Especially for RockFenris
Meatloaf got a mention!!!!
shareHa! Thanks. Missed last night's episode too. Was planning on catching up with everything tonight.
shareHaha. That explains why you hadn't posted owt about it.
share"The biggest comeback since Meat Loaf". That was particularly cool! They were referring to "Bat out of Hell 2" in 1993, and the single "I'd do anything for love (But I won't do that)", the first time Jim and Meat had done an album together in 10 years. This was massive back in the day. Was hoping something *sort of* similar would happen with "Braver than we are" now, because that's NOW the first time they've done an album since "Bat 2", but I don't think it really worked out that way. I thought it just might... (I still think it probably could if "Who needs the young?" went viral. Seriously, check that one out. You'll be like WTF? I love it.) But music seems to have moved on a bit *too* much, I don't know. It's actually done pretty well in some places. He's still going to make a video.
I'm still getting over the fact that not only did Meat and Jim make another album together, but Dee's coming back to "Neighbours". Just ONE of these things actually happening is nuts, but in the same year??? So cool.
I caught that line too :) I love it. Meat Loaf was one of the first celebs who I was aware shared my birthday (though he's a couple of decades older). But I do wish it could've come back. I'll definitely check out the video and I'm getting the album in about a week!
I know what you mean about music moving on a bit much, though.
I'm getting more excited about Dee every day!
I know loads of RL people who share my birthday. No celebs though.
I loved Meatloaf when I was a kid, the 1993 times and as Eddie in Rocky Horror. I've always loved him in interviews too.
I need to check out his new stuff.
I share my birthday with Delta Goodrem, and she's a year older. Love that. Thought "Born to try" was so epic back in the day. I have to listen to her new one again, the one she played during the 30th. I thought that was amazing.
TODAY (how's this for timing?) is also 39 years to THE DAY "Bat out of Hell" was released in 1977, but not as many people actually knew that at the time because... They'd had a hell of a time trying to get anyone to sign them. They had the whole album in the can, same album as we know today, but they needed a bigger label to put it out because they'd gone over budget with it. Warner's were going to release it, on the condition that they wouldn't do any promotion. They might as well have rejected them. Eventually they get signed to Cleveland International, and through them EPIC who'd turned it down anyway. The president of Epic played the album and said "I don't get it!!!" drove out to Cape Cod and threw it into the sea. They just didn't want to get behind it.
Meat and the band spent ten months trying to break it. They were treated like the Beatles down here in Australia, one of the first places it broke (and then the *beep* with the AFL recently :( They went back to America and Jim said one of the upstairs toilets was leaking over him through the ceiling while they were playing at some club. Finally, they get a gig at the CBS Record convention and Meat sings "For crying out loud" and the whole room ends up going crazy (check out the song again and you'll probably see why.) Billy Joel's up on the table. That's around 1978? The album BREAKS and everything goes NUTS.
Meat nearly drove himself mad trying to make it work. As a result of all the strain, and the touring, he ended up losing his singing voice altogether. The record company wants them to make "Bat out of Hell 2" more or less about two years later, and Meat can't sing!!!
He's a great role model to me for anyone who's got a fight on their hands. Just look at Meat. Even when he made it, he couldn't sing the second album and ended up getting sued by everyone, but he kept going. He's still not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame now, and look what happened with the AFL here. He kept going.
I love Delta as well - never saw her as Nina but I think she's a wonderful singer.
Such great timing. Oh wow, that is a hell of a story behind the album. Oh I can see why that song drove people crazy. I always knew Billy Joel had good taste (I love his music too).
I remember reading about his voice going like that. I think that was why it did take so long for Bat 2 to come out, maybe? Or at least a good part of it?
He is amazing - in ways I didn't know before now.
I think he'll end up in the Hall Of Fame. He's one who definitely should.
I forget who I read wasn't in it for ages who I was thinking should have been... but it was someone who it seemed like should have been long before, so Meat would be in good company. Maybe it was Bobby Darin? Someone from back in that era.
