Dead is dead.

Two days ago, nobody was talking about Meat Loaf. Two days from now they won’t be either, unless it’s to say he was an anti-vaxxer.

“Bat Out of Hell” was successful for one reason and one reason only, Steve Popovich. Pop was a legendary promo man at CBS Records who left to form his own company, Cleveland International, distributed by his alma mater, and signed, released and promoted “Bat Out of Hell.” No one else believed in it.

Pop?

He’s dead. He had legendary heart problems. But if you knew Steve… He was different from everybody else because he was warm, genuine in a way most promo people never are. Anybody could relate to him, because he held nothing back, he was just himself, and he was a force of nature.

CBS, which was bought by Sony, stopped paying Pop royalties. He had to sue to get them, and he never got a hundred cents on the dollar, the big issue was unaccounted for sales. Millions were off the books.

But after the settlement, Sony continued to leave Cleveland International’s logo off the albums. Imagine if the Gap sold Kanye’s clothing and left his name off, imagine the uproar. Your name is everything, as Pop said, but he died before resolution.

And then there is Todd Rundgren. Would “Bat Out of Hell” have been successful if someone else was in charge? Possible, but doubtful. Especially in the days of yore, when producers were known by all aficionados and were responsible for so many unique sounds and successes. Todd gave up trying to collect royalties from Sony, he let the company buy him out.

And then there’s Jim Steinman, the genius who wrote all the music. Jim was educated and brilliant in a business that is uneducated and stupid. So he had an edgy reputation. Jim had a vision and refused to compromise. Talent is supposed to be a cog in the machine, Jim wasn’t. But now Jim is gone too.

And two days ago, the face of “Bat Out of Hell” passed too, Mr. Loaf, Marvin Lee Aday.

Meat had been kicking around forever, no one knew he was. Sure, he was on stage, but the stage reaches so few people, especially when you’re in a regional production, or revival.

But when “Bat Out of Hell” hit, the music publicity machine revved up, he was always in the news when the music news still meant something, when it was part of artist development, when labels and managers and PR people nurtured someone’s identity and career to keep them in the public eye, so they could continue to generate revenue.

Meat could never follow it up. He lost his voice. He needed Steinman.

All that buzz had faded, of his appearance in “Roadie,” “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

And then Meat and Jim reunited and released “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That).”

Released on MCA, even the label didn’t expect it to be a smash. Al Teller had taken over from Irving Azoff and continued to market the previously signed stuff, but hits started to thin out. The Meat Loaf deal was made because Teller was at CBS during “Bat Out of Hell” and had a preexisting relationship, and relationships are everything in this business, never forget it.

But as a result of being bombastic and overblown in an era when it either had to be grunge or hip-hop, MTV exposure made I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” a monster, now literally EVERYBODY knew who Meat Loaf was, that was MTV’s power, a power that doesn’t exist anymore on any platform.

You see Meat had good will. And certain sounds never really die, the hit parade just stops featuring them.

But that was it. The last hurrah. After that Meat Loaf was in the rearview mirror.

As is everybody else in this story other than Todd Rundgren, who was belatedly inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Never a kiss-ass, never a game player, Todd didn’t fit the mold so the doors were closed, until the fans gathered online and he was ultimately inducted and refused to show. Because you don’t make peace with the enemy just because they throw you a bone. Legends stick to their guns, they go their own way. And Rundgren is not touchy-feel either.

So now Meat Loaf is gone.

At 74.

Let’s see, Louie Anderson died of cancer at 68. I’ll never forget the first time I saw him on Carson, he talked about being at the beach, the little kids saying they had to roll him back into the water or he would die. You got Louie on the first pass. He was always overweight, made fun of it himself first, all the gym rats, the physically fit police, said his weight would catch up with him, but they were wrong, it was the Big C.

Did obesity contribute to Anderson’s condition? Possibly. There is some research out there, but it’s far from definitive.

