Bat Out Of Hell
 

It's been a while since I last heard the album so I've just listened to it from start to finish. I could write out paragraph after paragraph but I feel that everything can be condensed into this one sentence:

BAT OUT OF HELL IS STILL ~~~~ING TREMENDOUS.

I ask, when was the last time you listened to it? If you can't remember then it has been too long. So put the CD in, turn the volume up and enjoy the greatest album of all time. :twisted:

More than happy too, as long as it's the live one:D

I rare to never listen to Meat Loaf albums start to finish. I usually pass over Two Out Of Three and Heaven Can Wait when I pop in this disc. I will go for the Melbourne Symphony version of For Crying out Loud over the album version. I much prefer the urgency in Meats voice on that recording.

i must get the sacd version at some stage... havent listened to bat in a very long time though

I actually find it un-listenable to now a days.

Since Meat said his voice is sped up the whole album seems unnatural to me now.

Only song I prefer to the live versions Is Took The Words.

I did relisten to it just now, as its been forever, and Its an OK album.

Bat is an album thats better live.

why are the album vocals sped up?

His vocals sound exactly the same on the My Father's place tracks and those were in the exact same keys as the originals on Bat so I don't get why they would even need to consider speeding up Meat's voice when they were recording the album. I doubt it's what really happened dude. Probably more of a story to try to disregard a change in his voice in latter years, not that I need any explanation myself but I can understand why the constant "why, why, why" nonsense requires a few fibs here and there just to keep them quiet.

On top of that Meat came pretty close to sounding the same 20 years later on the Classic Albums documentary on Bat, which must be considered as one of the toughest vocals to pull off.

I think in general people listen too much to debates, stories and claptrap and let that influence their opinions too much and should just liten to the music instead. I reckon that's what Holy One is actually trying to point out here.

Meat has said himself on some interviews he did while promoting HCTB that the vocals on the original Bat were sped up to fit on a single record at the time.

but was it just the vocals that were sped up? cause that makes no sense to me, either the whole record, ie... music and vocals were sped up to fit on the record, or there was no need to speed up the record. Was the music also sped up??

....So where can i get my hands on this?? :D

Lots of places, probably, like this one.

Yeah, that reason never made any sense to me, either. I have no idea whether the vocals were sped up or not, but it makes sense that you would need to speed up both. I would think if that was the case, they would just edit the song a bit as is commonly done on singles.

I have a Springsteen single that has a live version of "Incident on 57th Street" that is over 10 minutes long as the B side, so it is possible to "fit" a long song on a vinyl 45.

Speaking of Bruce, I know that they sped up his vocal on "Hungry Heart", but I believe it was done for the sound (make his voice more "appealing"), and not to "make it fit".

You know, I was talking to a friend of mine - 6 years ago - and we were in a nightclub, the D|j played Paradise, and the whole dance floor filled, people loved the song, and we both agreed, Meat fans or not, Bat is an Album you can put on, no matter who the audience, and everyone will know at least one of the tracks.

Personally, I love the album, and spent many a lonely teenage night listening to it while my friends went on a Friday evening Cider binge

It's been a LONG time since I listened to the original and perhaps this is actually the first time I'm listening to the remastered 25th anniversary disc I bought years ago. It is definitely the first time listening to the original through my new studio speakers. I whacked up the volume and just a few minutes into Bat it made me want to jump up in the room grab the keytar synth and play along like a maniac.

Right on! :D
Masterpiece.

I guess I just don't hear that at all. Even on the "Classic Albums" video for VH1 or whatnot, when Meat sang along to Two Out Of Three, he got the pitch down PERFECT, and sounded the exact same. So if the vocals were sped up, I guess I just can't hear it. And his voice was the same on Rocky Horror and the More than You Deserve single, so I don't know.

Well that's exactly the problem. Some prefer listening to stories and rumours about than the actual music itself. :?

Interesting, never noticed the tape click at 3.24 before, when the orchestra kicks in on FCOL. Might only be on the remastered version. Left channel I believe.

CD? I prefer my 1980 audiophile vinyl. :)) Don't know if it's "the greatest album of all time" but it definitely is one of the greatest. It's unique and perfect from the first to the last track. I'm sure it will always remain on my personal Top 10 album list.

You don't like it anymore because Meat revealed something about how it was produced? Why didn't it sound unnatural to you before?

That's because some people try to be "scientific" when it comes to music and it's especially die-hard fans who often take certain things way too seriously. I bet most people wouldn't have noticed anything and would just have enjoyed the music if Meat hadn't told that story. How a Meat Loaf fan can consider Bat Out Of Hell "un-listenable" is beyond me.

I hear a click on mine at about 3:22 (not remastered version), but I think it might be a piano pedal being released. In any case, it sounds to me like a sound that was there in the studio, rather than the tape (if that makes sense).

Although, now that I'm thinking about it, didn't Steinman say there were problems with tape noise on one of the songs? I haven't watched the Classic Albums DVD in a while, so maybe I'm imagining that?

I remember listening to the vocal only tracks someone had ripped from the SACD version and you can clearly hear on the vocal track that Two out of Three had a slightly different original backing track (maybe just a synth to fill in for the unrecorded strings at that point or so) but it was quite evident going by the backing bleeding through the mic from Meat's headphones that the vocal track was recorded in stages as I could hear a few tape clicks here and there etc. We really take technology for granted now as overdubs are much easier to achieve now. Mixing Bat must have been literally "hellish" with so many analogue tracks.

Maybe it was also challenging and interesting? The trouble is, if something is "much easier to achieve" it becomes less distinctive because everybody uses the same or similar means. If you have to be more inventive in order to achieve something you're more likely to create something special.

That's very true.

I noticed that too. I'm surprised they didn't remove it when they did the remaster.

obviously beacuse I didnt know his voice was apparently sped up.

And I like it but not as much anymore given the new info on how it was produced. Some magic was indeed lost on me cause of the speed up shit. im not ashamed that I think that.

Its like saying King Kong instead of a stop motion puppet was actually a guy in a gorilla suit. the magic is gone.

And the click in FCOL while not present in the center speaker SACD recording by Dave, but you can hear breaths where it is, which may indeed be why its always stayed.

Its not a rumor if meat said it himself. Meat said his voice is sped up, i do indeed believe him even if I don't want to.

But this clip has made me rethink my first statement. i swear to god hes miming

YouTube Video

It wasn't just Meat's voice. The whole album was sped up by 1/8th so it would fit on an LP. I have no issue with this. Try slowing Two Out Of Three down by 1/7th and you'll find that it becomes pretty boring. :shrug: