Singer Meat Loaf and composer Jim Steinman tried to do without producer Todd Rundgren, who had handled their masterpiece, Bat Out of Hell, on its follow-up, Dead Ringer, and they managed OK.
But then Meat Loaf tried to do without Steinman on the third album, Midnight at the Lost and Found, and didn't even come close.
Meat Loaf was in typically impassioned form, but the material just didn't scale the heights of Steinman's incredible hubris.
The U.S.
had long since lost interest, but even in the U.K., where Meat Loaf was loved, the album was a step down commercially.