Show Me A Sign: A Pop Tragedy In Four Acts

Too Much Is Never Enough

Some people believe in elegance. The value of refinement. Less is more. Progress through subtraction.

James Richard Steinman was not one of those people.

If you have ever heard a Steinman-produced track then it should come as no surprise that his background was in musical theatre. Steinman worked on epic tales of love and loss with his collaborators but this was a man who could find drama and conflict in opening a tin of baked beans. Musical theatre works on the principle that when the characters’ feeling are too much for speech, they sing; and that when they are too much for singing, they dance. It is all about the feels. And without the feels, it is garbage.

To call Steinman’s work “operatic” would be to damn it with faint, prissy praise - although Steinman himself called his work “Wagnerian rock”.

Steinman’s most memorable work was with Michael Lee Aday AKA Meat Loaf - his drama queen equal in every respect. The original Bat Out Of Hell was, of course, based on a musical, struggled to get record company attention, and eventually became a massive smash. The main song for the 1990s sequel had a video directed by Michael Bay - a perfect choice as Bay is Steinman’s cinematic brother-in-maximalism.

Another artist to alchemize with Steinman was Gaynor Hopkins, a Welsh coal miner’s daughter - which was appropriate because Bonnie Tyler sang like she smoked 40 B&H a day and had black lung disease.

As you absorb Total Eclipse of the Heart’s transmogrifying of personal pain into cosmic apocalypse, you think “Is that actually thunder? Is that man in speedoes and swin goggles?” And yes. Yes. This. Is. Happening.

The clearest sign of Steinman’s version of the Midas touch (where everything turns to bombastic gold) was Andrew William Harvey Taylor. In a bid to sound dark and mysterious he renamed himself Andrew Eldritch and formed a band in Leeds called The Sisters of Mercy. Their early singles and first album are… fine. Which meant they were an abject failure. The album in particular was bedeviled (or perhaps bepriested) with whimpy production. When Eldritch had a falling out with the rest of the band, he knew exactly what and who he needed. While Eldritch was and is a shameless poseur, he is no fool.

“Bring me the mixing desk of Jim Steinman”

The resulting two albums are ridiculously overblown fun and yielded the greatest pop hits of Eldritch’s career.

So why is this post called “A Pop Tragedy”?

Well, it’s all about the one that got away.

Britney Spears’ pop classic …Baby One More Time is… fine. Pretty good even. Swedish Pop Chef Max Martin gives the track a perfectly adequate late 90s R&B sheen. But this is an epic song. Teenage crushes feel cosmic and world-ending to those who experience them. These are the biggest feelings that you’ve ever had in your short life so far.

The result is far too tasteful. If ever a song needed Steinman’s heavy-handed touch, it is this one.

“Oh, so you do want one of these after all, Mr Steinman”