Heard a few things on the radio over the years obviously (which I thought were kind of annoying), but a few years ago bought a copy on CD cheap. I was interested to hear what Todd brought to the proceedings. I really couldn't get through it.
It sounds nothing like Utopia to me. I never would've thought Springsteen, but now that it's been mentioned I hear it.
<sig out of order>
Yes she was Welsh and was discovered singing in a club in Swansea. She had a few 70s hits, way before the Steinman association- 'Lost In France' and 'It's A Heartache'.Originally Posted by JKL2000
I was in a group living situation when that album came out and had to listen to it many times and got to know it well. It is one of the worst things I have ever heard - the adolescent lyrics, the shallowness, the trite melodies, the mind-numbing repetitiveness. Just awful. It became sheer torture to have to sit through this pedestrian slice of relentless musical tripe. I am grateful I will never have to listen to it again.
- didn't know he worked with the abhorrent Ted Nugent, but not surprised. Another nail in the coffin for me.
Last edited by Buddhabreath; 11-15-2017 at 12:07 PM.
^Because there's never a bad time to post this fascinating, bizarre piece of footage...
That is priceless! Thanks. I'll never understand how a charismatic fellow like Romney lost when he had the help of all the A-list celebrities.
Whew, for a second there I thought you were going to take this thread into political discussion. Glad we dodged that...
Meat's voice is pretty much completely shot now. He had vocal problems off and on going all the way back to the late 70's, but he was still singing pretty good the last time I saw him, which I think was the "Bat III" tour. Today, though he really struggles. AXS TV showed a Meat concert a couple of years ago and it was painful to watch his voice was so bad. Recent videos like the one you posted, and the one from Australia (featured on John Oliver's This Week Tonight a couple of weeks ago) gives more evidence to the fact that Meat should probably retire from singing. Still.....I maintain that in his prime he was one of the best entertainers I have ever seen.
^The AFL one was on another thread recently. I can still watch that open-mouthed. He barely hits a single note on key but he himself said it was a '7 and a half' performance. Goodness me.
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...2#post-7004418
Never heard the album but always liked the cover art. I could see some snotty, metal kid buying it for the cover.
I don't care what anyone says, I've always loved "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights". Hilarious -- the ultimate making-out in a car tune in the 70s.
"And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision."
Occasional musical musings on https://darkelffile.blogspot.com/
That's pretty much the pinnacle right there. Certainly the most inventive thing on the album, and the only longer song on the record that justifies its length, imo.
Bill
Wow. I don't think I've heard that tune in about 35 years... What an unholy mix of Springsteen and early Neil Diamond!
Wouldn't really bother me much if I didn't hear it again for another 35 years but it does have its charm and, yeah, I can see why it was such a big success.
I made it through about 12 seconds, vomited a little in my mouth and quickly hit pause. I have just a visceral deep contempt for this stuff! Stupid fat asshat with his red scarf - I mean WTF?
For those that like this CD and wondered what else Steinman had done. From the Streets of Fire movie:
I always loved the whole "Say you'll love me forever" thing, where the girl makes the guy promise he'll love her forever before she'll have sex with him, which he eventually agrees to, and then it's "I'm praying for the end of the time/So I can end my time with you". That lost couplet is like the ultimate punchline to that whole scenario. I think Steinman himself admitted the whole idea was having sex with someone producing the ultimate consequences, or something like that.
And the baseball play by play thing that immediately precedes that is kinda amusing still.
BUt the thing that always bugged me about that song is there's one bit where I swear it sounds like there's a couple chords missing. I think it's just before the "We're gonna go all the way tonight/We're gonna go all the way tonight tonight". It just always sounded like they cut a couple bars of music out, and the transition from the preceding bit to that bit just seemed a bit...I dunno, jarring I guess. But hey, the damn record sold I forget how many millions of units, so obviously they did something right, and most other people probably either disagree with me, or don't even notice the bit I'm talkign about.
