His name makes people say “ugh,” his biggest single helped launched the career of one of Hollywood’s hottest women, he is said to have weighed 350 pounds at the height of his popularity, he once picked up Charles Manson hitchhiking and he was once a vegetarian but stopped after singer K.D. Lang refused to speak to him because of his name.

Who are we talking about? Meat Loaf!

In Australia he has the greatest-selling album of all time and he has one of only two albums to have remained on the UK top 200, which means he’s the longest-running tenant on any music chart in the world.

Despite all of this, however, he is still viewed as a joke by almost everybody; probably best known for his roles in David Fincher’s “Fight Club” and as Eddie in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Meat began singing at a young age and was interested in theater throughout high school despite the fact that he was a star football player. He sang for many middle-of-the-road groups in his early years and grabbed the starring role in a Broadway production of the musical “Hair.”

It was around this time that Meat Loaf met the man who would impact his life more dramatically than anyone else, musical theater composer Jim Steinman. Steinman was a genius composer who hit it off with Meat Loaf and immediately began writing the songs that would turn up on 1977’s “Bat out of Hell.”

One thing must be cleared up: Meat Loaf did not write any of the songs on “Bat out of Hell.” He is, by his own admission, a terrible songwriter. Every song on “Bat out of Hell,” and the majority of Meat Loaf’s “good” songs throughout his career have been written by Jim Steinman.

While “Bat of out Hell” has since become a staple of rock ‘n’ roll, in the late 1970s, Meat Loaf and Steinman could not find a producer for it since the album was an over-the-top theatrical production with epic-length Wagnerian rock songs. Finally the pair stumbled across Todd Rundgren who agreed to produce and oversee the album.

In Rundgren they found a kindred spirit who was ready to go the distance with them because of Rundgren’s own experiences with experimental pieces of music. Rundgren would end up playing guitar throughout the entire album and arranging the background vocals throughout both “Bat I” and “Bat II.”

“Bat out of Hell” kicks off with the title track, which is epic in every sense of the word. It has been described as “heavy metal thunder with Bruce Springsteen overtones,” by Sounds magazine.

The song is one of the greatest car crash songs ever written and contains the infamous “motorcycle guitar,” the recreated sound of a motorcycle performed in one take by Rundgren on his guitar at Steinman’s insistence.

“You Took the Words Right out of My Mouth,” is a theatric-tinted ballad that became one of the three biggest hits on the album and features drums from Max Weinberg of Bruce Springsteen and Conan O’Brien Fame.

The highest-charting single from the album, “Two out of Three ain’t Bad” was another ballad that would, in the words of many, “change the love song forever.”

The most acclaimed song off the album, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” follows and has since come to be regarded as a staple of classic rock. In the title track, Steinman consciously created the ultimate car crash song; in “Paradise” he created the ultimate car sex song.

“Bat I” gave Meat Loaf worldwide popularity before he recorded a slew of singles throughout the 1980s and early 1990s that would follow in notoriety.

In 1993 “Bat II” came out and immediately skyrocketed to No. 1 all over the world. It has since sold 13 million copies, is as strong as “Bat I” and contains Meat’s biggest hit to date, “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t do That).”

A “Bat III” was released a few months ago to fairly positive reviews but was not overseen by Steinman and therefore does not have the epic feel of the first two efforts.

In its epic, theatrical scope “Bat out of Hell” outshines “Tommy” and “The Wall” as rock operas and deserves more credit than Meat Loaf will ever get from the general public.

Next time Meat Loaf is the butt of a joke on TV or in a magazine, turn on “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” and try to find a chorus as catchy anywhere in popular music.

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