First listen reactions: I'm a theater nerd, do I like Meat Loaf?

Album: BAT OUT OF HELL (1977)

1. Bat Out of Hell - Starting out with some fast piano then... drums! then .... chunka chunka chunka guitar. I loosely remember hearing he's like a cabaret pop theater kid parody of heavy metal. The Bat Out of Hell album cover is metal as fuck, but it could simultaneously be a perfect 1977 heavy metal album cover or a parody of one: a naked muscleman thrusting into a chopped-out motorcycle wrapped in an animal carcass — or several animal carcasses, or the carcass of some chimera with the skull of a horse and the tail of a wolf — chucking smoke and FLYING out of a graveyard, with a giant screeching hellbat perched on a church, fangs bared and wings raised in protest. It took me 8 minutes to write about the opening notes and the album cover and the song is stil only 4/5 finished. I better go back and re-listen and maybe catch some actual words. The opening of the song, and the description of cabaret pop theater kid heavy metal is pretty much Queen, but Meat Loaf is no Freddie Mercury. So far, I'll call him... competent. Should I be doing cocaine listening to this? No, probably not? That's expensive and if I try to mimic the way these songs were created and first enjoy, I may literally die.

Spotify ad - John Legend talking about Bank of America. I like John and his wife Chrissy, but I don't really know his music

2. You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night) - SEXY WHISPERED POETRY-TALKING BETWEEN MEAT LOAF AND SOME DUSKY VOICED WOMAN INTRO! UNDERTONES OF LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD/WEREWOLF FUCKING! "Will he offer me his mouth?" "Will he offer me his hunger? Will he starve without me?" "Will you offer him your throat?" She pulls off the sexy in the intro, Meat Loaf is... competent. The opening guitars and lyrics—some shit about shooting stars— makes it sound like it's gonna be a let down, but then girl group la-la-la's and woo-woo-woo's tambourine-on-the-hip percussion kick in. More Shangri-La's than Shirelles if you wanna get racial about what kind of girl group vibes but I like em both.It ends with the chorus over handclaps!

3. Heaven Can Wait - Uh oh, oh no, ballad piano. Ballad singing. Ballad strings. 

4. All Revved-Up with No Place to Go - ROCK'N'ROLL SAXOPHONE. Very fifties inflected song about being young and having nothing to do on a Saturday night, but also a very horny song about being "all-revved up" with no one to bone.

5. Two Out of Three Ain't Bad - Another piano ballad. Opening with lyrics "baby we can talk all night". Ugh. Vomit. Abort. This is weak. Did he just rhyme "mountain of rocks" with "Cracker Jack box"? I like that and hate it at the same time, and I wasn't paying attention to the context of the lyrics around it to know which. Skipping ahead in 30 second intervals now cuz life is short.

6. Paradise by the Dashboard Light - This is one of his classics right? Is starts with honky tonk piano? Then a gospel-y chorus. Then a doo-ba-dee upbeat woman singing. Shop-shop-sharoo backup vocals, more black girl group than white girl group this time. I think. Now they're taking over. Forceful r&b singing with harmonizing and Loaf as hype man. It's been a pleasantly-melding disjointed abutments of genres but at about the three minute mark it completely changes, more than before. Jesus Christ Superstar shit into lite funk with a baseball announcer over it? Not the style of a baseball announcer. Like he's talking about baseball. I don't know if he's Harry Carey but he just yelled "holy cow". At the five minute mark it becomes the song I recognize —abridged for radio? abridged for sanity? — some Lita Ford-ass metal-but-not-heavvvvy-metal vocalizing "Will You Love Me? What's it gonna be boy?" Meat Loaf soft rejoinder "Let me sleep on it". She's too good for you, dude. Love her forever! Back and forth rising vocals til they're singing it. Rock guitars and musical theater piano killing it. God I shouldn't ever write about music, I have NO vocabulary for it or insight to it.

Spotify ads for home security, lite beer, petco and insurance - I wonder if my listening to Meat Loaf affects the ads I'm getting. They seem like the same ads I usually get. 

7. For Crying Out Loud - Ew please don't end on a ballad. You've got 8 minutes to change this shit up, I have faith in you, Loaf! Skipping, skipping, skipping, skipping, still just piano and singing. 3 minute mark: we've got soaring strings now and DRAMATIC vocals, but it's still just a ballad. 4 minutes and 45 seconds the rest of the band kicks in. It's not rocknroll but it is cinematic. Okay he softens again, then hardens again, closes on a soft note. Eh.

