Bat Out of Hell: Album Review of the 1977 Classic

The phrase “concept album” can often be enough to generate a mild bowel movement in many music fans and critics. Ever since The Who and The Pretty Things pioneered the genre in the late 60’s, there has been any number of bands eager to show us that they are adept at writing more than 3 minute pop ditties and are also skilled at making a Serious Musical Statement. Ambition outweighs talent far too often though, and through the years there have been some good arguments for placing legal restrictions on many bands’ recorded output. Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, King Crimson and Genesis are but four bands amongst whose back catalogues lurk crimes of indulgent nonsense, and even The Who and the Floyd came a cropper on occasion. Tommy remains a slightly overrated, incoherent album, while Pink Floyd’s Final Cut never found favour with fans or critics.

Nevertheless, it can be convincingly argued that on the occasions when a concept album has worked, it has fortunately resulted in some of the greatest, most intelligent and exciting rock records ever. Sgt Pepper, Ziggy Stardust, Pet Sounds, The Wall, Lou Reeds’ Berlin, SF Sorrow, Dark Side Of The Moon. All classics, and one record that can be counted as a successful concept album is the teenaged-motorbike-shagfest of Bat Out Of Hell.

In commercial terms, of course, this is an album that not only can’t be argued with, but will also offer you “outside” if you look at it funny. It simply bosses most other records in terms of sales and chart placings: It has sold approximately 34 million copies worldwide, continues to sell 200,000 per year, was the biggest-selling debut album ever until Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill, is one of the five biggest-selling records of all time, and remained in the UK album charts for a staggering 474 weeks, beaten only by Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours at 477 weeks.

However, size is no guarantee of quality – Garth Brooks and Celine Dion have also sold obscene amounts. It’s fortunate then, that Bat Out Of Hell is a rather good album, not without its flaws, but one that manages to live up to its classic album status.

Songwriter Jim Steinman’s vision was forged from growing up on a heady brew of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Springsteen’s Born To Run and Wagnerian opera. Not the most easily matched of musical tastes you might think, but this record would seamlessly fuse together an operatic sense of danger and passion with the rock n’ roll sensibilities of lusty teenage rebellion. Steinman’s lyrics, combined with Todd Rundgren’s fantastically overblown production and the virtuoso playing of various members of the E Street Band, conjured up vistas where leather-clad hell’s angels revved their Harleys, tore up the highway and cut through the wild night in search of a shag.