| re: What if Meat had never lost his voice? | |
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Posted by: |
Bright_Eyes 02:42 am UTC 07/30/07 |
| In reply to: | What if Meat had never lost his voice? - Rob 12:21 am UTC 07/30/07 |
| I believe that sometime after the writing of the "Bad For Good" and "Dead Ringer" songs, but before the 1983 hits, Steinman's style abruptly changed in ways I can't describe. It has never returned to the early Steinman style. I like his post-1981 work better. For his work since 1981, Meat would not have been as good a choice as he was before then. Even if Meat's voice had been perfect his whole life, I think Steinman still would have branched out to other singers, maybe using Meat occasionally after 1981, but not as a primary voice as he had been at one time. Because the songs were not as good a fit for Loaf. Some of them were probably better for a female singer than a male singer. Some better for more of an Adult Contemporary-sounding artist. Some better for just a different kind of voice in general. I believe the BFG album and Dead Ringer albums would have sold better if Meat's voice had stayed good, and this would have created incentive for more work together. Repeat customers who bought Bat alone would have generated a lot of sales for those albums. But even if financial or contractual pressure had kept Jim working with Meat for a while, I still think Steinman would have branched out because of the direction he was going as a writer. I think, among big music fans in general, there's a tendency for a lot of them to lament that the 'original lineup' of such-and-such did not stay intact. There are countless examples of this. Pink Floyd. Guns n Roses. Beach Boys. I think there are Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman fans who have such sentiments. There are countless artists where I've heard somebody say "i just wish she had made more albums that sounded like her first album" or maybe her first two or three albums. I've heard a ton of people say this about Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey, including myself. Apparently both of them took a wrong turn at some point. Even I have said I'm a fan only of "early Whitney". Fans wishing the original lineup had just stayed together and made 15 more albums that sounded like the original style. I'm not really like that these days, I think some things just run their course artistically, and you reach a point when it's time to split up and move on to something else. Sometimes that point can be reached after a fairly small number of songs. I think the Loaf-and-Steinman thing reached this point around 1981 or before. Even though Loaf and Steinman did some work together in the 1990's, which was very good work, it did not have the same feel as their early collaboration. For every Steinman song Meat recorded in the 1990's, except for IDAFL and Lemon, I've heard some other singer do a recording I liked more. And for those two songs, there is no other singer who has done a Steinman-produced recording, so what I've said isn't saying anything. There's nothing to compare them to. For the stuff on the Bat 1 album, it's different, I'd be very surprised if I ever hear a voice I consider better suited to those songs than Loaf. I'd never say it's impossible. But I'd be very shocked if I heard a recording of any song on that album whose voice I think is a better fit than Loaf. If the BFG and Dead Ringer songs had all been recorded with Loaf in his best voice and with Steinman in control of the sound, I suspect I'd say similar things about Loaf and a lot of those songs. So, to answer the question, I don't think we really missed out on all that much, if anything. | |
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| Next: | re: What if Meat had never lost his voice? - pidunk 04:24 am UTC 07/30/07 |
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