Dead Ringer...or Bad for Good?

[RadioMaster]

I thought it was an interesting idea to compare the two Bat albums, so here´s another one:

Dead Ringer or Bad for Good?

Both could be seen as follow ups to Bat out of Hell, BfG was written for Meat, DR is written by Jim too and sung by Meat.
I personally prefer BfG, because of two reasons.

- I like the songs much more
- Meat´s voice on DR is not the best

Actually I really like just two songs on DR, which are DRFL and MTYD.
But on BfG I like nearly every song.

What´s your opinion?

and btw, shell I continue this album comparisons?

[Lord Kagan]

I think BFG is better aswell, I guess well get to hear meats version of the title track soon though but i think if he that album he could have had a few moew hits on his hands.

[MeatGrl1]

Not heard Bad For Good but Dead Ringer is one of my most
listened to out of all my beloved Meat albums so go figure...

[mszee]

One of my favorite albums is Dead Ringer...

I was squirming all through Bad For Good and listened to it EXACTLY one time...wouldn't want to repeat that again....

[PanicLord]

Dead Ringer has my favourite Meat songs on it (DRFL, IGLHFBOU, REAW), but is not my overall favourite album. That is Bat Out Of Hell Live.

[Pudding]

I think B4G has the overall better songs on it, but DR has IGLHFBOU and ReaW, two absolute classics. DRFL does absolutely nothing for me anymore.

Production wise I thing B4G is better. And vocally, although Meat's voice doesn't sound that fantastic on DR, it sounds better than Jim's on B4G.

So B4G but only just.

Pud

[mikeloaf]

I have never heard Bad for Good so I'm looking forward to that, All coming back.. is very good! There is lots for me to look forward to hearing on the new album.

[Pudding]

I think the poll is about the albums NOT the individual songs.

Pud

[mikeloaf]

Not sure what you mean?

[Pudding]

Your post would indicate that you've never heard the song Bad For Good and that you are looking forward to it, so am I btw. But the poll is about the whole album Bad For Good and the whole album Dead Ringer, not just the two songs.

Pud

[wenners]

tough choice this one.

BFG has some great song on it BFG, lost boys, Frying pan, surfs up, left in the dark rock and roll dreams and not forgetting the best spoken words Steinman has ever done-American guitar,

But The dead ringer has mtyd, igtlhfbou ,ikyiydcb, read em, dead ringer,

to choose to choose.

I think meats vocals are better than jim's

Have to go with BFG due to the amount of time i play it more than Dead ringer even though one of may favourite songs (lover her for both of us) is on dead ringer

Tough choice though BFG but bfg it has to be the songs are bigger plus the added bonus is Meat has done all the big songs from BFG, Cant wait to here he's version of BFG


PS,I'm surprised that people havent heard the album Bad for good it is a must listen for any Loafer.

[Bart]

the real problem with this 2 albums is that they may contain Jim best songs but both albums are far from perfect.
DR sounds dated. It already sounded dated in 1981. On some songs Meat is great. The piano arrangements are one of the best i have ever heard. The album is too short and it contains besides great songs 2 minor ones (the intro and extro).

BfG the concept is great. The production is great.The songs are fabulous but the concept and some songs are stolen from BOOH. I hate Jim's voice. I dont like Royr's voice on a solo. Surf's up spoils it for me. Great song, wrong vocals. So a lot of great songs on both but they are far from perfect and We will never hear perfect versions.

Now I think of it Jim wrote/made 3 albums within 4 years. The 30 years after that he may wrote 2 songs year.

[GTB]

Dead Ringer For Love:
1. Peel Out
2. I'm Gonna Love Her For Both Of Us
3. More Than You Deserve
4. I'll Kill You If You Don't Come Back
5. Read 'Em And Weep
6. Nocturnal Pleasure
7. Dead Ringer For Love
8. Everything Is Permitted

Bad For Good:
1. Bad For Good
2. Lost Boys And Golden Girls
3. Love And Death And An American Guitar
4. Stark Raving Love
5. Out Of The Frying Pan (And Into The Fire)
6. Surf's Up
7. Dance In My Pants
8. Left In The Dark

Looking at those two track lists I'd say BFG just edges it based on song quality. That said I personally don't like Jim's vocals and many of these songs are included sounding so much better on Bat 2 (btw would love to hear Meat record 'Dance In My Pants'). I agree Meat's not at his best on DRFL, but the album does have classic Steinman epics like IGLHFBOF, MTYD, and my personal favouite 'I'll Kill You If You Don't Come Back'. Can only imagine what the sequal to Bat could have been if Jim and Meat had agreed on the track lists (or Meat hadn't lost his voice, or was abducted by aliens or whatever the real story is there)

GTB

[Bohemian]

Originally Posted by GTB

...I would love to hear Meat record 'Dance In My Pants'...

Personally I'm glad he hasn't.

As for Stark Raving Love, Jim and Davey Johnstone kinda got it right the first time... the rest have all been Meatified now...

The production on Bad for Good poops all over Dead Ringer, and I'd much rather listen to Jim and Rory singing than Meat Loaf singing with only half his voice, from his throat. I find the vocals on Dead Ringer almost impossible to listen to. It's borderline kermit impersonation. And More than you Deserve has never interested me, Peel Out is a great song but way let down by bad production where the album needed good production most, and Everything is Permitted sounds wrong. I've always loved Read em and Weep, but again Meat's voice!!

Bad for Good for me, by somewhat of a mile.

[samurai7]

Originally Posted by Bohemian

The production on Bad for Good poops all over Dead Ringer, and I'd much rather listen to Jim and Rory singing than Meat Loaf singing with only half his voice, from his throat. I find the vocals on Dead Ringer almost impossible to listen to. It's borderline kermit impersonation. And More than you Deserve has never interested me, Peel Out is a great song but way let down by bad production where the album needed good production most, and Everything is Permitted sounds wrong. I've always loved Read em and Weep, but again Meat's voice!!

