Sad news today that Mr ‘Hackbraten’ as he would be called in the German translation, Meatloaf, has died.

For those of us lucky enough to have grown up with great Rock music in the late ’70’s the album ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ could only be compared to Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in it’s bombastic splendour. The match of Meatloaf with writer/producer Jim Steinman was one of those magical combinations. The singer got the glory of course and the two fell out. Steinman even had the phrase ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ legally registered. Both men had health issues and disagreements but it was always clear that neither was quite as good without the other.

Jim Steinman died in April of 2021, and now Meatloaf himself has gone. There was talk of a return to the recording studio in January of 2022 and a disc that would also include live tracks from the 1970’s to the present. Expect then some seriously good blasts from the past to be released in the coming months, even if there was no time for the new material to be put down.

In a 2016 interview Meatloaf said he’d had 18 concussions, fallen three stories from a balcony, been in planes where the landing gears failed and was currently being treated for back pain. So why do you still go on tour? was the obvious question. “I don’t wanna travel and I don’t wanna pack, but I DO wanna do shows!” Two out of three ain’t bad indeed. R.I.P. Meatloaf