Remember When: Songwriter Jim Steinman Took the Top 2 Spots on the Pop Charts—With Different Artists

When Jim Steinman wrote the songs for the massively successful 1977 Meat Loaf album Bat Out of Hell, he carved out a niche with his dramatic melodies, maximalist lyrics, and exclamatory arrangements. The ’80s, an era of music not exactly known for its subtlety, seemed like the perfect setting for a Steinman revival.

Sure enough, Steinman found a home with two massive hits in 1983, songs that pulled off the unlikely feat of landing at Nos. 1 and 2 on the Billboard charts for a three-week span, despite being recorded by two separate acts with wildly different styles. Here’s a look back to that moment in time when Jim Steinman ruled the pop music world.

Steinman Rises Again

It was understandable if people following Steinman’s career considered him a one-album wonder in the immediate years after Bat Out of Hell. Vocal problems derailed Meat Loaf”s momentum to the point where he wouldn’t record another album until 1981. That record, Dead Ringer, was also written entirely by Steinman, but it pretty much sunk without a commercial track after critics dismissed it.

In the interim between those two extremes, however, Steinman had done a film score for a movie entitled A Small Circle of Friends in 1980. The movie was a flop, but Steinman, who had a knack for repurposing old material, carved out pieces of the score and provided lyrics for them. In the process, he created two new songs: “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Making Love Out of Nothing at All.”

Meat Loaf contended Steinman offered these songs to him, but his record company refused to pony up for them. Steinman contradicted this notion in subsequent interviews. (For two guys who worked together often, Meat Loaf and Steinman rarely agreed on much). In any case, other artists who came calling for material were in luck.

The Welsh Belter and the Australian Soft-Rockers

Bonnie Tyler, a Welsh singer who scored some ’70s success (most notably “It’s a Heartache”) with her distinctively serrated vocal style, was looking for Phil Spector-type material as she sought to gain a commercial foothold in the ’80s. Steinman handed off “Total Eclipse of the Heart” to her.

Meanwhile, Air Supply, the duo who came surfing in from Australia and rode the soft-rock waves of the late ’70s to several big singles, needed a song to round out a greatest hits package. To them, Steinman bestowed “Making Love Out of Nothing at All.”

One underrated part of Steinman’s equation for success with these songs: the players. On the Dead Ringer album, he had worked with Roy Bittan (keyboards) and Max Weinberg (drums), both members of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. Steinman employed them for the sessions with Tyler and Air Supply, and added ace lead guitarist Rick Derringer to the mix.

A One-Two Punch

Steinman also produced the two songs, giving them all the bombastic flourishes you would expect. Even though the two acts seemed quite different, Tyler and Air Supply’s Russell Hitchcock shared the ability to scrape the skies with their vocals, which was just what Steinman’s acrobatic compositions required.

In the second week of October 1983, “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” rose to No. 2 on the Billboard pop charts. The song in the spot above it? “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which had ascended to No. 1 the previous week. For a three-week stretch, the two Steinman songs held at those top two positions.

No other songwriter in history has been able to match that feat with two different artists. Many songwriters-for-hire remain somewhat anonymous while the public focuses on the performing act. But Jim Steinman proved in that momentous month he could transcend all that and put his songwriting identity front and center for all the world to hear.

Photo by Gary Gershoff/Getty Images