Meat Loaf songs are filled with parenthetical clauses, so it feels appropriate to use one in the service of explaining what happened with his 1977 “Bat Out of Hell” album on the new Bil…
“Bat Out of Hell” reenters the album chart at No. 13 this week, Billboard reported Monday. Is it possible that one of the biggest-selling albums of all time never previously reached any higher than that? It is. The blockbuster album’s zenith, in its original run, was somehow a mere No. 14 back in 1977, marking it as a serious slow burner in its climb to finally being certified 14-times-platinum just in the U.S.
On the Billboard Artist 100 chart, which takes in all the sales and streaming data for an artist’s entire catalog, Meat Loaf stands at a hefty No. 3 for the week — not surprising considering that fans also gravitated toward other items in his ouevre, like the “Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell” album and other titles from his half-century-long career.
Percentage increases for the week for the album were astronomical across categories. The total album-equivalent unit figure for “Bat” was 28,000, an increase of 3,677%, per PMC Data. Its 16,000 in pure album sales marked a 7,375% gain. The song that consumers wanted to hear most was not from the “Bat Out of Hell” album, though. It was “I’d Do Anything for Love ; “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” ; “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” ; “Bat Out of Hell” ; and “I’d Lie for You ” .