Label Blew Meat Loaf's Biggest ...
From the NY Post
February 28, 2007 -- WARNER Brothers Records has signed scores of huge-selling artists, but one who got away was Meat Loaf - because the mountain-size crooner got too carried away performing his steamy classic "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" for label executives back in the late 1970s. In his new book, "The Label," Gary Marmorstein writes that former Warner music president Mo Austin had greenlighted the "Bat Out of Hell" album, but it was then nixed by authoritative A&R chief Lenny Waronker. "[He] was repulsed by the band's in-office performance, which included Meat Loaf ostentatiously making out with singer Ellen Foley during the long 'Paradise' number. It was a catastrophic decision," Marmorstein writes. And how - the album was released by little-known Cleveland International Records in 1977, and went on to sell 40 million copies worldwide. It continues to sell 200,000 copies a year to this day, and was ranked No. 343 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest rock albums of all time. |
