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| re: What if Meat had never lost his voice? | |
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pidunk 04:24 am UTC 07/30/07 |
| In reply to: | re: What if Meat had never lost his voice? - Bright_Eyes 02:42 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. His attitude changed. There was the time when he was unconcerned with "hits" and then the time came when all he cared about were the "hits", at least temporarily. A personal transition is more like it, as before Bat Out Of Hell, there was a set of conditions in his life that did not exist since then. From July of 1978, some important elements in his life altered. It was June of that year when the German television interview took place which announced that Jim would leave the tour, and it was his decision to actually make at least one more date on the tour, which was the date that I attended the show on Valentine's Day in 1979 . I don't think that my "friends" would have told me of the show if they knew he was going to be there, and all that I heard on the way from them was that he was not going to be there, and then....ta da, he was there. And I was so glad, but even moreso, something in my own life changed with that too, in a subtle way. I am not entirely certain if the reports about Meat's voice were exadurated, because the Dead Ringer album's timing I've read seems like the Bad For Good album and that were almost done simultaneiously. I've been looking for more precise timings and information about that. It seems more to me like there was an amicable separation of the arts for that era, rather than a malady for which Meat suffered, but if Meat did then of course I'm glad he managed to get his voice back quickly enough for Dead Ringer. I think that artistically, Jim's changes were reflective of his life changes, and I do believe that his professional life was being affected as well. It was a significant blow to him to discover that so much of his pseudonym he had in England had gone awry, and this is that which was Richard O'Brien, taken over by someone else. Jim had the ability to rehash old works of course between The Dream Engine and Neverland, but he made the two entirely different themes, and added much to it because between them he had an entirely musically based education, where at Amherst before that he was basing his education on the theater and using music as his backdrop, theater as his excuse to do so. Music and theater merged for him, and he learned both as student in two universities, one as Steinman, and the next as Cypherd. If his changes of 1978 were difficult, he also managed to recoup somewhat when those circumstances began to fade from his life, ten years later. Hence, he managed to make a return to the vinyl with Meat Loaf, and have the second Bat Out Of Hell album. Between 1993 and 1995 he did not focus very much on that, but then began the work on Whistle Down The Wind, returning to the original roots of his focus. Bat Out Of Hell and Bat Out Of Hell II, plus Bad For Good, are his musical statements as songs go according to his visions of what could be adapted in that way. He may have felt like he did about The Dream Engine, that he could not do better work than that on the steam in his own dream engine, but Tanz has outshined all that came before. Can Meat make a Krolock? A bombastic, burly Krolock? Why not? >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. I like the work he has done when he felt that he was freer to be himself than when he didn't feel so free. There are elements of restrictions at the time of Bad For Good which I think he reflected in that work. Jim is the best choice for Jim's songs in my view, and Meat did well for gettting the first messages "out there". I think that the need for that image or persona reduced, and that could reflect in the works as well. > > 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. As well he should have. A songwriter is lucky to find a built-in singer, as lucky as a singer is to have a built-in songwriter, but a songwriter is for writing songs, not for feeding a singer's performance. The singer needs to fit the song. >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. Yes, and all of them probably suited for Jim to sing as well. Except I don't think It's All Coming Back To Me would have worked as well by him.....that's definitely a female song, and he wrote it specifically for that. If he would have written it for himself to sing, it might have been called "It's All Coming Back To Her". > > 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. I think that alot of marketing got in the way of success. I also think that the hits were not the goal of those albums anyway. Jim's opinion whatever it is is so subjective anyway, and mine is too.....but I think that the commercial viability wasn't as sought for as the earlier albums, and not because Jim didn't try, but because the label lost its interest. > 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 agree. Jim was not about to be stagnant in his art. > > 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". This is a phenomenon that is all too true of people who musically find ruts to dwell in. The numbers of people who are inflexible are surprising to me. > > 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. I agree. > > 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. It does not have the same sound, and I don't find in it the same spirit. >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. > The problem at hand is that Meat Loaf is too entrenched in the minds of listeners who downplay the significance of the song, and put on the vocal the onus to portray it, that vocalist being Meat. Meat has sang his songs, others have sang songs, and it is not a contest about who sings the song better. Isn't it just special that singers want to sing those songs, and get those songs to find new visions? > So, to answer the question, I don't think we really missed > out on all that much, if anything. I agree. I think that the willingness and desire of any singer to sing Jim's songs is doing a favor to Jim's art if they perform it earnestly with good spirit and performance. Who is better than whom, who does not reach what note, does not matter. It does not matter at all. | |
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