Thursday 14 June 2012

Bat Out Of Hell

I last listened to this album in, I think, 1984 or 85; listening to it again this morning, cycling to work, I'm struck (a) how much less it is about teenagers having sex with one another, the obstacles to that process and its intense melodramatic affective highs and lows than I remembered it as being (obviously it's partly about that ... but still) (b) how much more it is about Vampires, Werewolves, Christian Superstition and the Fantastic.  It's an SF text, really, that says (like the later Harry Potter and Twilight series) that the best way of comprehending what it is 'like' being a teenager is ... kitschy gothic fantastika.  Something interesting in that, I'd say.

I'm also struck by how disorientatingly vivid the memories of 1984/85 unlocked by this listening experience were.  Not a happy time, really, by and large.  Still ...

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