I'm completely puzzled by any review that goes beyond 5 out of 10 - which is the highest score I could comprehend with heavily rose-tinted glasses. That the songs are mostly leftovers that were written in the seventies isn't the problem. That many of them have been interpreted before in much better versions isn't the problem. That the arrangements are hit and miss isn't the problem. ThatI'm completely puzzled by any review that goes beyond 5 out of 10 - which is the highest score I could comprehend with heavily rose-tinted glasses. That the songs are mostly leftovers that were written in the seventies isn't the problem. That many of them have been interpreted before in much better versions isn't the problem. That the arrangements are hit and miss isn't the problem. That Who Needs The Young is probably the worst lead-in to an album I've ever had the displeasure of not being able to avoid listening to isn't the problem.
The problem is Meat Loaf. Have you ever witnessed the tragedy that was the 2011 AFL Grand Final performance? (Look it up on YouTube, it's there in all its tragic glory.) That was an event of dire portent, and five years later his voice hasn't exactly improved. In fact, it's completely ruined. Meat Loaf can't carry a tune if his life depended on it, he whines and moans and wheezes his way through the album with a voice in such a bad condition that I'm absolutely baffled as to why no one seems to have said to him, "Hey, buddy. You DO know that you don't have any business in front of a microphone anymore, don't you? Just let it go and retire in dignity."
I'm not here to senselessly bash an artist I don't like. I've been a Meat Loaf/Steinman fan since the early eighties, and if they had resolved their differences ten years ago and done this album then, this might have been something. (Granted, there's a lot of total failures on this album, but I would've loved to hear Going All The Way Is Just The Start in Meat Loaf's glory days.) But Meat Loaf's voice is destroyed beyond repair. No one expects him to hit the notes he was able to hit as a young man, no one expects him to display the range he once had. But if there ever was a case in which autotune would've been a blessing, it's this one. Even though he leaves the heavy lifting to Karla DeVito, Ellen Foley and Stacy Michelle - who are doing a fine job and upstage him at every turn, by the way -, he can't even negotiate the easy to sing lines, let alone the hard ones. He's actually really hard to listen to, it's a crying shame.
Clearly he needed the money, and coping with his failing health surely doesn't come cheap. But this man doesn't belong on the stage or in a recording studio anymore. He should've retired with some dignity. That this is his last collaboration with Steinman AND his last album is truly saddening.… Expand