Jim ended up writing Meat another album at the time, because Meat couldn't deal with the songs anymore, and Jim recorded the other album instead. BOTH albums were released in the same year, Jim's album "Bad for good" with the single "Rock and roll dreams come through" (which isn't actually Jim singing, but Rory who sang on "Total eclipse of the heart" with Bonnie Tyler), and Meat's album "Dead ringer". Meat and Cher did the single together "Dead ringer for love". It was a hit in the UK, but America... That's where the star faded. Then Meat was being sued left right and centre, and they had to declare bankruptcy so they didn't get sued again. Poor bugger. Meat kept making albums in the 80s, but nothing really on that level again... until Meat and Jim reunited for "Bat 2". That gave him a real second wind... And then "Bat 3" happened in 2006... Meat and Jim, again, were supposed to do that together, but it all fell apart due to reasons, and it ended up with about 7 of Jim's songs mostly covers (including "It's all coming back to me now") and other songwriters. But they've done "Braver" now, so good.
Love Billy Joel's music too. Billy was going to sign a contract for a record deal one day, but he got off on the wrong floor and ended up meeting with these other people instead. That was the album "Cold spring harbor" which got mastered at the wrong speed, so Billy sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks (he yanked it off the turntable and threw it down the street), toured around for months, didn't even see copies in the stores. Eventually he just got fed up and walked away, disappeared... He started working as a bar pianist, under the name Bill Martin, which is where he wrote "Piano Man". Columbia Records ended up hearing one of his songs and the rest is history. But first they had to deal with the other label. The other label got their name on the next ten albums!!!
This is all so fascinating - I love music trivia and history. I guess guys like this aren't quite at the point of history of people like the Stones and the Beatles yet, so there isn't so much out there about them.
Oh that was an awful album, but at least we got "Piano Man" out of it, I love that song so much.
Meat had signed a three album deal in the 80s and he'd done two albums for them. Then suddenly Meat and Jim are talking about "Bat 2" and they're like, "As if they won't go for this? This could be huge." Jim had been working on the album. So Meat goes into the meeting with these guys. They call together this huge meeting and Meat flies out there. He goes into the room, pitches it and... They turn the whole thing down. "It's too big. It's too expensive. Jim's too expensive and he's difficult." Meat walked out on them. They spent years working on the album and ended up going four times over budget. And then...... and if you think about it, it was a gamble.
I have a real thing for "Cold spring harbor" actually, but there are two versions. They didn't just correct the speed, when they reissued it (which is the version most people have), but they remixed songs as well, and Billy wasn't involved. So if you go back and listen to the vinyl from the 70s, "Tomorrow is today" actually has a whole orchestra for example. "You can make me free" is five minutes longer!!! No IDEA why they changed that.
I know like two RL people and probably five or six celebs I know anything about.
I loved him in Rocky Horror so much and he seems like such a cool guy in interviews. I love the gothic sensibility he has, too.
I do as well, but I'll be at the big CD place in a week so that's when I'll get it.
Yeah, he's like a casual/natural goth. It's not an affectation.
That is one hell of story.
Did a google, I share it with Bill Clinton, Coco Chanel, and Matthew Perry. Eclectic enough to disprove astrology.
Exactly, yes.
Isn't it?
Oh that's interesting!
My others that I remember are Shaun Cassidy, Barbara Dickson and Avril Lavigne (and my not being able to sing a note is also a disproof of astrology), Gwyneth Paltrow and Denis Lawson.
Avril Lavigne ain't much of a singer, maybe this astrology lark is all true afterall-haha.
shareCould be, though she can still do better than I can!
shareTo be fair, I don't know much about her. She could be a fabulous vocalist.
I just hated skater boi for its syntax, triteness, and catchiness. Plus I kinda like being mean, sometimes.
Oh gawdd, as much as I like "I'm with you" is as much as I DON'T like "Skater boy".
shareHer other songs are so much better in my opinion. Even Complicated is a bit more nuanced.
shareCan't say I'm surprised. I have a thing for "B sides" or "lesser known" songs. Wish they would get their glory too. How many people know Jim's "Total eclipse of the heart"? But check out "It just won't quit" from "Bat 2". I WISH THAT WAS HUGE.
shareI like some hits but some are... very overplayed, to be polite about it.
shareI should You Tube it at some point.
shareI love Jim Steinman's songs. Major fan! He started out in theatre, writing a big epic three hour rock musical in college, with nudity and killer nuns haha, and Joseph Papp from the New York Shakespeare Festival was invited to the show. Joe who produced "Hair" and "A Chorus Line" signed it up and they were going to do it at the Shakespeare Festival the following year. But it never ended up happening due to problems. Jim wrote the score for "More than you deserve", which was a dark musical comedy about Vietnam, and Meat Loaf was at the auditions which is how they met. And the rest is history...
