Karine Hannah was at one time working on an album with Steinman. The record was never completed, but there are demos and live recordings. She sang the Catwoman parts on the Batman demos.
Its sad how sick we can become of awesome songs we loved. I have been changing the station whenever "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" has come on for years. Last night i chose to listen with headphones to the entire song. In some ways its Jim's "Bohemian Rhapsody" So many musical changes in 8 minutes. And its the first time since Ellen Foley's wonderful tweet after Jim's death that i actually heard the words "STOP RIGHT THERE".
I've been playing it a lot, too, but I've never been sick of that one. It's genius. I've been watching she first time reaction videos to that song lately and it blows everyone away.
@Jerseyfornia i don't like to be a boomer elitist ....but my god ....the music we had.....coming at us ....constantly .There is no question Paradise is genius ....it is so much more than a song .... its a creation ..... But for the two big pieces ....this one , with our hero miserable and tortured for the rest of his life somehow seemed more uncomfortable and less relatable for me than " and i cant stop thinking of you and i never seeing the sudden curve until its way too late" ....Anyway it was bittersweet to listen to it for the first time since his death....and incredible to realize what he created ....
Just listening to Bruce's 'House Of A Thousand Guitars' and it strikes me as somewhat Steinmanesque. It's almost like one of the eternal teenagers of Steinman's world actually making it to older age, but still living spiritually in that world.
The original recordings of the songs that made up Meat and Jim's final collaboration. I wrote about that severely flawed record on the old forums and managed to find the post online.
The only way this record works is if it's the last. Not just the last Meat Loaf/Steinman collaboration, but the last Meat Loaf album. If this is the eulogy, then it serves as well as any.
I listened once all the way through and I was so disappointed. If I wasn't hoping for another Bat Out Of Hell, I was at least hoping for another Dead Ringer. What I heard was an attempt to replicate Steinman's production values, which is something many of Meat Loaf's producers have tried and failed at. I always thought it was interesting that a lot of the records Steinman was behind the board for are labeled "produced and directed by Jim Steinman." I've never seen another record producer use the word "directed" the way a film would. Only Jim Steinman does that. There are a lot of things only Jim Steinman does so it's not really fair to blame the producers who've worked with Meat Loaf, tried to direct like Steinman and failed. Some have come very, very close, but none of them hit the mark.
The more I listened to the album, the more I began to accept it for what I thought it was and then to hear it for what it actually is. This is the swan song, this is the viewing of the corpse, and it's a very public one. By any other standard, this album is probably a complete failure. The first and best record these two ever made together featured a headstone on the cover and their subsequent collaborations were illustrated with variations on the theme of the forever youthful hero, who escaped from hell in the name of love, battling the specter of death itself. The cover of this album doesn't feature that hero. Instead, it gives us the backsides of the two men who brought that hero to life as they face the obviously unstoppable, relentless riders of the apocalypse. The harbingers of the end. This album is the tombstone itself.
Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman pumped the pomp of Broadway into their rock and roll records, but on this final one, they turn that approach around and spit just a little bit of rock and roll into the theater seats. A lot of Steinman fans will recognize most of these songs from previous projects or demos and it's fitting, to me, that these two old road warriors, both of them ravaged to the point of being mere shadows of their former public images, give us, with their final breath, songs that were written when both of them were very young.
This album has a sort of truth to it and, as everyone knows, the truth is rarely pretty. Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman aren't going down swinging. Most of us won't. But at least they're going down singing. Bat Out Of Hell had its origins in Peter Pan and Steinman's imaginary universe is home to lost boys and golden girls who swore they'd never grow up. Well, the truth being told to me with this record is that they never did grow up, they never will grow up, but they will certainly die.
The album opens with an admission that, if the lost boys didn't grow up, they have somehow still grown old. Right from the start, the hopelessly romantic biker from Bat Out Of Hell (yes it's him, it's still him) reminding us boldly that his voice, his body, his sex and even his mind just aren't what they used to be. Given that admission, it's hard to judge him too harshly for then proving it to us.
Seems something is coming out every day. I remember catching this bad movie on television in the early 80s and only watching through to the end to hear Steinman's music. Some easily recognizable melodies and motifs.
Jim Steinman vocal instead of the Ellen Foley version on the record.
I'm definitely downloading this to add to my multilingual Dance of the Vampires collection.
