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| re: Alternative Bat 3 | |
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pidunk 05:51 am UTC 08/25/07 |
| In reply to: | re: Alternative Bat 3 - Bright_Eyes 11:37 pm UTC 08/24/07 |
> I like this topic. > > If I had to put that title on some albums, BFG would > become Bat2 and Dead Ringer would become Bat3, because > that was when Steinman's writing style was closer to the > Bat stuff. But for that to work Meat has to sing the BFG > album. I don't define Meat Loaf as synonymous with Bat Out Of Hell anything, even though he has become inextricably connected to it; as a "franchise" it has become, indeed as you say later, a marketing gimmick, and so it is something that without anyone (Jim) discussing a series, there would not really have been a concept such as a second or a third. Led Zeppelin may have had Led Zeppelin 1, Led Zeppelin 2, Led Zeppelin 3, and Led Zeppelin 4, but that didn't make either of the latter albums sequels to the first. (Then didn't Houses Of The Holy come along and break that whole chain? I didn't really read before posting and just going by a vague memory....you'd think I'd know better by now!). In other words, there was a Bat Out Of Hell album, and there were other albums that did and did not have Meat Loaf singing, but such as it was, it was Jim writing, and Jim influencing and/or doing the productions, which was the universal commonality to them. As all here have stated, there is no Bat Out Of Hell without him, as a concept, as an accepted part of a "series", and Meat happily and fortunately got a good ride from it. We as well were treated to some very good performances. > > Aside from that possibility, I don't think there's any > material that is a true sequel to the Bat album, whether > it's the 1993 album, Desmond's Bat3, or the Steinman Bat3 > that he said he wanted to make. FINALLY!!! Someone saying the unsayable!!!! I have to agree on the basis that there was an energy in that first one that somehow just never got replicated, and I don't think that it should have, either. Because as the character of the song burns out at the bottom of a pit, there had to be a redemption. Unlike television series where the character lives, this one died. But time did not end....as in Paradise By The Dashboard light.....and food out of tree ain't had, if there had been no Eve. Don't ask me where this came from. > > I think re-using the Bat title is really just a marketing > gimmick, whether it's Jim doing it or Desmond Child doing > it. I think when Bat2 was made, Jim and Meat were both > desperate and resorted to re-using the old title because > they were desperate. I don't believe the story that Jim > envisioned a trilogy. If he had, I think he would have > called BFG and DR, Bat 2 and Bat3. I think that story > about envisioning a trilogy in the first place was one of > his many dishonest-but-harmless marketing/promotional > anecdotes. Trilogies are all the rage in the circles buzzing around the literary science fiction conventions we used to attend. If there was a trilogy, it gave the fans something to look forward to, to anticipate, and when there was a second book there was a whole resurgence of interest in the first. To say that there was supposed to be a trilogy is alot like emulating a writer like Roger Zelazny, in writing the Amber Series, or Isaac Asimov, and The Foundation Trilogy. > > I think Meat is very right when he says that songs like > NATL, Children and BTWA are not at all the right style for > Meat or for a Bat sequel. Jim's writing style changed a > lot since the 1970s. He doesn't seem to want to be > Springsteen and Spector anymore, and hasn't for a long > time. The new songs mentioned in the blog like "Paradise > Lost" were never even written in the first place, > according to Smeghead and others who've posted here. Jim > just blogged about them as if they existed, but they don't > count worth BEANS if they were never written. If Jim had > made a Bat3 album with Meat it would have been not a true > sequel but a marketing gimmick, kinda like Desmond's album > was, but still better than that. A damn sight better, for sure. I think that the idea of the third Bat lp proposed by Jim was an excuse for them to get into the studio together with another project, or to focus Meat to thinking about that, and it may not have actually have been a Bat3 as such, at all. I think Meat got the idea too much in his head, in that regard. > > I don't believe there's any album that is likely to be > made in the 1990s or the current decade, by anybody, > that's a true sequel to Bat. Fans who clamor for such a > thing are being nostalgic. I don't think there's any > scenario where an album of songs not written by Steinman > is a sequel to it, because his style is too distinctive > and the imitations of him are never even close. Some say they are close, and I have not studied them, to either agree or disagree, but I agree on the point that without Jim's writings, there are none of Jim's songs. Jim spoke on this subject awhile ago and I know not to say anything of that here. I also have my impressions. Whether it is called Bats or Belfry, it does not matter what it is called. Those who love Jim's songs, love Jim's songs. Those who love to hear certain people performing Jim's songs, like them as though they are the condiments on a steak.....ketchup or blood.....? We like the seasonings, but the meal is all of Jim's songs. | |
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