Did comorbidities contribute to Meat Loaf’s death? Absolutely!

Louie never stood up for bogus science, if anything he was a healer who brought us all together. He didn’t want to die, but it wasn’t his choice.

Meat Loaf was a noted anti-masker/vaxxer and I’m sure he didn’t want to die either, but he’s gone too. But he didn’t have to.

Oh, they haven’t definitively come out and said he didn’t get vaccinated. But the odds of dying if you’re triple-vaxxed today, what did they just say, 90% of these people never hit the hospital? And why wasn’t Meat Loaf in the hospital anyway?

Meat never impressed me as dumb. But if anything, he was street smart. He dropped out of college, he lived on the edge, he was susceptible to misinformation.

He’s not the only legendary aged musician who has gone unvaxxed. But in speaking to this no needle crowd I’ve yet to hear any of them reference science, a noted authority, they just spew talking points and then default to saying they’ve been doing their own research.

Louie cared about other people.

These anti-vaxxers don’t care about anybody but themselves.

Do you know anybody who has died of Covid, personally? I certainly do. And almost all of them died before the vaccine became available. And those thereafter, like Jerry Blair…refused to get the shot.

I don’t care what his reasoning was, Jerry is gone, a hundred percent, his loved ones will never get over it, and most people will just move on, forget about him, if they even knew him at all.

And it’s so bad. The misinformation. But even worse is a lot of the jackasses purveying these inanities are vaxxed themselves. Talk about income inequality… Yes, these people are rich but they’re also educated and smart, THEY don’t want to die, but it’s all right if YOU DO!

Now the truth is “Bat Out of Hell” never made it on the west coast. People out here had no idea who Phil Rizzuto was unless they were transplants. It was an east coast thing, an insider thing. But Steinman’s work, via Meat, resonated with people, proving once again the worst arbiters of talent and connection are the suits. It’s the artists who reach down deep inside and reveal their truth that resonates with others.

But that was a long time ago.

In the sixties and seventies, we looked to musicians for truth. They were our beacons. They could be trusted. Furthermore, their audience was united on the left side of the spectrum, there weren’t young Republicans in numbers until the nineties, at least rock fans, at least those who would admit it.

But those days are gone too.

So much is gone.

But so much has come down the pike. The internet, the smartphone, streaming television. No one wants to die today saying they’ve seen it all, in fact everybody’s eager to hang on to see more!

Turns out Meat Loaf was a bigger deal than we thought he was. The obituaries and tweets are positive and numerous. If only Meat could have been around to see them.

That’s another thing… Live long enough and they give you your victory lap, no matter how much they resented or hated you at the time. Hang on and they’ll have a tribute, give you an award, and you’re top of mind once again, and if you’ve got anything left to say people will hear it.

But this won’t happen for Meat Loaf, and it’s his own damn fault.

And there are those who say not to speak ill of the dead. Fox News has a headline about those making jokes about Meat’s anti-vax statements and death. But the truth is, Fox and the right makes fun of those on the left all day long. And if Mitch McConnell needs to, if the Republicans take the Senate he’ll get rid of the filibuster. There are two sets of rules.

But there are not two sets of rules in health and science. And science is not about opinion, but fact.

Last night on Tucker Carlson Rand Paul spoke of the negative heart effects of the vaccine, which are de minimis, but he failed to mention the negative heart effects of Covid. You may not die, but you may be hampered forever.

And Fauci is the enemy.

What exactly is the point here? It’s like the NFL, which had to be pushed into concussion protocols. The players in the NFL are fungible, even the stars. Careers are short and there’s an endless supply of players available from the free minor league known as the NCAA. So legends like Jim McMahon have highlight reels but their ECT means they can’t work and they live the life of zombies, if they don’t kill themselves.

We are sending the wrong messages here. One person dies overseas and it’s a tragedy. A person dies from Covid in the U.S. and so many don’t even shrug their shoulder.

It’d be one thing if we had no weapons, no defense, but we do, the vaccines work!

And if they didn’t, if they were that harmful, wouldn’t we be seeing the negative effects all day long, people growing a second head, dropping dead? That’s not happening. As for issues down the line…doesn’t matter if you’re already dead, and who wants to live in a society with so many missing.

Meat Loaf was ignorant. Look the word up in the dictionary. you’ll see “lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about a particular thing,” in this case Covid, BINGO!

When I break a bone I don’t go to YouTube, I don’t call my friends, however educated they might be, I GO TO THE HOSPITAL!

And that’s where the unvaccinated Covid cases go too. You can’t pick and choose science, either you believe in it or you don’t.

In an alienated society where we’re all on our own page, where we don’t even get the same Google results, never mind search the same terms, we’re hungry to belong. A common enemy brings us together. Ergo the anti-vaxxers. It takes a whole lot of energy and backbone to go against the troops, to hang it out alone.

And there have been scapegoats throughout history, but their stories are usually only revealed and amplified long past their time.

And now we have autocracies like Russia trying to rewrite history.

And we’ve got schools in America which are told certain books can’t be read and certain theories can’t be taught.

What we want is an educated populace that has the intellectual power to distinguish between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, that can experience anything and everything. Hell, those on the right discount the “New York Times” even though it sets the agenda for Fox, they quote it more than any other media outlet. Wouldn’t you like to know what the “Times” has to say? I certainly check out Fox.

As for trigger warnings… It’s just a book. What kind of environment did you grow up in where you never heard anything negative. Hell, you should be exposed to these works to learn how to cope, because believe me, you’re gonna come up against triggers in real life.

Not that anybody will publicize it, not that your friends will challenge you, but it’s this echo chamber that gets us into these problems. Everybody I know is triple-vaxxed, does that mean everybody in America is? OF COURSE NOT!

Believe me, if Meat Loaf had hung with Anthony Fauci for a day he’d have gotten vaxxed. You suppress the truth at your peril. And the cost may be high, you may die.

And I won’t bother to make a pun using one of Meat’s songs. I’ll just say…

What a waste.

You’ve got to break the rules to win.

Tomorrow in Aspen Jim Lewi is taking the exam to become a certified ski instructor. He’s been shooting me videos of the Aspen ski school director, Jonathan Ballou, whom I’ve never heard of. This guy can demonstrate the exercises, he can conform, but his skiing has no soul. And then I shot Jim a video of Bode Miller breaking the rules and winning. Bode’s weight goes back, he’s known for flailing, but he’s fast, damn fast, and in this World Cup race he beat the prior racer who made no mistakes, but just wasn’t quick enough to win.

There’s an insane article making the rounds about the death of new music, about catalog creeping in. New music will never die, but it will only eclipse the old stuff when it’s new and different, when it TRANSCENDS THE GAME!

Now Bode Miller knows the basics. But those are just the building blocks. You’ve got to have the tools, the skills, embedded in your brain to the point where they become instinctual. Then you have to let your freak flag fly.

This is why graduates of music schools rarely have hit records. They can play hit music, they just can’t WRITE IT!

Then there are musicians with nowhere near the skill who triumph on the charts.

When you first start out, you think everything you do is brilliant. Because you haven’t had enough experience to see that it is not. But in the last twenty-odd years the music business has minted stars, not musicians. What can we sell? Is there a possibility of brand extensions? As for pushing the envelope…

At this point most people probably have no idea why the White Album was such, with no pictures on the front or back. It was a commentary on the artwork on other albums, they thought it had been taken too far, that when done right the music should be enough. And in the case of the White Album it was, and still is.

Then again, the Beatles had to have a lot of success before they could break the rules. History is littered with bands fighting to not have their names on the covers of records. Believe me, if your record is good enough people will find it, you don’t have to make it that easy for them.

