Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Ironically enough, a box set called Original Album Classics by Meat Loaf contains not one of his three blockbuster Bat Out of Hell albums. Instead, this has mini-LP replicas of five forgotten albums from the '80s: 1981's Dead Ringer, 1983's Midnight at the Lost and Found, 1984's Bad Attitude, 1986's Blind Before I Stop, and 1987's Live at Wembley. A few years down the road he'd have a commercial comeback via Bat Out of Hell II, but this provides a good, affordable way to explore the dark forgotten corners of Meat Loaf's discography.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com

Firstly, none of the albums contained within the box-set have been digitally re-mastered, I’m guessing because Epic are releasing all of Meat Loaf’s 80’s studio albums re-mastered, they are off loading the old CDs in this boxset.

As for the music, the strongest album of the set is “Dead Ringer”, full of swiping epic tracks with both feet firmly set in the 1970’s. I wonder if the reason it wasn’t a hit is because there are no anthems on the record such as “I’d do anything for…” or “Bat out of Hell”, but still a near perfect listening experience.
There is a great diversity with the other three studio albums, mixing 80’s rock, pop, gospel & hair metal (perhaps because his records were not selling particularly well, the record company kept on trying to constantly re-invent meat loaf’s sound).
The set is finished off with the excellent “Live at Wembley”, Meat was still playing small clubs in America at the time, so I think he really relishes playing to a large crowds, experimenting with the arrangements of the songs instead of just going through the motions.
I would usually at this point say you’re save yourself a bit of money by purchasing this boxset, but because of the sound quality (the sounds not bad, but it should be a lot better) I would advise getting the albums individually.

Review by Jimi Jac, Amazon.co.uk

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Although it took Meat Loaf and composer Jim Steinman another 12 years to come up with the marketing gimmick of positioning an album as a deliberate follow-up to the multi-platinum Bat Out of Hell, Dead Ringer was the real "Bat Out of Hell II." Once again, Steinman wrote extended, operatic songs with hyperbolic lyrics ("I'll Kill You If You Don't Come Back" was one title) and organized a backup band anchored by E Street Band members Max Weinberg (drums) and Roy Bittan (keyboards), while Meat Loaf sang with a passion all the more compelling for its hint of the ridiculous. In the U.S., with four years separating Bat and Dead Ringer, nobody cared much. But in the U.K., where Bat was still going strong, Dead Ringer topped the charts, and the title track, featuring a perfectly cast Cher as duet singer, went Top Ten. In retrospect, the missing ingredient in the album is Todd Rundgren's pop sensibility as producer; he was the one who knew how long the compositions could go for maximum dramatic impact without becoming exhausting. It was Rundgren who made Bat Out of Hell a fiery listening experience – producing himself, Meat Loaf often sounded only warmed over.

Review by William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Singer Meat Loaf and composer Jim Steinman tried to do without producer Todd Rundgren, who had handled their masterpiece, Bat Out of Hell, on its follow-up, Dead Ringer, and they managed OK. But then Meat Loaf tried to do without Steinman on the third album, Midnight at the Lost and Found, and didn't even come close. Meat Loaf was in typically impassioned form, but the material just didn't scale the heights of Steinman's incredible hubris. The U.S. had long since lost interest, but even in the U.K., where Meat Loaf was loved, the album was a step down commercially.

Review by William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Meat Loaf collects a couple of Jim Steinman songs and he, Paul Jacobs, and Mack work at re-creating the Todd Rundgren production sound for an album of high-voltage rock. (Originally released on Arista Records in the U.K. in October 1984, Bad Attitude was released in the U.S. on RCA Records in April 1985.)

Review by William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Rather than aping the grandiose rock & roll style pioneered by Jim Steinman and Todd Rundgren on Meat Loaf's landmark Bat Out of Hell album, German producer Frank Farian opts for a standard-issue heavy metal approach on Blind Before I Stop, emphasizing a heart-stoppingly loud rhythm section (sometimes playing at Euro-disco tempo), icy keyboards in the mid-range, and endlessly diddling high-pitched guitar solos on a series of forgettable tunes. Somewhere in the back of the mix, Meat Loaf exercises his adenoids, but all of his usual distinctiveness is lost in the sludge.

Review by William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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By 1987, Meat Loaf was a forgotten man in his own country, but the story was different in Europe. While his 1986 studio LP Blind Before I Stop had marked a sales drop after five consecutive Top Ten albums in the U.K. (including the compilation Hits Out of Hell), it had still made the Top 40, as did the single "Rock 'N' Roll Mercenaries." That kind of consistency, along with the singer's reputation as a concert performer, more than justified the release of this tour souvenir, which was called Live at Wembley in Britain and simply Live elsewhere. (In America, it wasn't released at all.) While it demonstrated that Meat Loaf had the ability to perform his Bat Out of Hell warhorses competently and passionately and that other hits such as "Modern Girl" could rock a crowd, however, the album really never was anything more than a tour souvenir. The sound wasn't great, and although the audience was enthusiastic, Meat Loaf and the band simply went from one song to another, without comment and without much variation from the performances on the much better recorded studio albums. Of course, the juxtaposition of songwriter Jim Steinman's ambitious Bat Out of Hell suites with the more pedestrian arena rock songs Meat Loaf recorded without him was unkind to the latter. The only thing out of the ordinary was the concluding "Rock 'N' Roll Medley," clearly an encore, but Meat Loaf himself was missing in action for much of it, leaving his backup band and backup singers to take the lead vocals on the first two selections, "Johnny B. Goode" and "Slow Down."

Review by William Ruhlmann, Allmusic.com

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Meat Loaf - Original Album Classics (2015) 5CD Box Set

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