and roll feel, prog. rock excess with a baseball radio broadcast serving as a not-too-subtle innuendo for the scene, and both Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley each taking a turn at commanding the track, it feels like the perfect encapsulation of the romantic experience and an incredible anti-duet. Two Out of Three Ain't Bad is my favorite ML vocal performance on the album, with a lulling soft rock atmosphere and some of the best lyric writing on the album too. The spoken word intro of Hot Summer Night feels like it should be placed underneath a DeviantArt Sonic Unleashed werewolf fan drawing, it's the maximum Gothic edgelord piece, and yet it works because it feels so genuine when placed into the context of the album, when your a teenager and your relationship with someone else feels earth-shatteringly important. INCREDIBLE instrumentation on this track too. Bat Out of Hell is the most metal-influenced track on this album, with memorable riffs and teen tragedy storytelling updated for the 70s. Revved Up is a little forgettable but I still enjoy it, especially how it speeds up in the outro. I'm not too keen on the slow ballads, though I do enjoy Meat Loaf's vocal performances on them and Heaven Can Wait still possesses some solid songwriting, but outside of the album context I don't find myself playing them often.

I've known this album since I was little, my parents play it all the time, and so I definitely have a bias and soft spot for it. However, I genuinely think this album is an incredible piece of musical storytelling, fun rockin' riffs, songs you can belt your heart out too, and even songs that will make you tear up at life's downer moments. An essential piece of the 70s hard rock canon.

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I've decided to put my fears behind me. I'm not going back.
https://imgur.com/a/du8zgsT - https://imgur.com/a/VTNzDEW