Bat out of Hell (1977) is the extremely succesful debut album of singer Meat Loaf (Marvin Lee Aday). It was written by Jim Steinman and produced by Todd Rundgren.
The album featured music of a bombastic and wagnerian style. not quite the style that used to be a hit in the Seventies. When Steinman and Meat Loaf starting proposing it to music companies they had a lot of trouble finding someone willing to produce it. But when guitarist Todd Rundgren heard it, he immediately decided he wanted to produce the album. They still needed a label and it took them some more time before they finally settled with Cleveland International.
The album was released on October 21, 1977. It was not an immediate hit, it was more of a growing one. It soon became the best selling debut album of all times, and it remained so until Alanis Morrissette's Jagged Little Pill's release in 1995. It still sells about 200,000 copies per year and has sold an estimated 34 million copies, 16 million in the US alone, becoming one of the top five biggest selling albums of all time. It remained 472 weeks in the UK charts.
The famous song "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" is about a boy who wants sexual intercourse with a girl. She agrees on the condition that he will love her forever. He reluctantly agrees. Afterwards he regrets his promise but does not want to break it: he prays for the end of time, so he can end his time with her.
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