[MUSIC]Belated...But One of My True Musical Heroes Is No Longer With Us...Jim Steinman RIP

So I was fooling around on youtube and listening to various songs and one of them was "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" by Celine Dion. I noticed in the comments that people were saying RIP to Jim Steinman (who wrote and produced the song).....I was like WTF?? And I did discover that Steinman had passed away on April 19, 2021. I don't think anyone has mentioned it here and if they have, I apologize, but I have to dedicate a thread to him.

This man was such a musical genius!! I cannot tell you how many times I have listened to Steinman songs over the years. It's too bad that there weren't more Steinman songs but I always felt that his songs were so great and magnificent that it was better that he didn't have a lot of songs as that would show that there was not much thought put in them. Characteristics of Steinman songs with his production??? Song titles that were very long, length of songs were at least 5 and a half minutes (I Would Do Anything for Love was over 12 minutes long!), use of the same people on these tracks including Roy Bittan of the E Street Band along with Max Weinberg plus Todd Rundgren, Rory Dodd and usually Kasim Sulton. His songs were very technically demanding and only certain singers could pull them off - Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, Celine Dion, Russell Hitchcock (of Air Supply) were just some of the singers who had hits with Steinman songs.

I remember when "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" by Celine Dion came out - I was so pissed that it never reached #1 on the pop singles chart because of the %$!& Macarena!!!

My top 10 favorite Steinman songs:
1) It's All Coming Back to Me Now - the Celine Dion version
2) Good Girls Go to Heaven (But the Bad Girls Go Everywhere) - Pandora's Box with Holly Sherwood on vocals
3) Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young (from Streets of Fire) - Fire, Inc with once again Holly Sherwood on vocals
4) For Crying Out Loud - Meat Loaf
5) Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler
6) Making Love Out of Nothing at All - Air Supply
7) Ravishing - Bonnie Tyler
8) Bat Out of Hell - Meat Loaf
9) Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through - Meat Loaf
10) Read 'Em and Weep - by yup, you guessed it Barry Manilow!!

If you can find the Pandora's Box album, "Original Sin", you should pick it up along with Bat Out of Hell I and II and Bonnie Tyler's Greatest Hits. Also get the Streets of Fire soundtrack - it only has 2 Steinman songs but it also has "I Can Dream About You" by Dan Hartman and it is worth it for those 3 songs.

But I am beyond devastated by this news and I don't see myself getting over this anytime soon. I just wished that Jim had given us one more big epic but I guess we will have to live with what is out there which is pretty damn impressive.

- check out a very young Diane Lane lipsyncing Holly Sherwood's vocals!



- that is not Holly Sherwood in the video - believe that it is either Elaine Caswell or Gina Taylor who were both members of Pandora's Box lipsyncing to her voice.

I was going to post "For Crying Out Loud" by Meat Loaf but found out that you can only do up to 5 media/videos per post. Look for that song on youtube - great song and great album (Bat Out of Hell).