He's (not quite) dead, Jim!
Artiste: Meat Loaf
Nationality: American
Album: Welcome to the neighborhood
Year: 1995
Label: Virgin
Genre: Hard rock
Tracks:
Where the rubber meets the road
I’d lie for you (and that’s the truth)
Original sin
45 seconds of ecstasy
Runnin’ for the red light (I gotta life)
Fiesta de las almas perdidas
Left in the dark
Not a dry eye in the house
Amnesty is granted
If this is the last kiss (Let's make it last all night)
Martha
Where angels sing
Chronological position: Seventh album
Familiarity: Bat out of Hell, Dead ringer, Bad attitude, Bat out of Hell II, Bat out of Hell III, Hell in a handbasket
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Good solid opener, very Meat Loaf but a little derivative.
Best track(s): Original sin, I’d lie for you (and that’s the truth), Left in the dark, Not a dry eye in the house, If this is the last kiss (let’s make it last all night), Where angels sing
Worst track(s): 45 seconds of ecstasy, Fiesta de las almas perdidas, Runnin’ for the red light (I gotta life)
Comments: Though I’m a pretty big fan of Meat Loaf there are several of his albums I have yet to hear, and this is one of them. Is it just me, or does the woman on the cover look like she’s pregnant? Anyway this is another of his almost-Steinmanless efforts, with only two songs written by the man who, it could be argued, put him where he is today. But since their falling out Steinman and Meat Loaf have not worked together, with the main man hiring in people like Diane Warren to help fill in the gaps, and duetting with some star names. In fairness, the songs here written by Steinman are old ones, not specially written for this album, covers of his own solo material.
The opener tries to fool us into thinking it’s a ballad, with a soft piano opening and a gentle vocal from Meat Loaf, but with a title like
Where the rubber meets the road nobody’s fooled, and indeed it becomes a swaggering rocker. It’s decent but a little tame for Meat. I’ve heard of course the single
I’d lie for you (and that’s the truth) and to be honest it comes across as something of a rip-off of
I’d do anything for love (But I won’t do that) off the previous album, even down to the piano intro. Good song, but a little derivative, which is odd, as it’s written by goldmaker Diane Warren. Good duet with Patti Russo, one of two on the album.
One of my favourite tracks off the album of the same name, Steinman’s
Original sin from the Pandora’s Box project gets the full Meat Loaf treatment next, and it’s a decent effort but lacks the drama and theatre Steinman put into it on the album. It’s a bit annoying that about half that album has been covered now by other artistes, but yet nobody has heard of Pandora’s Box. Pah! Peasants! It’s a much shorter version here too. I believe this is the first album Meat Loaf has released on which there’s a track featuring another singer, but to be honest though Susan Wood does a good job on
45 seconds of ecstasy, it’s more like sixty-six seconds of torture, a poor reggae-led pop song that really does not belong here at all.
Things get rockin’ again quickly though with
Runnin’ for the red light (I gotta life) --- what is it with Meat Loaf and parenthesised subtitles to his songs? --- a basic rock and roll track that while it’s okay is nothing terribly special. Neither is the annoying little salsa instrumental that precedes another cover of a Steinman song, this time the closer from his “Bad for good” album, which now makes three songs from that album that Meat Loaf has covered.
Left in the dark stands, so far, head and shoulders above everything else on this album, and that’s not a good thing to be saying, but it is the truth as I see it.
Warren tries to work her magic again and rescue the album, and to be fair, yeah,
Not a dry eye in the house pulls the quality right back up to where you expect it to be, both for a Meat Loaf album and for a Diane Warren song.
Amnesty is granted is a good enough song, but it’s a duet with Sammy Hagar and sounds more like one of his songs. Another Warren tune is next, and another bracketed title, with
If this is the last kiss (let’s make it last all night). It’s a decent song that you can detect right away as the songstress’s work, then of all things there’s a Waits cover, which unfortunately is one of my least favourite early songs from him, though Meat does a very passionate version of it, dare I say, better than the original? Put down those torches, people!
Good, strong ending then with
Where angels sing which at least leaves me with the typical Meat Loaf power ballad/epic song that I like him to end one of his albums with, and almost makes up for some of the truly substandard material earlier. But not quite. Must do better, and hopefully did, after this.
Overall impression: A decent enough album, but quite below par for what I expect from Meat Loaf
Hum Factor: 6
Surprise Factor -3
Intention: It certainly hasn’t turned me off Meat Loaf’s music, but I’d be interested to see what the other albums I haven’t heard yet are like.