Meat Loaf, in my experience, was one of those artists you either loved or loathed. There was no in between. No wiggle room. No sitting on the fence.
If you were partial to bombastic rock epics and big-lunged Broadway-style ballads, well, you were probably in the former category. If you happened to be like the semi-famous songwriter I once interviewed who had to change some of his lyrics because his wife vetoed them on the grounds they sounded too much like a Meat Loaf song, well, maybe you were in the other camp. Either way, there’s no denying the powerhouse singer — whose manic personality was every bit as outsized as his voice and waistline — was truly one of a kind. And we will not see his like again. So naturally, we’re discussing his life, death and career on today’s instalment of Sonic Reducers. Join Eric Alper and me as we reminisce about the impact of his landmark album Bat Out Of Hell, talk about the importance of his longtime collaborator Jim Steinman (who died last summer), and recall that time I interviewed the motormouthed rock icon (sort of). Sonic Reducers. One topic. Two music nerds. Five minutes. Everything you need to know.
