“Bat Out of Hell” by Meat Loaf
Bat Out of Hell is Meat Loaf’s debut studio album. Composed by Jim Steiman, the album was centered on a futuristic version of Peter Pan named Neverland, which he had written in 1974. The album, which was released on October 21, 1977 was produced by Todd Rundgren, and recorded between 1975 and 1976.
The recording was done at different studios including Utopia Sound in New York.
Meat Loaf in a 1989 interview explained that Andy Johns and Jimmy Iovine were potential producers of the album. However, at the end of the day, the job went to Rundgren.
Jim Steiman was highly inspired by Bruce Springsteen in writing this album. He wanted to write the most tragic crash song when he wrote the opening titular track Bat Out of Hell.
In 1995, Steiman registerd the title as a trademark in an attempt to prevent Meat Loaf from using it.
The album was released by Cleveland International Records, but almost all the staff at its parent company, Epic Records hated it.
The cost to record the entire album is estimated at $235,000.
Achievements of “Bat Out of Hell”
The album is classified as one of the best-selling albums in music history with an estimated 43 million copies sold worldwide as of 2020. It had spent at least 522 weeks on the UK Albums chart as of 2019.
It was voted as the ninth most popular album in Australia in 2006.