VERDICT - Am I his audience? A 35 year old man, 40 years after the album's release? Probably not. Who was his initial audience? I feel like it was mostly women around my Mom's age? Is that because he blended fifties rock, with "rock" that might come out of a musical like Grease, with the littlest bit of metal but more like just 1977 rock'n'roll? Was his audience mostly women? Was it because he sang about love? Did he mostly sing about love because of the audience he got from his first album? Am I wrong about who his audience is or what he sang about? I'll give another album a listen. I liked a few songs here, but none in a way where I ever have to hear them again.

An Album A Day: I'm a Pretentious Dork, Do I Like Steely Dan [part 1]

I already know I'm a dork, and I'm pretentious, and I like Dad rock (but usually the harder stuff). A funny, vaporwave dude I only know through Twitter enjoys Steely Dan. My favorite lesbian dominatrix couple loves them. My friend Pinky's weird Dad always loved 'em, and his house was full of vintage Heavy Metal magazines and every Blue Öyster Cult album. In other words... people I respect love Steely Dan, and all I know about them is that they're named after a dildo in a Burroughs novel (Naked Lunch?) and that Brad Nowell from Sublime sang "Dr. Wu" in an acoustic set that became a bootleg I listened to a lot in high school.

So let's give 'em a chance, and start at the beginning.

CAN'T BUY A THRILL (1972)

1. Do It Again - oh shit, it's this song, I've heard this! Maybe an abridged version without the keyboard solo? That kinda elevates it from deece lite rock to more interesting lite rock.

*Spotify ad - Koch Industries - ohhhh fuck you
*Spotify ad - Elton John Greatest Hits Collection - ohhhh fuck yeah
*Spotify ad - Petco - aight

2. Dirty Work - smoooth start. am I going to be typing smoooth with three o's a lot? Oh no, seventies white guy voice! okay, they're bringing me back with the chorus. Solid fucking chorus. OH NO WHITE GUY SINGING AGAIN. Chorus still tight. ROCK 'N' ROLL SAXOPHONE SOLO YAY. 

3. Kings - "lay his body down" UNNH! "Sad old men who run this town" UNNH! Alright, a story song about a king is extremely my shit. Group singing chorus. Organ. Guitar solo. Digging all of it. 

4. Midnite Cruiser - The line between a 1970s radio rock driving down the highway singalong classic and just decent generic 1970s rock song is paper thin. The chorus is there but the rest of the song isn't. It's missing some extra quirk. Doesn't make the cut.

5. Only A Fool Would Say That -  The vocals rescue this from elevator territory real quick, phew.

6. Reelin' In The Years - I didn't know they did this. This one does what Midnite Cruiser should but doesn't. I think the "quirk" comes from the forceful talk singing, "You been telling me you're a genius since you were 17. All this time I known you I still don't know what you mean." OKAY I'M LISTENING BRO, THIS SOUNDS JUICY, LET IT ALL OUT. "Okay, I will... through guitar!" doodley doodley doodley wheeeeeeoooo 

7. Fire In The Hole - Starting out with some HORNY CABARET piano. Totally dazed out and finished the album without paying attention and had to go back. Good solos with some interesting chord bends here but BLAND.

8. Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me) - starting out LITE isn't starting out RIGHT! Win me over, I'm becoming hostile. Faded out AGAIN. Rewound AGAIN. Boring. Skip.

9. Change Of The Guard - C'mon changing of the guard. You've got a good name. Do it for me. Faded out again. I hope we end on a highlight.

10. Turn The Heartbeat Over Again - This song is pretty smoooth. Glad we're back to that. Seventies rock about Jesus puts us in the territory of some real bangers. I dig it. They land the ending.

VERDICT: In addition to the two songs that had already entered my lexicon, I dug "Turn the Heartbeat Over Again" and "Dirty Work". I can't listen to this album straighthrough but 4/10 good songs is a deece ratio. I'm not a Steely Dan convert, but I'll try another, maybe work my way up to Aja. Past Aja? I think Aja's the one that's supposed to make the difference. Not gonna listen to a second song in a row though.