MEAT LOAF - HITS OUT OF HELL

Though Hits out of Hell shares the title of Meat Loaf's 1984 greatest hits album, the tracklisting is not quite the same: curiously, the DVD omits "Dead Ringer for Love", "Midnight at the Lost and Found" and "All Revved Up with No Place to Go", but includes, perhaps by way of compensation, "More Than You Deserve" and "If You Really Want To". Such considerations are, of course, of only superficial importance: once producer and songwriter Jim Steinman had patented the Meat Loaf template on 1977's 30-million-selling Bat Out of Hell--an engagingly preposterous synthesis of Springsteen's Born to Run, Spector's Be My Baby, Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries",. On the DVD: This DVD offers a choice of Dolby Surround Sound or PCM Stereo, and has a refreshingly simple and easy to navigate menu offering instant access to different tracks. The special features are desultory in the extreme: a brief biography of the Meat Loaf phenomenon and a discography.