Nocturnal
Pleasures
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Cartoon Wall of Sound
UK's Tip Sheet
Our free CD is bookended by bombast this week. We weren't keen on Whistle Down The Wind
because it seemed very '50s and rather dull. But clearly, all the songs needed was the
glorious, over-the-top operatic drama of Meat Loaf's vocals and the totally unrestrained
production of Jim Steinman at his self indulgent best. When Steinman's on form, every
single sounds like a mini-musical in its own right. Just check out the orchestration, the
spiralling strings, the horns, the contrasts and the Wagnerian splendour of Meat's
interpretation.
Rolling Stone Magazine:
Guilty pleasures just don't come more guilty than a heaping slab of
pompous Meat Loaf once a year. And if you listened to all eighteen
tracks spread across this two-disc collection, it just might take you a
year. Forget the absurd spoken intros, operatic vocals, chest-beating
choruses and the high school comic-geek romantic conceits of lyricist Jim Steinman; the
biggest hoot here are the song running times: 8:24, 7:59, 9:41 and 11:58, to list but a
few. Better loosen the belt.
Beat Magazine:
Meat Loaf's The Very Best Of (Virgin) is again an update on past hits
sets and cynics who argue that they were called Bat Out Of Hell 1 and 2
will find their charge half carried as this eighteen track double set takes
nine cuts from those two records, whilst of the remainder, the bulk carry
the fingerprints of Bat writer Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf's most successful
conspirator, including newly recorded songs from Steinman's work with
Andrew Lloyd Webber, the most interesting of which is the Home By
Now/ No Matter What medley that takes the recent Boyzone hit into a
totally new realm. It's all great stuff, a kind of cartoon wall of sound, a
preposterous mating of classic Wurlitzer juke box with Wolfman Jack on
Thunder Road.
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