Jim came back to the theatre in the 90s when he collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the musical "Whistle down the wind", which is where "No matter what" Boyzone actually comes from. So yes, in case you didn't know, Andrew and Jim wrote that. Then Jim wrote music for "Dance of the Vampires" in Vienna, which was directed by Roman Polanski based on his movie of the same name from the 60s. Jim used his famous hit "Total eclipse of the heart" (which had originally evolved from his college musical) as the love duet in Act Two. Then Warner Brothers hired Jim to write the score for "Batman: The Musical", which Tim Burton was actually involved with at one point, but it ended up getting cancelled. "Dance of the Vampires" was brought to Broadway, in a silly new version, with Michael Crawford in the lead, where it bombed... spectacularly. (Yes, Crawford sang "Total eclipse of the heart"!).
Now "Bat out of Hell: The Musical" has just been announced for Manchester and London 2017. THAT in some way will be connected to his career long opus, NEVERLAND, which is a futuristic scifi rock musical version of Peter Pan, e.g. Peter and the Lost Boys sing "All revved up with no place to go" and Wendy sings "Heaven can wait", etc. etc. "It's all coming back to me now" is Wendy as an older woman looking back, while Peter remains young.
Your knowledge,as ever, is astounding.
I live just over 30 mins, by public transport, journey away from Manchester. So, if you can afford the flight and need digs my door is open, I've a spare room.
Bring Ben Matt too - teehee!
So long as you're OK with dogs I have a wee pooch,called Matilda. So good Aussie name!
The boyzone fact is very interesting.
shareIt was released at the time on a celebrity concept album for the show. So you had the Boyzone track, Tina Arena doing the title track, Tom Jones, Elaine Paige, Donny Osmond, even The Everly Brothers, Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler (of course), Boy George, and so on. You want to check out the Meat track, "A kiss is a terrible thing to waste". It's like "Phantom of the Opera" versus "Bat out of Hell", like Batman vs Superman (which is how I see the whole ALW/JS collaboration haha.) I just love it. Huge orchestra & rock band going hell for leather, with Meat singing, and then Bonnie joins in!
shareI think I've heard the Bonnie Tyler track if that's the one she did at the ALW 50th birthday concert (or Royal
Albert Hall celebration). I loved her song and I loved the Boyzone one as well.
Close! The Bonnie Tyler track (Tire tracks and broken hearts) is reprised in "A kiss is a terrible thing to waste" with Meat Loaf. The Royal Albert Hall Celebration disc is also where Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sings "The heart is slow to learn", which was a preview at that time from the sequel to "The Phantom of the Opera", which eventually got done a couple years ago as "Love never dies". But it was cancelled at the time, of that DVD, and Andrew reused the music in his next show "The Beautiful Game", his musical with Ben Elton. That became the single "Our kind of love" sung by Hannah Waddingham (if you watch "Game of Thrones", she played Septa Unella, the woman who kept yelling "Shame" in Cersei's walk of shame). But then Andrew reannounced the sequel and re-REUSED the music, as the title song "Love never dies". "Our kind of love" was THEN dropped from "The Beautiful Game" which was done in a new production with the title "The boys in the photograph".
I always loved the idea of the Phantom disappearing into Manhattan... didn't really like how they did the sequel though script/story wise.
Oh cool! I love the Royal Albert Hall concert - and yes, I was wondering if that song by Dame Kiri had ever turned up in Love Never Dies.
I didn't like the sequel very much, but some parts were done well, and there were some songs I liked. Overall, I think it'd have been better to leave it as it was, though. Also I like Raoul even if he isn't the Phantom, and I really didn't like most of what was done to his character in the sequel.
Yes. I absolutely love the score for it, but the story and the script leave something to be desired I think........ Again, I loved the idea of the Phantom disappearing into Manhattan. If you were trying to start a new life in those days, after you'd done something bad, you probably would have gone to Manhattan where the European officials wouldn't be able to find you all that easily. I loved that. I still do. I wouldn't have brought back any of the original characters except the Phantom. I think they'd suffered enough haha.
shareVery true. I think it would be - I believe there's a book sequel with him doing that, though I haven't read any of the book sequels - or the original novel for that matter. I think I'd have gone more like that. If they really wanted to keep the kid plotline (which I didn't hate in and of itself) have a scene at the end where he's brought to the Phantom (maybe by Madame G in her only scene in the show) and end it there.
share