The Rock-concept album, Bat Out of Hell, was released in 1977 at the unlikely intersection of disco, punk and glam rock. Written by Jim Steinman and performed by Meatloaf, there was simply nothing about the album that should’ve worked. The lyrics were overwrought, Meatloaf was, well, Meatloaf, and the only spectacle was the music.
Yet the album rode the charts for over 500 weeks. T-shirts with Richard Corben’s Franzetta-esque cover art were everywhere. The big hit, Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad, a schmaltzy breakup ballad played in heavy rotation across radio-station formats. So, yeah, BIG hit.
Four decades later Todd Rundgren, the album’s producer unloaded in an interview no one wanted. According to Rundgren, his motivation was a gag.
To Rundrgen, Steinman’s music was Bruce Springsteen taken to his logical extreme. In Rundgren's words, “all switchblades and motorcycles…completely regressive” compared to what was happening in other forms. He even brought in many of Springsteen’s E-Street Band for the recording sessions. See? It was all a big joke on Bruce Springsteen and Jim Steinman and the fans. Funny right?
Thing is, the kids who listened to Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and Buddy Holly c. 1957 were not stuck in 1957. They weren’t ancient, decrepit, or dead, either. Most hadn’t even cracked 40 in 1977. What Rundgren called regressive was the sounds of their generation.
“All Chuck’s children are out there playing his licks” Bob Seger
They had seen the British Invasion and the Summer of Love. They also saw Sha Na Na (a college a cappella act mining 1950s gold) and Johnny Winter (nothing but Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis with better amps) at Woodstock. Hilly Kristal was 42 when he opened CBGB in 1973—as a place to hear Country, Blues, and Rockabilly music.
My friend David Houston, (veteran musician, actually knows what he’s talking about) points out that the Ramones “…weren’t trying to be punk, they just liked 60s backbeat rock & roll and played it fast.” Bruce Springsteen got what the Ramones were about and wrote Hungry Heart for Joey. He only kept the song for himself after his manager talked him into it.
So, the obvious question is what does this have to do with Afrika Bambaataa? Kidding.
At the moment, you may be wondering if what you write is worth the effort. Does your genre even sell? Young Adult is still a cash cow unless you read articles where some smart guy says reader-interest is waning. Mysteries, especially cozies will never not sell—except no one will admit to “liking” cozies. Fantasy is in demand, as long as your George R.R. Martin. Thrillers, like Romances, are stalwart sellers but nobody can tell you exactly what a “thriller” is.
Meanwhile, every agent-and/or-publisher panel can be read thus, “We’re looking for the next XYZ!” or, you know, the stories like the stories written by the folks we used as an example of what they were looking for. But that is subject to change overnight and then “We’re tired of seeing story/trope/genre XYZ.”
Westerns (cowboys and sh—tuff) have been in steep decline since the 1970s. But author John Locke (not the father of western political theory) self-publish Emmett Love to Amazon-best-seller success. In the same genre, my facebook buddy Regina Shelley has been following her muse for several years now. Her Five Dollar Mail series continues to sell. Not by Big Five standards but that’s not really the point, either.
In the wake of groundbreaking works by Frank Herbert, Octavia Butler, and Douglas Adams who could’ve imagined a crossover between space opera and regency romance? Lois McMaster Bujold did and followed her muse to become a grandmaster in her own right. Don’t get me started on the resistance that Herbert, Butler, and Adams faced on their journeys.
Critical darling Kim Stanley Robinson ushered in a new age of hard science fiction (with ZERO character arc or character development) in 1992 with Red Mars. Suddenly science fiction became all high concept and big ideas and not one compelling character. Space opera was considered quaint at best and passé at politest. And we all slept between the pages until 2011 when James S.A. Corey unleashed Leviathan Wakes. And just like that, science fiction was fun again.
I got my first job at 14 washing dishes and cooking, (when the nightshift cook showed up drunk) at 24-hour diner. The following year I dropped out of school. Sure, I read Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Miller but I lived for Max Collins, Elmore Leonard, and Donald Westlake—stories that helped me forget about cuts, grease burns, and constant degradation for starvation wages. To paraphrase Mason Cooley, your stories will give you a place to go when you have to be back on the clock in 12 hours. I can promise you as someone who writes the stuff they used to sell on spinner racks at truck stops—if you’re interested in it, so is someone else.
There is always going to be a trendier, more compelling genre. You can chase other people’s goals (lists, units moved, tie-ins) or you can follow your muse through to conclusion. Will it be published? Will it be a NYT bestseller? Who knows? Publishers and agents certainly don’t. They bet big on Jonathan Littell. Oprah got burned by the same memoir scam twice in one year. The only reason the “experts” haven’t been schnooked into another set of Hitler diaries is because no one cares enough to fake another set.
In short, do you. Write what you want to read, what you noodle around with when you’re supposed to be working, what makes you burn up hours of prime web-surfing time. That’s what other people want to read when they’re supposed to be reading sales reports, term papers, and market analysis. Screw what someone else thinks will sell. If you want to read it, somewhere, someone wants to read it too.
The image above, the Bat Out of Hell album cover is for illustrative purposes and covered by Fair Use, details here.
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