And sometimes it’s easy and simple, and sometimes it’s complicated. Sometimes you’re ahead of the game, and sometimes you’re right on time. And it sucks to be an innovator without acclaim. Everybody is looking for positive feedback today, they want those views, those likes, the dopamine hit of acceptance and recognition trumps the work.

And when the Beatles hit in America… “I Want to Hold Your Hand” sounded like nothing on the radio. Which is why many people heard it first and didn’t get it, thought the band was an overhype. But then the second or third time through they got it.

It’s not the mid-sixties anymore. Music was blown to bits by the internet, there’s not a comprehensible scene that is followed and known by everybody. Hell, look at Top Forty radio, if it’s not hip-hop or pop it’s not interested, never. Which is why terrestrial radio lost its power. It was no longer innovative, it was doing research, trying to satiate a public that wants to be led, shown the great stuff by unique DJs they can identify with, that they want to listen to. As for a jukebox of a slender number of cuts… Today you can get that online, you don’t need radio. Hell, a great deejay can get good ratings with mediocre records. The deejay can be just that powerful.

Like Howard Stern. HE STOPPED PLAYING RECORDS COMPLETELY! And then one day he was sick of being the adolescent joker and changed his program, now he’s more famous for his interviews than his shtick. Of course there are those who lament his change, but you either change or die.

That’s another thing about the hit acts of yore. EVERY ALBUM WAS DIFFERENT! It wasn’t more of the same. Hell, the new Weeknd album is slick and professional but if you hear anything ground-breaking on it let me know, I couldn’t find it, it was squarely in the Weeknd’s wheelhouse, and he was so scared of a stiff that he worked with Max Martin and bought a bunch more creative insurance, and at the end of the day you lose your uniqueness. You want something so different that others can get it on one play.

Like Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” Rockabilly? This was before the Stray Cats. I had to buy that LP immediately, I needed to hear that track again and again and again.

And “The Message,” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five? They played that on KROQ, the station was all about pushing the envelope. “The Message” didn’t sound like anything else on the outlet, but you wanted to hear it, it was magic. And opened the door to more hip-hop.

And for the first twelve or thirteen years of this century we were fighting over distribution, and while this happened there was a complete switch in the creators. The oldsters were all bitching about payments while the youngsters, enamored of the new internet tools, didn’t care first and foremost about money, they oftentimes gave their work away for free, but the mores were not those of the sixties, never mind seventies. Those people on the TV singing shows revere Mariah Carey, not John Lennon. Do you know what it was like when you first heard “Strawberry Fields Forever”? A shock that Mariah Carey has never produced on wax, although she has in her personal life. Yes, the identity, THE BRAND, is bigger than the music.

And if you’re gonna charge a lot for a ticket you’d better have production, the public expects it. The big acts are afraid to go out without production, but they should try it, and then they can stop telling us they need all that sponsorship money for the show. The music should be able to stand alone. Hell, some of the greatest rock guitarists played with their backs to the audience!

But there’s no support going your own way, and certainly no safety net.

Then again, in the old days income inequality wasn’t rampant, you didn’t feel you were left behind if you didn’t immediately get a corporate job right out of college.

And this affects the music. We need educated people who think for themselves to make it. Instead we end up with the lowest common denominator with no other option who’ll do exactly what their handlers tell them to. And the media hypes Debbie Gibson just like it hypes the Beatles and the Stones.

As for Adele… What she is selling didn’t used to be so revolutionary. A great voice singing personal, melodic songs? The hit parade used to have a plethora of them. But not anymore. Now it’s drivel and beats. No one wants to risk offending someone.

So the only hope for music to regain its stature as the dominant artistic endeavor is to foster this rule-breaking.

Hell, they break rules on TV all the time. ON TV! What used to be the most safe, calcified medium known to man. One show, “The Sopranos,” wrested the power, never mind the zeitgeist, from the networks. And then Netflix stole it from the pay cable channels. By saying it was gonna go from a DVD company to a streaming company. Do you remember the uproar? When was the last time you bought a DVD? Do you even have a DVD player?

