Bat Out of Hell - Reception

Reception

Bat Out of Hell was released by Cleveland International on October 21, 1977. Cleveland International's parent label was Epic Records, where almost everyone hated it. Steve Popovich, the head of Cleveland International Records, was relentless in his efforts to get Epic and all of CBS Records and radio on board. In 1993, Steinman reflected that the album is "timeless in that it didn't fit into any trend. It's never been a part of what's going on. You could release that record at any time and it would be out of place."

Response to the album was slow. Steinman asserts that it was "underpromoted", having a reputation of being "damaged goods because it had been walked around to so many places." Due to the enthusiastic response to the music videos from the record Australia and England were the first to develop interest. The BBC television programme Old Grey Whistle Test aired a clip of the live band performing the nine-minute title track. According to Classic Rock, response was so overwhelming, that they screened it again the following week. They later invited the band to perform "Paradise" live. "As a result, in the UK Bat became an unfashionable, uncool, non-radio record that became a 'must-have' for everyone who heard it, whether they 'got' Steinman's unique perspective or not."

The album was not an immediate hit; it was more of a growing one. Bat Out of Hell still sells about 200,000 copies per year and has sold an estimated 43 million copies worldwide, 14 million in the United States alone, over 1.5 million (22 times platinum) albums in Australia (even re-entering charts on June 2007, at #34 on the ARIAs) becoming the second best-selling album there behind John Farnham's Whispering Jack, 24x Platinum. It stayed on the United Kingdom charts for 474 weeks, a feat surpassed only by the 478 weeks of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. In 1989, Kerrang! magazine listed the album at No. 38 among the "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time". In 2003, the album was ranked number 343 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2006 it was voted number nine in a poll conducted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to discover Australia's most popular album. In November 2007, Meat Loaf was awarded the Classic Album award in Classic Rock's Classic Rock Roll Of Honour.

Reviews were initially mixed, but have since become much more positive. Rolling Stone calls the songs "swell, but... entirely mannered and derivative." The arrangements "aren't bad", although the musicians are commended. The review ends with the assertion that the "principals have some growing to do." Contemporary reviews are more positive, however. Allmusic declares "this is Grand Guignol pop—epic, gothic, operatic, and silly, and it's appealing because of all of this." They acknowledge that Steinman is "a composer without peer, simply because nobody else wanted to make mini-epics like this." Rundgren's production is applauded, as is the wit in the music and lyrics. "It may elevate adolescent passion to operatic dimensions, and that's certainly silly, but it's hard not to marvel at the skill behind this grandly silly, irresistible album."

Also, Meat Loaf revealed on In the Studio with Redbeard that he was not well received early on in the tour when he was opening for Cheap Trick. In the same interview, Meat Loaf revealed that when he played at a CBS Records convention in 1978, record executives and superstar Billy Joel (who was in the audience) gave Meat Loaf a standing ovation for his performance after a haunting performance of the closing track "For Crying Out Loud" was the turning point in the album's success in the US.