Before the cast album even got released, an album of songs from the musical recorded by non-cast artists arrived. I had never known that this release existed until a few weeks ago, which may actually be good since I think I would never have listened to the full musical, but it is worth talking about at least some of it.

Opening the album, just as in the show, is “Vaults of Heaven,” performed here by Tom Jones and Sounds of Blackness. The arrangement of the song is very nearly the same as in the musical, so it’s really just a change in the voices. Sounds of Blackness has a richer, more varied set of voices than the cast album that does add a bit to the chorus vocals. Tom Jones, no matter how bad what he’s singing is, always sounds great, and this recording is no exception. “Vaults of Heaven” is kind of a “meh” song for me, and a slightly better version is still just decent.

After a decent opening, we get two songs in a row that sound like ’90s “boy band” music. That includes the most famous recording of anything in this show, Boyzone’s “No Matter What,” which has inexplicably now started to make some headway as a holiday season song in the US. It’s a boring version of a song I didn’t love in its original form with annoying dance-y rhythm stuff and I rather hate it. Tina Arena’s “Whistle Down the Wind” is only distinguishable from it because the voices change.

Giving a momentary reprieve from that horror (the ’90s were a bad time), Elaine Paige gives a performance of “If Only” that is barely distinguishable from the cast album version. I think Paige has a stronger voice than Lottie Mayor, but this recording is following the first performance of “If Only,” which I’m not a fan of, instead of the excellent reprise in act two.

At this point, we get one of the weirder choices on the album as Donny Osmond covers “When Children Rule the World.” He can certainly sing the song and it being sung by a former child idol has a certain poetic quality that seems like a lot of fun. However, he performs the song as a straight-up ’90s pop song, and that just robs it of much of its charm. It’s still one of the catchiest melodies in Whistle Down the Wind, but here it feels off. I would have expected a pop cover of “When Children Rule the World” to be a highlight, but it really is not.

Next we get something that sounds like it should be terrible but ends up being an actual highlight in the Everly Brothers performing “Cold.” Yes, it’s the Everly Brothers in 1998. Their recording of “Cold” appears in the show, and I had thought for some years that it was a song of theirs from their heyday that Webber and Steinman had just used in the show, but it’s not, and it’s a great bit of soul- and country-inflected ’60s pop. I do like the cast recording better–it’s a bit less self-consciously old-fashioned and has more guitars–but this one is still really good. Steinman doesn’t have a producing credit on this one, which is a shame since he’s a big Everly Brothers fan.

Of course, for any Steinman fan who runs across this album, the immediate expected highlight is Meat Loaf’s song, no matter what he’s playing. He’s playing “A Kiss Is a Terrible Thing to Waste,” with Steinman producing. This song even has a ton of regular Steinman crew on board: Bonnie Tyler (!) and Kasim Sulton are providing backing vocals, the latter is also playing bass, Roy Bittan is on piano, Kenny Aaronoff is on drums, and Eddie Martinez is playing guitar. It’s a big, booming production that would have sounded at home on Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell, sort of a more in-control and more harmonious cousin to “Everything Louder than Everything Else.”

This recording is interesting. Steinman is listed as the sole producer while Andrew Lloyd Webber, Steve Rinkoff, and Nigel Wright are credited as “co-producers.” Bringing back Steinman and Meat Loaf veterans, including his most famous Meat Loaf surrogate, is something Steinman hasn’t been doing since Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell. Much of this would also be true of the “Home By Now/No Matter What” and “Is Nothing Sacred” Meat Loaf recordings on The Very Best of Meat Loaf this year and of Bonnie Tyler’s recording of “Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts” later in this album. And then Steinman would never directly work with Tyler or Meat Loaf again. That all suggests to me that all of these tracks were the result of essentially one session, which was either intended to lay the groundwork for something like Bat out of Hell III or be a last hurrah. It really ended up being the latter, which makes all four of these tracks rather bittersweet. But the most important thing to realize here is that Meat Loaf’s “A Kiss Is a Terrible Thing to Waste” kicks ass.

Next up is Boy George singing “Try Not to Be Afraid.” It sounds like a Boy George song, and that’s not a good thing. Boy George also really isn’t much of a singer.

Probably the biggest pleasant surprise on the album is the next track, as the Sounds of Blackness perform an absolutely amazing version of “Wrestle with the Devil.” African rhythms, gospel-inspired vocals, a hint of Indian snake charming sounds, and a surprisingly large helping of very 1970s rock guitar (honestly, what it specifically reminds me of is Wild Cherry’s “Play that Funky Music” for whatever reason) combine to make a track that has the haunting elements that the show wants for it early but builds up to be a foot-stomping rocker by the end. The Sounds of Blackness made the song their own in a way that no one else here did and it’s great.

And where Meat Loaf appears, so of course must Bonnie Tyler follow, so she shows up with “Tire Tracks and Broken Hearts.” Surprisingly, her version is actually a bit softer and more sedate than the album version. It’s not a terrible change, but I would definitely prefer to rock it up like Meat Loaf’s “A Kiss Is a Terrible Thing to Waste.” It seems pretty clear that Steinman didn’t see Tyler (or Tyler didn’t see herself) as a “rock” voice and so she didn’t get those kinds of arrangements. She got more keyboard-heavy, dancier arrangements compared to Meat Loaf’s huge rock arrangements, and that happened all the way to the end of their relationship. She and Steinman would never work together again after this song.

The album ends with a couple of predictable, by-the-numbers covers by theater vets. Michael Ball sings “Unsettled Scores” more than competently. I actually think Marcus Lovett sings it extraordinarily well on the cast album, though–it’s going to be difficult for anyone to top that. And finally, Lottie Mayor sings the title song with Andrew Lloyd Webber on piano It’s still a fully-orchestrated recording that really doesn’t vary at all from the cast recording, but it’s kind of a nice way to end things, giving the star and the composer the last word.

As a programming note, I had also not known that there were new Steinman songs on The Very Best of Meat Loaf, so I will cover those here. I may go in-depth more on “A Kiss Is A Terrible Thing to Waste” then if I feel like I have more to say, since it also appears on that release.