YMMV / Meat Loaf

• Americans Hate Tingle: He lost a lot of fans in Australia after his disastrous performance at the 2011 AFL Grand Final (effectively the Australian equivalent of the Super Bowl). There are still many fans there who love him dearly, but for the bulk of the country, his reputation never really recovered and he is still mocked for it to this day.
• Awesome Music: For a magnum opus you can't really look past the title track on Bat Out Of Hell. The whole album counts too, with "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" in particular standing out.
  • The sequel album, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, is also similarly bombastically epic, especially because it starts with "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)".
  • Not a magnum opus but when he first performed in The Rocky Horror Picture Show Richard O'Brien told him not to worry about singing all the words to Hot Patootie as no-one ever could. He became the first person to sing all the words in time with the music, and that includes the guy who wrote the song.
  • "Going All The Way Is Just The Start" from the final album Braver Than We Are is perhaps Meat and Steinman's Swan Song. The rest of the album might not have been their best, but this one (featuring duets with Karla Devito and Ellen Foley, no less) is on par with their epics of yesteryear.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The spoken word intro to "You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)", an erotic horror piece performed by Jim Steinman and actress Marcia McClain, which has no relevance whatsoever to the song that follows it. The alternate take used in the music video, wherein Steinman and Karla DeVito scream their lines as if they were teenagers who haven't learned how to emote properly, is even more so.
  • On the following album, "Dead Ringer For Love" is preceded by "Nocturnal Pleasure", a nonsensical Steinman monologue involving urban barbarians blowing up the YWCA while motorcycles reproduce in the alley. And then there's "Love and Death and an American Guitar" from Steinman's solo album, a Morrison-ish piece of poetry that he later re-recorded for Bat Out of Hell II as "Wasted Youth", the intro for "Everything Louder Than Everything Else".
  • Welcome To The Neighbourhood has two similar interluding tracks: "Forty Five Seconds Of Ecstasy" sang by Susan Wood, which actually runs for just over a minute, and "Fiesta De Las Almas Perdidas", a catchy little Mexican style instrumental.
  • His appearance in The Rocky Horror Picture Show plays with this trope: he just appears out of a freezer and starts belting out a fifties-esque rock-n-roll song "Hot Patootie". He is then soundly axed by Frank N Furter. However, much like the Trope Namer, his character does reappear...in a way. Dr. Scott shows up later looking for his nephew. They're reunited at dinner.
• Covered Up:
  • "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" was first recorded by Steinman for Bad For Good, and later covered by Meat Loaf on Bat Out of Hell II. Both versions charted almost identically (Steinman's at #14, Meat Loaf's at #13), but someone who recognizes the title is more likely to associate with Meat Loaf.
  • "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" was a #1 hit for Celine Dion in 1996 and remains the definitive version in North America. When Meat Loaf recorded his cover in 2006, as a duet with Norwegian singer Marion Raven, it hit #1 in many European countries where the Dion version didn't do as well. Before either of those versions came out, it was initially recorded by another Jim Steinman project called Pandora's Box, in 1989.
  • "More Than You Deserve" was originally the title song of a 1973 musical written by Steinman.
  • All the Steinman-penned songs on Bat Out of Hell III are recycled from earlier Steinman projects; "The Future Ain't What It Used To Be" and "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" were originally recorded by Pandora's Box (and the latter is more famous for Céline Dion's cover), "Bad For Good" was originally the title track of Steinman's solo album, "Seize the Night" was lifted from Tanz Der Vampire, and "In the Land of the Pig, the Butcher is King" and "Cry to Heaven" were salvaged from Batman: The Musical.
  • Due largely because of the film adaptation, his version of "Hot Patootie", is much more well-known than the original by Paddy O'Hagen.
• Epic Riff: The really fast piano riff at the beginning of "Bat Out of Hell."
  • The piano melody that opens "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)".
  • The heavy guitar riff from "Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)".
• Ending Fatigue: To the fans, it's Epic Rocking. To everybody else...