Sweden and Britain succeed because of their music education systems. Yes, teach people the basics and you’ll never know what they’ll do with them. Max Martin was a heavy metal player, then he broke through with boy bands, who were so successful because their material was not forgettable, unlike New Kids on the Block. Did you ever see Backstreet Boys or ‘N Sync live? They were MESMERIZING! In the old Motown way, dance steps perfect and A level material… It wasn’t hype that built those two acts, but music.

And you’ll hear a lot of oldsters pooh-pooh them. But if you don’t think “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)” is a stone cold smash, you’re not entitled to an opinion, you’re the one holding the future back. “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)” is better than ANYTHING on Adele’s album “30.” And that wasn’t the only great track Backstreet Boys had!

We can’t go back to the past, but we can learn lessons from it. The past always comes back, but with a twist. The basics are just assembled differently, and you’ve got to be open to it, just like the audience, which is DYING to hear great new material. One of the great things in life is to turn a friend on to a great new tune. Listen to THIS! You just sit there, silent, until your compatriot’s jaw drops, ’til they start moving to the music. Done that recently? OF COURSE NOT! The new music doesn’t fit that paradigm, even worse people aren’t even TRYING! As for the labels, the last thing they want is new and different.

And once one act breaks the mold and succeeds, the juices start to flow, a surge of innovative acts follows. This is what happened in the sixties and early seventies in music and this is what is happening in TV today. Did you watch the third season of “Master of None”? It was completely unlike the first two, it wasn’t funny, it was dead serious, and it was far from great but you’ve got to applaud Aziz Ansari for taking the risk. Because sometimes you take the risk, get it right and the result EXPLODES!

Like “Tiger King” and “Squid Game”… Who knew? NOBODY! Not even Netflix itself!

Music is like pornography, only in this case you know it when you hear it as opposed to when you see it.

Then again, music has become a religious issue. You’ve got to follow the rules of your genre or you’re excommunicated. And you don’t want to be alone, especially not today, where it’s so hard to get a toehold to begin with.

And the truth is there are not thousands of people who can create great television.

And there are not thousands who can make great, innovative music. There’s never been another Beatles and there probably won’t be another Prince, never mind Bob Dylan.

But they existed.

What did we hear about Dylan? HE’S GOT A LOUSY VOICE! But Bob stuck with it and the joke was on the naysayers.

Prince got booed when he opened for the Stones and then soon thereafter all these same concertgoers were boogieing to “1999” and “Little Red Corvette.” Bob and Prince knew. Do you know?

We certainly do. The public is hungry for the new and different. People are ready and receptive. It’s just that music hasn’t been exciting, hasn’t had that power and spirit since…

1969.

And the Eagles sell out stadiums decades later and the “hit” acts of the twenty first century are working day jobs.

It’s not rocket science. But it is art. It’s about conception more than execution. You’ve got to think outside the box, you’ve got to stop shearing off the rough edges to make your artwork palatable. Ever take a look at “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”? Probably Picasso’s most famous painting. Radically different from everything that came before.

And Manet painted everyday life, a no-no.

That’s why these people are remembered, they broke the rules.

And you should too.

Mr. Jethro Tull. A must-listen whether you’re a fan of the band or not. Ian Anderson is an erudite, thinking raconteur who weighs in on Covid as well as Indian food, salmon farming, the writing and creation of new music, his habits on the road and so much more. Ian is far from the typical rock star…IN A GOOD WAY!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ian-anderson/id1316200737?i=1000548499050

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/1992e50c-91d1-4be4-8ffe-7c7351383ab8/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-ian-anderson

https://listen.stitcher.com/yvap/?af_dp=stitcher://episode/89852584&af_web_dp=https://www.stitcher.com/episode/89852584

https://spoti.fi/3KnY8ws