@Jerseyfornia I have to confess that I've been avoiding this thread because reading it makes me so uncomfortable... I start thinking about the day Bruce will pass away and what an impact it'll have on us all. What you're going to write, the non existent, is causing a lump in my throat already. Had to share this..
@Early North Jersey I like it. I've heard some demos from The Dream Engine before, but never in this quality. I'm starting to think a Steinman uber collector is mourning by sharing.
On Bonnie Tyler's Getting So Excited, from Faster Than The Speed Of Night, there's a brief spoken line. It's actually Jim Steinman's voice, tweaked to sound like a woman, speaking the line "I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that."
That seed took some time to bear fruit, didn't it?
He didn't write the songs, but Jim produced Billy Squier's Signs Of Life album.
He also produced and co-wrote one track on Sisters Of Mercy's Vision Thing. This song also featured in Wuthering Heights and on Meat Loaf's Braver Than We Are.
You can't have a Steinman thread without posting Air Supply, since their recording of Making Love Out Of Nothing At All contributed to Steinman's 1983 total eclipse of the charts when it sat at number 2 and Bonnie Tyler held the number one spot. I believe it's the only time the number 1 and 2 songs on the Hot 100 were written and produced by the same person.
Total Eclipse and Making Love were both meant for Meat Loaf's Midnight At The Lost And Found album, but the record company refused Jim's participation. I bet those guys felt like idiots after seeing both songs go to the top of the charts.
Yes. It's from Whistle Down The Wind. The original cast recording is a great album, but there's a compilation of the songs recorded by pop and rock artists, from which the Boyzone version is taken.
Meat Loaf also recorded Home By Now/No Matter What for one of his greatest hits retrospectives. It's beautiful.
I hope this isn't taken the wrong way, because my intention isn't to sound disrespectful, but it's a damned shame there isn't a Springsteen and the E Street Band tour going on right now. I think they'd have given Steinman a tribute cover performance for the ages.
Karine Hannah was at one time working on an album with Steinman. The record was never completed, but there are demos and live recordings. She sang the Catwoman parts on the Batman demos.
Its sad how sick we can become of awesome songs we loved. I have been changing the station whenever "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" has come on for years. Last night i chose to listen with headphones to the entire song. In some ways its Jim's "Bohemian Rhapsody" So many musical changes in 8 minutes. And its the first time since Ellen Foley's wonderful tweet after Jim's death that i actually heard the words "STOP RIGHT THERE".
Just listening to Bruce's 'House Of A Thousand Guitars' and it strikes me as somewhat Steinmanesque. It's almost like one of the eternal teenagers of Steinman's world actually making it to older age, but still living spiritually in that world.
The original recordings of the songs that made up Meat and Jim's final collaboration. I wrote about that severely flawed record on the old forums and managed to find the post online.
The only way this record works is if it's the last. Not just the last Meat Loaf/Steinman collaboration, but the last Meat Loaf album. If this is the eulogy, then it serves as well as any.
I listened once all the way through and I was so disappointed. If I wasn't hoping for another Bat Out Of Hell, I was at least hoping for another Dead Ringer. What I heard was an attempt to replicate Steinman's production values, which is something many of Meat Loaf's producers have tried and failed at. I always thought it was interesting that a lot of the records Steinman was behind the board for are labeled "produced and directed by Jim Steinman." I've never seen another record producer use the word "directed" the way a film would. Only Jim Steinman does that. There are a lot of things only Jim Steinman does so it's not really fair to blame the producers who've worked with Meat Loaf, tried to direct like Steinman and failed. Some have come very, very close, but none of them hit the mark.
The more I listened to the album, the more I began to accept it for what I thought it was and then to hear it for what it actually is. This is the swan song, this is the viewing of the corpse, and it's a very public one. By any other standard, this album is probably a complete failure. The first and best record these two ever made together featured a headstone on the cover and their subsequent collaborations were illustrated with variations on the theme of the forever youthful hero, who escaped from hell in the name of love, battling the specter of death itself. The cover of this album doesn't feature that hero. Instead, it gives us the backsides of the two men who brought that hero to life as they face the obviously unstoppable, relentless riders of the apocalypse. The harbingers of the end. This album is the tombstone itself.
Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman pumped the pomp of Broadway into their rock and roll records, but on this final one, they turn that approach around and spit just a little bit of rock and roll into the theater seats. A lot of Steinman fans will recognize most of these songs from previous projects or demos and it's fitting, to me, that these two old road warriors, both of them ravaged to the point of being mere shadows of their former public images, give us, with their final breath, songs that were written when both of them were very young.
This album has a sort of truth to it and, as everyone knows, the truth is rarely pretty. Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman aren't going down swinging. Most of us won't. But at least they're going down singing. Bat Out Of Hell had its origins in Peter Pan and Steinman's imaginary universe is home to lost boys and golden girls who swore they'd never grow up. Well, the truth being told to me with this record is that they never did grow up, they never will grow up, but they will certainly die.
The album opens with an admission that, if the lost boys didn't grow up, they have somehow still grown old. Right from the start, the hopelessly romantic biker from Bat Out Of Hell (yes it's him, it's still him) reminding us boldly that his voice, his body, his sex and even his mind just aren't what they used to be. Given that admission, it's hard to judge him too harshly for then proving it to us.
And the last thing I see is my heart
Still beating...still beating...
Breakin' out of my body and flyin' away
Like a bat out of hell
Rest in peace, lost boys. Give 'em hell.
Seems something is coming out every day. I remember catching this bad movie on television in the early 80s and only watching through to the end to hear Steinman's music. Some easily recognizable melodies and motifs.
Jim Steinman vocal instead of the Ellen Foley version on the record.
I'm definitely downloading this to add to my multilingual Dance of the Vampires collection.
Another new one out. I'm enjoying this.
GOOD WOMAN OF SZECHUAN:
00:00:00​ The Song Of The Water Seller In The Rain
00:05:51​ The Song Of The Smoke
00:14:02​ The Song Of Defencelessness (The Song Of The Gods)
MORE THAN YOU DESERVE:
00:19:14​ Souvenirs
00:25:21​ More Than You Deserve
00:28:54​ The Song Of The Golden Egg
00:33:19​ The Spooky Song (Give Me The Simple Life)
00:38:43​ Oh, What A War!
00:41:29​ The Igoo Boogie Nookie Nookie Song (Go Go Guerillas)
Piano, Vocals - Jim Steinman
Keyboards, Piano - Steve Margoshes
Vocals - Barry Keating
Vocals - Andre deShields
Vocals - Ursuline Kairson
Vocals - Johanna Albrecht
Vocals - Meat Loaf
@Jerseyfornia I have to confess that I've been avoiding this thread because reading it makes me so uncomfortable... I start thinking about the day Bruce will pass away and what an impact it'll have on us all. What you're going to write, the non existent, is causing a lump in my throat already. Had to share this..
And another.
I thought I had collected everything in circulation, but only heard this Dream Engine demo of Nowhere Fast for the first time tonight.
On Bonnie Tyler's Getting So Excited, from Faster Than The Speed Of Night, there's a brief spoken line. It's actually Jim Steinman's voice, tweaked to sound like a woman, speaking the line "I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that."
That seed took some time to bear fruit, didn't it?
Nothing we haven't already discussed here, but it's nice to see Bad For Good being written about in the press...decades too late.
Even Barbra got on the Neverland Express in the 80s.
He didn't write the songs, but Jim produced Billy Squier's Signs Of Life album.
He also produced and co-wrote one track on Sisters Of Mercy's Vision Thing. This song also featured in Wuthering Heights and on Meat Loaf's Braver Than We Are.
And if I'm bringing in Air Supply, I've got to mention that Steinman gave the same soft edge to Barry Manilow.
You can't have a Steinman thread without posting Air Supply, since their recording of Making Love Out Of Nothing At All contributed to Steinman's 1983 total eclipse of the charts when it sat at number 2 and Bonnie Tyler held the number one spot. I believe it's the only time the number 1 and 2 songs on the Hot 100 were written and produced by the same person.
Somebody pointed it out in the YouTube comments, but "No matter what the ending, my life began with you..." might say it all.
I don't think I knew Steinman wrote and produced Boyzone's "No Matter What". That's a pairing I'd have never envisioned.
He wrote it alongside Andrew Lloyd Webber too, talk about three different genres of music!
I hope this isn't taken the wrong way, because my intention isn't to sound disrespectful, but it's a damned shame there isn't a Springsteen and the E Street Band tour going on right now. I think they'd have given Steinman a tribute cover performance for the ages.