Meat Loaf’s ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ composer was 73 – Deadline

Jim Steinman, the composer and lyricist whose selection of hit records included Meat Loaf’s 1977 debut album Bat from hell, died Monday in Connecticut, Deadline has confirmed with Connecticut medical examiner. He was 73.

A cause of death has not been disclosed.

Steinman, whose sweeping opera production style perfectly matched the sometimes bombastic, highly melodic pop of Meat Loaf, Celine Dion, Bonnie Tyler and Barry Manilow, also found a home on the theatrical stage and composed the score for the 2017 musical. Bat from hell, as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1996 West End musical Whistle in the wind

While none of these shows received Broadway productions, Steinman’s was Dance of the vampires, based on the film by Roman Polanski The Fearless Vampire Killers, began a brief spell at the Minskoff Theater on Broadway in 2002. The composer’s ‘Holding Out For Hero’ was featured in the 1998 Broadway musical adaptation of Footloose

Bat from hell is one of the 35 best-selling albums in US history, selling 14 million copies, according to the RIAA. The singles ‘Two of Three Ain’t Bad’ and ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’ – which reached No. 11 and No. 39 on the Billboard Hot 100 respectively – went platinum in 2018.

“Paradise by the Dashboard Light” – a duet with Ellen Foley, who played the lead role in season 1 of Nachthof – is famous with the longtime New York Yankees announcer calling “the action” while the teenage storyteller makes a move against his girlfriend. Check out the video for the song below, featuring Karla DeVito lip-syncing from ‘Stop There!’ role. She then went on tour with Meat Loaf to support the album.

The pair also collaborated on the 1993 album Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, which has moved more than 5 million copies in the US. The platinum lead single ‘I’ll Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)’ was at number 1 for five weeks in late 1993, by far Meat Loaf’s biggest hit. The nearly eight-minute official video for that is also below.

Bat from hell was also a hit abroad, spending more than 10 years on the UK album chart despite peaking at number 9. It remains one of the 20 bestsellers of all time there. Bat Out of Hell II hit No. 1 in Great Britain, as did the single ‘I’ll Do Anything for Love’.

After his breakthrough with Bat from hellwhich would eventually reach sales of more than 50 million worldwide, Steinman wrote hits like Tyler’s’ Total Eclipse of the Heart ‘and’ Holding Out for a Hero ‘, Manilow’s’ Read’ Em and Weep ‘,’ Making Love Out ‘by Air Supply of Nothing at All ‘and Dion’s’ It’s All Coming Back to Me Now. The latter two peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100.

“Holding Out for a Hero” was adapted as part of the 1998 Broadway musical adaptation Footloose.

New York-born Steinman also worked at Meat Loaf again in 1981 Dead ringtone and 2016’s Braver than we areSteinman’s 1981 solo album Bad for good charted in the mid-60s in the United States, but reached No. 7 in the UK. It spawned the US Top 40 single “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through”.

For film, Steinman contributed to the soundtracks of Shrek 2, a small circle of friends and Awakening rude.

Last month, Meat Loaf, aka Michael Lee Aday, told Deadline about his plans for a TV relationship competition series based on the 1993 hit ‘I’ll Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)’, the song written by Steinman. The composer was not a participant in the project.

Surviving information was not immediately available.

Erik Pedersen contributed to this report.