Bad for Good for me, by somewhat of a mile.

Have you got the vinyl version? It sounds INFINITELY better than the CD version - Peel Out is much 'brighter' sounding, and the vocals seem to have more presence to them.

Bad For Good is possibly my favourite album ever. I love Rory's voice (got hooked on it after hearing 'Total Eclipse') and the arrangements of the tracks are great. However, 'Dance In My Pants' is one that I skip quite often - it seems like a pale imitation of 'Paradise' to me. The only trouble with the album is Jim's voice. Over the years I've learned to like it, but whenever I play the album to anybody they all say the same: "Boy, this guy CAN'T SING!!!"

Dead Ringer also has its high points - 'I'm Gonna Love Her For Both of Us' and 'I'll Kill You If You Don't Come Back' are excellent, and two of Jim's best songs in my opinion. I don't like the CD version though - it sounds muffled, like it was mastered really badly. It takes lots of fiddling with my graphic equaliser to get it to sound anywhere near right, which puts me off listening to it. So Bad For Good gets my vote (but if we're comparing the vinyl versions, I'd say that I like both about the same - to me they are twins separated at birth lol!)


[edited to say that Davey's guitar sounds way too tinny on 'Peel Out' and 'Stark Raving Love', but again, over the years I've learned to acccept it]

[AndrewG]

That is interesting to hear about the sound quality. Perhaps we'll get a better remastered version at some point? That would be good.

[samurai7]

I hope so. I've bought two CD version so far - one on its own and one in a double pack with Bat, and they're both the same. I bought it on the off-chance that it might sound different, but alas...

By the way,
I'd be interested to know (off topic, naturally....) how many Meat/Jim CD's/Vinyls/Cassettes everybody has? I know that I have 6 different editions of Bat Out Of Hell on CD alone, not counting the three editions on vinyl and two on Cassette. I guess you could say I have a bit of an obsession

[edited cos I can't count lol!!]

[AndrewG]

I only have 3 cd versions and 1 vinyl version of Bat. Does "DRFL" not sound better on the Very best of album by any chance? Or has that just been mastered from the cd version. That sucks if it has been.

[Jayd]

Got to be Dead Ringer for me. Meat's is a far better singer, and Jim, well, he just can't sing, sorry to say. The BFG album, just sounds so tinny to me, shame really because there are excellent songs on it.

[RadioMaster]

As much as im intersted in the number of albums everybody got, we should start another thread with that.

To me, it looks like you´re all doing one big mistake, I´ve done too, when I heard Jims songs first:
You compare them to Meat!
If we´re talking about the quality of the voice and the emotions in it, sure Meat has to win, but you have to hear BfG as an own album song by an own artist and not like a Meat Loaf tribute cd.
You cant judge the album from the point of pathos, you can just jugde the album itself.
The best example IMO is frying pan, I like Meat´s version and I like Jim´s version, but I like it...different. I see it from another point like "just" a sing-beside-doing-something-else-song.
I hope you get what I mean.

[Jayd]

Originally Posted by Radiomaster

As much as im intersted in the number of albums everybody got, we should start another thread with that.

To me, it looks like you´re all doing one big mistake, I´ve done too, when I heard Jims songs first:
You compare them to Meat!
If we´re talking about the quality of the voice and the emotions in it, sure Meat has to win, but you have to hear BfG as an own album song by an own artist and not like a Meat Loaf tribute cd.
You cant judge the album from the point of pathos, you can just jugde the album itself.
The best example IMO is frying pan, I like Meat´s version and I like Jim´s version, but I like it...different. I see it from another point like "just" a sing-beside-doing-something-else-song.
I hope you get what I mean.

I don't think it is comparing, when we say Meat has got a better voice. The topic is which album is better, or do we prefer. The one's who has gone for Dead Ringer, have chose it, because he is a better singer, and the album sounds better, because of that. BFG in my opinion, sounds awful, because Jim can't sing. If he had got someone else, to sing it, ( I know Meat couldn't at the time), someone with a good voice, then maybe, it might have pipped Meat's at the post, but like I said, it does sound awful and tinny, which is a real shame, cos the songs are excellent.

[mszee]

RJ, although I understand perfectly what you're saying, in my opinion, although most songwriters who can sing write songs for their voices, Jim never really wrote songs completely suitable to his voice.

All his songs are grandiose and, therefore, require "big" voices - Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler to name just a few for them to sound right.

This, of course, is my opinion why people would, in fact, compare, BFG with ML albums and some - like me - will find BFG lacking.

But even without any comparison, I would have found BFG extremely weak record performance wise while chock full of great songs.

[RadioMaster]

Yeah, but it just sounds weak, because you compare the album to how it could have been sounding if it would have been sung by Meat.
You have to hear it and dont think one thought of Meat, and then the album it´s pretty good.

Jim said somewhere that he wrote the songs on BfG for Meat and so he had to sing for example one octave higher than his natural voice, I think that makes a lot of the "weakness" of the song.

I must say he sounds pretty good with "his" voice for example on the Graveyard Shift

[mszee]

I like a lot of his songs as sung by Steinman - you know I LOVE Wonderful Toys.

And yet...BFG...I just couldn't open my mind to.

On top of it, there is something wrong with arrangements on some songs. There is this guitar that on some songs was cutting off my ears off my head. Maybe that's another problem with the album and maybe re-mastered it would have sounded different.

[Jayd]

I don't think the album, even re-mastered, would make any difference, because a great singer, is not singing any of the songs. If it had a better singer, anyone, other than Jim, not saying it should be Meat, it could have been, alot better, and could have been a classic album.