Stoney & Meat Loaf - Stoney & Meat Loaf

Jim Steinman once commented that his biggest -- and heaviest -- protégé, Meat Loaf, required larger-than-life material because he couldn't sing down-to-life-sized songs. This first Loaf album, released to little fanfare in 1971 before the singer and Steinman became a steady coupling, disproves this, somewhat, by offering Meat the surges and releases of a gospel cadence; the opening "(I'd Love to Be) As Heavy as Jesus" had no business skipping the smash hit list in an era of "Oh Happy Day" and "Put Your Hand in the Hand." Elsewhere, "What You See Is What You Get" foreshadows the Steinman touch of song-weaving from cliché, though its toughness doesn't include Steinman's knack for twisting clichés into Möbius strips. Read More