Oh, I forgot about that movie. I remember seeing it when I was about 12, but remember next to nothing about it, other than the big hit single from the soundtrack, I Can Dream About You, is being lip synched by actors in the movie and the video for the song. And that leads us to this week's "prog rock connection", albeit a tenuous one: the actor playing the lead singer of the doo wop group who mimes the song, is Stoney Jackson, who around the same time also starred on a short lived TV show called The Insiders, which used the Genesis song Just A Job To Do (which I swear I thought was a Phil solo song, when I first heard it) as it's theme music.For those that like this CD and wondered what else Steinman had done. From the Streets of Fire movie:
From Streets Of Fire, I much prefer this
One Bed Stud from The Blasters
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
^^
If you haven't ever heard Dave Alvin (from the Blasters above) solo album Black Jack Dave. It is a singer/songwriter master piece.
The transition at 3:16 is a bit jarring, I think it was supposed to be. But there's no music missing, least of all two bars, which is a lot of music. That would sound like a gaping hole.
In the transition, everything drops out, including the last word of the phrase, and they instantly move to that sort of funky riff. I think what you're responding to is the change from that heavy rhythm guitar/piano to the lighter touch of the funky riff. But nothing is missing, unless that's not the part you're talking about.
Bill
Big fan of Rundgren & Utopia here, but I never warmed to this album.
Not mentioned yet is the minor hit Bonnie Tyler had with Rundgren, "Lovin' You's a Dirty Job", another Jim Steinman song. Bizarrely, the video (see youtube) features Tyler's Welsh compatriot, actor Hywel Bennett, miming Todd's part.
(I knew Tyler was Welsh from back in the day with "Lost in France". She still has a house not too far away from me in Swansea - specifically an area inappropriately called Mumbles! - close to another house owned by local girl Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas.)
I suppose it depends on what you define as "missing". You admit the last word of the phrase is dropped, so to me that would constitute "missing". It's presumably deliberate, but it's always sounded odd to me. But like I said, a lot of people bought the damn record, so I'm obviously in the minority.
OK, first of all, I have to correct myself. It turns out Dead Ringer was written entirely by Steinman, but that didn't stop it from being a Stateside flop. Granted, it had been nearly 4 years since Bat Out Of Hell, so that probably had something to do with it.
And Steinman actually did have a few songs on Welcome To The Neighborhood, the followup to Bat Out Of The Hell II, but there again, the record did zip in Marvin's homeland. Damn, even Diane Warren couldn't save that record. It's just weird how big he was with Bat II, and then suddenly, it seemed like the only reception he could get was crickets. ANd this wasn't like Dead Ringer or BIg Generator, where it took forever to get a new album. The turn around time on Welcome To The Neighborhood was relatively quick, they had it out a couple years after the previous record.
Apparently, he did another album of all Steinman songs last year, but according to Wikipedia, that one hasn't done well here, either. Predictably, of course, they went crazy for it in Europe and New Zealand.
I dunno, I guess it's possible to be so popular that people get sick of ya. (shrug)
^I think 'went crazy for it in Europe' should be qualified. First week chart positions are what it's all about now, after that albums tend to disappear from view to varying degrees. The die-hards buy it in the first week, but that's it. I heard samples from that latest album and I simply cannot take the way he sounds now. Sad.
I would struggle to name a single track from any of the non-Steinman albums.
Well, Wiki says the newest one went top ten in several European countries. (shrug)
I always thought that, after the Bat2 craze faded, everyone was vaguely embarrassed about the whole thing. "Yeah, we spent three months listening obsessively to that insanely repetitive nine-minute song with the engine-revving noises... what's your point?"
... “there’s a million ways to learn” (which there are, by the way), but ironically, there’s a million things to eat, I’m just not sure I want to eat them all. -- Jeff Berlin
The last thing I'd go see - up there with "not really a hologram" Zappa, but it's supposedly coming to Broadway next year:
Last edited by JKL2000; 11-08-2018 at 09:15 AM.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks