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 Billboard 200 chart: In 2022, following his death, it soared to its peak position to date. (But actually reach the top 10? It didn’t do that.)
“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.
But if you were looking for some charts where Meat Loaf did place in the top 10 or even at No. 1, Billboard had quite a good number of…
