Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf

Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf's debut album, roared out in October 1977 on Cleveland International and Epic, and it's rock and roll as grand opera, with the volume and the drama cranked past the red line. Every song came from Jim Steinman, and the whole thing grew out of Neverland, his futuristic rock take on Peter Pan written for a workshop in 1974. Todd Rundgren produced it through 1975 and 1976 at several studios, Bearsville in Woodstock, New York, among them.

Meat Loaf sings every line like it's the last thing he'll ever do. The title track is a runaway symphony, all thundering piano and screaming guitar; "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" is a sprawling, sweaty mini-drama that plays out like a stage show; and "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" is a big, weary ballad with its heart on its sleeve. Hard rock, prog, glam and heavy metal all get thrown into the pot.

The numbers are ridiculous: more than 43 million copies sold, 14 times platinum in the US and 26 times in Australia, where no album has sold more, and 522 weeks on the British chart by June 2019. It led to two sequels, Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell in 1993 and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose in 2006, and in 2017 it became a stage musical of its own.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.