An undoubtable icon of the rock music world. A cult character actor. A true ‘Bat Out of Hell’. International rock-star Meat Loaf has died at the age of 74.
Born Marvin Lee Alday in 1947, Meat Loaf became a staple of the 1970s-80s music scene. Best known for his three-octave voice range and considerable stage presence, his debut album Bat Out of Hell (1977) skyrocketed him to superstardom and remains the fourth best-selling album of all time to this day. Meat Loaf was especially beloved in the UK, where he saw sales greater than his native US and became a common name in the British rock charts. Alday also enjoyed some success in the film industry, performing in numerous cult classics, including the comedy musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and drama Fight Club (1999).
Granted his legendary nickname due to the redness of his skin at birth, Meat Loaf moved to Los Angeles in 1965 following a childhood wracked by alcohol and abuse. With his powerful voice and fierce stage presence, the musician quickly made a name for himself in both the hard-rock scene and in the world of theatre, appearing in Hair, and later acting as Eddie in Rocky Horror on Broadway.
In 1972, he met Jim Steinman, who was to become his long-time collaborator and friend (when they weren’t embroiled in one of their infamous feuds). Together, they worked on six of Meat Loaf’s albums over the course of his career before Steinman’s death in 2016.
Despite his tough-guy rock-star persona, however, Alday was known for being a quiet, pensive man in his private life, and suffered from social anxiety. At the peak of his fame, the intensity of the spotlight led the rock-star spiralling, partly fuelled by a debilitating cocaine addiction. The psychological after-effects caused the singer to lose his voice entirely; he wouldn’t regain it until nearly a year later.
The rest of Meat Loaf’s career was hounded with increasing health issues. Years of heavy rock performances caused severe damage to his vocal chords. In 2007, he famously cut a concert in Newcastle short, stating that it would be his ‘last ever performance’ before marching off the stage.
Alday returned to live music a year later, however, following extensive surgery. His health issues prevailed, with multiple on-stage collapses over the next 10 years; Meat Loaf still, however, refused to retire and would continue to write and perform music until his death.
Meat Loaf’s place in the roster of iconic rock figures is undeniable. Beyond his record-breaking album sales, his persona as the bombastic, motor-cycle riding, stage-destroying rock god is one that prevails as a key archetype in the music scene to this day. With Bat Out of Hell, Alday and Steinman redesigned the rock and roll album into a glorious hurricane of gothic spectacle, combining Broadway finesse with roaring motorbikes, thundering drums, and screeching electric guitars.
Despite a downward trajectory in album sales near the end of his career, Meat Loaf remains a rock legend, and his powerful arena-stretching voice will go down in history as one of the greatest to ever grace our keen ears.
Words by Alice Fortt
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