Faster Than the Speed of Night

by

Bonnie Tyler

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Faster Than The Speed Of Night is Bonnie Tyler's most famous album in the UK, it was certainly the most successful. Whilst not my favourite CD that she has released, it is still an essential.

Produced by Jim Steinman, this album is very different to her first four albums (all of which were half decent pop/country LPs) and you can tell that this was the type of music (rock) that she wanted to make all along. Faster Than The Speed Of Night is still one of her best singles to date, despite only peaking at no.43 in the UK charts. Her brilliant and raw cover of Have You Ever Seen The Rain? still sounds as good as ever did today. This is rock at it's melodramatic best and suits Bonnie's impressive voice brilliantly.

Of course, the most famous song here is the evergreen rock ballad Total Eclipse Of The Heart, a song that everyone knows and was a great success when released, peaking at no.1 in the UK and almost every other country. Bonnie was also bathed in success with the sales of this album, in the UK it charted at no.1 and peaked at no.4 in the U.S.

This is an impressive album that deserved every bit of it's success, Bonnie Tyler is at her best when she sings this kind of material.

I basically bought this album for one song, Total Eclipse of the Heart. It is one of the greatest and most memorable songs of the early 1980s, and it has that certain something about it that makes it as moving now as it was way back in 1983. The lyrics about reassessing your life as you age are now, sadly, much more meaningful to me, and only make the song even more amazing. The rest of the songs on this album are somewhat hit and miss. Bonnie Tyler’s unique voice is best suited to plaintive ballads of emotional pain and heartache, and for this reason the tracks Tears and Take Me Back are really quite good. The uptempo tracks which seem to have no meaning whatsoever come off pretty badly, though, in my opinion. Let’s face it; Bonnie Tyler does not have a melodious voice; she sounds like she has a perpetual frog in her throat, and this unique sound really is not suited for frivolous pop songs. Getting So Excited is anything but exciting and serves in my mind as a musical purgatory one most endure before reaching the higher plane of Total Eclipse of the Heart. Goin’ Through the Motions is not only the name of a lackluster song, it is an apt description of Tyler’s performance on tracks such as Faster Than the Speed of Night and It’s a Jungle Out There. Her cover versions of Have You Ever Seen the Rain? And Straight From the Heart are not bad, but they don’t really hold a candle to the original songs. Thus, I would name only three of these nine songs as quality tracks that really have something to give to today’s listeners. For most people, I think the decision to buy will come down to a question as to how much you want to own a copy of the incredible song Total Eclipse of the Heart.