Bat 3 or Hang Cool Teddy Bear

[Evil One]

Me too. Steve is speaking sense!

[Elijah's way]

Originally Posted by AndrewG

I must be losing my mind because I agree with you 100%.

WOW!!!

[The Flying Mouse]

Originally Posted by Evil One

Me too. Steve is speaking sense!

Hope this padded cell is big enough for one more here, because I agree

The two songs i'm really into on HCTB are Love Is Not Real and Song Of Madness.
Living On The Outside is decent enough while California Isn't Big Enough has it's moments, but is spoilt by the "dick" (just ones fan opinion here).
Elvis In Vegas is something you can tap your foot to, but the rest of the album just isn't that memorable.
And when I say that, I mean I can't remember the rest of the songs on the album or what the hell they sound like because I just don't listen to them.
I need to get round to listening to them again with a fresh ear, but hearing the first time has not made that an exciting proposition so i'm not exactly rushing to do it.

Bat III on the other hand has Monster's Loose, BAAB, Alive, If God Could Talk, Sieze The Night, Bad For good, Land Of THe Pigs, Breal It, What About Love.
AMAZING SONGS.

The Future Ain't What It Used to Be is also a pretty good song, with only All Coming Back, Cry Over Me, and Cry To Heaven failing to hit a very highly set bar.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by daveake

Hmmm. Not sure I should touch this one as it's been done to death, but Bat III didn't complete the franchise so much as it shot the Bat legacy in the foot-acy.

Bat Out Of Hell was an artistic work of Steinman writing songs and Meat Loaf performing them. The corporate moguls saw the cash and put this formula back to work on Bat 2 with good results. They went for a cash cow trifecta with Bat 3, but it failed because it jumped the shark. Further, Steinman attempting a stage show is also jump the shark because it fails to work within the successful formula of the first to installments of the project - it may succeed, but will still be a display in jumping the shark. Whereas, Hang Cool Teddy Bear was a Meat Loaf project where he set out to create an artistic work - independent of anything of his past body of work, in the same way that Steinman breaking out to create Dance of the Vampires was setting forth a new body of work.

Comparing artist work against other artistic work is meritless, as art is entirely subjective and you can only quantify subjectivity against one's own opinion. Polls like are entirely pointless and serve to stir controversy.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Steve6

Look at the individual songs on Bat 3; BAAB, Pigs, and Alive, they are all better songs than anything on HCTB.

Pigs and Cry To Heaven are embarrassments as far as Meat Loaf songs go. It is painful to listen to the absolute train wreck that is Pigs - in any incarnation. Yes, it may work well within the realms of a musical, but it is a bit far fetched as a rock song. The hook is good, it has potential, but Jim clearly ran out of lyrical fortitude with this one - again, the shark was jumped. Cry To Heaven - just plain bad. I would say the same thing for Did You Ever Love Somebody from HCTB - absolutely embarrassing to have this song attached to a Meat Loaf album, and Love Is Not Real would have been specular had they not attempted to throw in everything but the kitchen sink with the addition of Next Time You Stab Me In the Back in the middle of it. Really, the songs would have stood better on their own. Both albums have their clunkers.