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Popular though he may be in America, Meat Loaf is arguably even bigger in Europe going by chart performances alone. This is especially true in Britain, where Dead Ringer, Midnight at the Lost and Found, Couldn't Have Said It Better, and other albums which failed to chart elsewhere were top ten hits.
• Heartwarming Moments: "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" is one of his softer songs, where the protagonist is singing about going to whatever length for his love interest. When the love interest says that she is worried about him cheating on her, he responds "I won't do that, no I won't do that."
  • "Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through" is also similarly soft as well, where it's about the healing power of rock music, and that whenever you are feeling depressed and lonely, you can "put on the phones" and listening to it will help you hold on to hope and believe that things will get better.
    • The music video is arguably even sweeter, where it's about a runaway teenager who comes across a fortune teller, who comforts her the whole way through, and helps her bring up the courage return to her family. Even better when Meat Loaf himself, who plays the fortune teller, also plays the teenager's father in the music video, the final shot of him looking back up at his daughter when she returns through the gate...
  • "Modern Girl" from the album "Bad Attitude" is a song about a man with an optimistic hope for better times to come, and his desire to be with a girlfriend who shares the same vision, who is just as innocent as he is from their ancestors' mistakes, and that it's both their goal to create a brighter future. The upbeat, triumphant instrumentation helps just as easily.
• Mandela Effect: Referenced. The lyric "objects in the rear-view mirror may appear closer than they are" is a result of the band experiencing the Mandela Effect; it's actually "Objects in the mirror are Closer Than They Appear" and not "Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear".
• Memetic Mutation: The eternal mystery of what "that" might be in "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)". Is it illegal? Immoral? Degenerate? Anatomically impractical? The answer is actually right there in the lyrics^note It's a promise to be faithful. At the end, the female vocalist asks a number of questions ("Will you raise me up? Will you help me down? Will you get me right out of this godforsaken town?") and he replies "I can do that". Then she says that eventually the shine will go out of their relationship and "Sooner or later you'll be screwing around." "I won't do that. No, I won't do that." but that hasn't stopped the public from treating it as a Riddle for the Ages, a joke even Meat Loaf himself propagated.
• Older Than They Think: Some songs from later Meat Loaf albums are re-recordings of songs Jim Steinman wrote for other projects (for example, "Surf's Up" and "Nowhere Fast" on Bad Attitude, "Lost Boys and Golden Girls" and "It Just Won't Quit" on Back Into Hell and "Seize the Night" on The Monster Is Loose).
• Retroactive Recognition: A young, pre-fame Angelina Jolie plays the teenage runaway in the music video for Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through.
• Sequel Displacement: Stoney and Meatloaf went largely unnoticed at the time, and after its initial release was re-issued with Meat Loaf's vocals edited out. After Bat Out of Hell, it was re-issued again - with Meat Loaf's vocals restored, and Stoney Murphy's removed.
• Signature Song: "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" are the frontrunners, though "Bat Out of Hell", "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad, and "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth" are also very well-known.
• So Bad, It's Good: Meat Loaf's allegedly drunken rendition of America The Beautiful in front of Mitt Romney must be heard to be believed. Given the decline evident on 2016's Braver Than We Are album, however, it's quite likely that that was just how he sounded after 40+ years of torturing his voice.
• Sophomore Slump: Bat Out of Hell was a slow starter but eventually became a huge success worldwide. However, the proposed follow-up album (Renegade Angel) failed to materialize when Meat Loaf lost his voice. It was eventually recorded by Jim Steinman as Bad For Good to a lukewarm reception, while Meat Loaf's second album, the Steinman-written Dead Ringer only scraped the lower end of the top fifty (except in Britain, where it went to the top of the charts).
• Squick: Couldn't Have Said It Better includes "Man of Steel," the chorus of which goes "I used to be a man of steel/making love to you all night long." It's a duet with his (adoptive) daughter Pearl. Yeah.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Played the villain in the terrible children's film To Catch a Yeti. Played the role completely straight. By far the best part of the film.