These are the days that never end

Continuing my trip back through the 1994 album charts.

09/01/94 : Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell - Meat Loaf


Our third visit with Mr Loaf and it completes the trilogy - not only for the blog but also for me, because I've never listened to this. I think the reason for this is that I just don't feel it's going to beat the original and it somewhat smacks a bit of desperation - but maybe I'm wrong, so let's find out.

Oh, it starts with "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" - I never knew this was on here. And unsurprisingly, the album version is even less understated than the single version - I'm not sure I really needed 12:01 of it. Let's give a shout out to Lorraine Crosby for her vocals - she's a club singer from the North East of England who was invited to provide guide vocals for Meat Loaf to perfect his part and in the end they just decided to use them on the final recording. But she didn't get any royalties and got credited as Mrs Loud - which seems harsh.

The rest of the album doesn't quite the heights of the opener, but it's not a million miles away - I'd say it's pretty listenable and does reflect the spirit of the original album pretty well. Yes, it's all obviously massively over the top but it's fun and it's Meat Loaf, so he gets away with it. However, it's lacking the absolute killer tracks that BOOH had and it also uses far too much repetition - it feels like they thought the tracks really needed to be long but often didn't have the content to achieve that, so the last two minutes are just them playing the chorus over and over (and yes, this is also true for the original to some extent). I also have to say that "Wasted Youth" really is batshit crazy - you do have to wonder exactly what they were thinking. 

We're at #7 in the charts this week on his eighteenth week of an impressive 52 week run, with it having peaked at #1 for ELEVEN of its first sixteen weeks, with it never leaving the top three during that time - madness! The top five this week were a Bryan Adams best-of, Dina Carroll, Take That, M People and Bjork and there were no new entries in the chart, as is often the case for the first two weeks of January.

Wikipedia has loads on the album (283 milliPeppers) some of which is interesting, but I'm just going to go with two quotes. One from Jim Steinman "I didn't call it Bat Out of Hell II just to identify with the first record. It really does feel like an extension of that... It was a chance to go back to that world and explore it deeper" and one from Meat Loaf "we called it Bat Out of Hell II 'cos that would help it sell shitloads" - you can choose which one you believe. The critical response was mixed at the time with everyone agreeing it was a ridiculously bombastic affair, but some enjoyed the bombast more than others - retrospective reviews are generally positive. Commercially, it did very well, getting to #1 in Australia, Austria, Canada, The Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the US - it was also the best selling album in the UK in '93.

Unsurprisingly given there are so many copies around, you can pick up a decent CD version for a quid but if you want the double vinyl picture disc (complete with understated artwork) then it's going to set you back £115. If you love BOOH, then I suspect you're going to enjoy large bits of this but I feel you probably need to be an enthusiast to consider BOOH2 essential listening - it's pretty much more (but also less) of the same.

02/01/94 - A bit downbeat and long, but otherwise OK
16/01/94 - Just a bit boring really

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