Hey, I'm Brian Hyatt. This is Rolling Stone Music Now, and I have with me Andy Green and

Brittany Spanos and Rob Sheffield. There's just been a total eclipse over all of our hearts because

Jim Steinman died. And we're going to talk about a very unique figure in popular music,

one that everyone with me is a big fan of Rob

named a book after one of Jim's lyrics.

And Jim Steinman was a genre unto himself if you don't

know who Jim Steinman was. Jim Steinman of course composed Meatloce spat out of hell but then if you look at all the

other songs that he worked on you sense common ground the greatest and the one that

Rob borrowed a lyric from is Total Eclipse of the Heart, which on

some days I would rank with among the greatest songs ever written perhaps.

And Saline Dion, it's all coming back to me now.

The subsequent Meat Loaf hit, I do anything for love, but I won't do that.

Even Air Supply, perhaps the only listenable Air Supply song,

and just barely, making Love out of nothing at all.

This was a guy who specialized in a certain kind of theatrical bombast.

And as Rob would have it it he kind of made music for karaoke he was the

king of karaoke songs I guess is your take on him his songs were belt, you know, they'd begin with these smoldering verses and then these

explosive bombastic courses, which were always sort of a twist on a cliche, you know, two out of three ain't bad, total eclipse of the heart, faster than the speed of night.

And the fact that a Jim Steinman song was just a belter that anybody could belt and sound great. He made rock star out of anybody.

That's why he's the absolute king of the karaoke rooms. And that's why I wrote my book about karaoke

called Turnaround Bright Eyes. It really is the greatest karaoke song, but also like you said when you hear it you're like this is the greatest song ever.

Yeah, you know, I think a key thing about Steinman is he's this Jewish kid out of New York City who loved the theater.

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