Bonny Tyler's Total Eclipse Of The Heart: classic or dud?

back to Bonnie though, isn't 'turn around bright eyes' an interesting line?

no-one mention Nikki French (oh shit)

Julio to thread on how Busted should be using D Bailey and K Rowe's guitars.

Diane Warren killed off the windswept epic ballad - definitely the Michael Ray to Jim Steinman's Howard Hawks.

OTfuckingM (and Marcello's right about Stripped as well though Dan is correct that "Make Over" is genius, very demented genius. Alas, there is nothing else on the album quite so good or gone, though "Beautiful" is sure as hell trying to be Jim Steinman, which takes us back to the subject of the thread, and said Bonnie Tyler song is great and the video is weird as hell).

TEOTH is an abolute classic. i second ned's comment about the video...

strangest punctuation ever: they put a comma in the pause in the firt line, but then fail to put one after 'keep' in the last.

Another vote for TEOTH being stone cold classic.

A friend of mine gave me the disc, Faster than the Speed of Night as a housewarming present in 1996. It gets an annual airing at least.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drd800/d809/d80967c3i9w.jpg

Now, "Wishing You Were Here" by Chicago...

Bollocks to that and bollocks to anyone who like TEOTH and *not* 'Beautiful'.

I am anticipating a ludicrous powerballad for The Darkness Christmas single.

I recently gained an appreciation for "Keep On Loving You" based on its appearance in, of all things, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, where (if memory serves) it's in rotation on the "Emotion FM" station. I'd never really listened to it in detail before, and it struck me how weird, airless, and alien the production is. Sonically, its as synthetic as anything Kraftwerk ever released: it's got this total untouched-by-human-hands vibe. The vocals and guitars have been run through a million different delays, harmonizers, and compressers, until everything becomes this huge, reverbing whooooosh. Of course there's zero low-end (perfect for AM radio.) In short, it's a work of genius. I still hate the fuck out of Journey, though.

A good way to work out how TEOTH is great is to listen to it next to Jennifer Rush's "The Power Of Love".

Oh, Enrique, the Beta Band were not being sardonic or ironic in appropriating the TEOTH quote, and Steinman himself approved it. And "Beautiful" is a stinking assortment of Clinton Card cliches sung nasally by a pretend anorexic, so bollocks to you too, sir.

(so much for the Oxford FAP then!)

Re. J Rush "Power Of Love"; influenced very clearly by Ultravox's "Vienna" which itself was influenced very clearly by Scott Walker's "The Electrician." Is there a theory here somewhere about the gradual dilution of "difficult" music before people will buy it?

x-post: sorry for not being a 'right-thinking person'.

yes!!

and we all know about the More Than A Feeling/Smells Like Teen Spirit interface (via Debaser?).

I have to say I re-discovered 'Keep On Loving You' by REO Speedwagon when Mark Kozelek & his merry Red House Painters covered it. Like all his covers, it is twisted and lovely.

(so much for the Oxford FAP then!)

Ow, fuck, yeah probably, then -- NME readers I knew (=me) didn't know that. I still think their versh stinks; as for Xtina, oh come now we can't be slagging power ballads for their lyrical infelicities! + I know nothing of singing technique, so point conceded, but I quite like the idea of being a 'pretend anorexic' -- wearing baggy clothes in a kind of double-bluff, that's quite good.

I'm a miss the FAP anyway cos I'm in the big smoke watching some old new bollox about the red brigade and/or robbing all yourn houses. Might send a ringer.

Quite right. Listening to "Any Way You Want It" on my iPod recently gave me the sudden realization that said song trumps (in retrospect) both the Electric Six and Andrew WK at their own game, all at once.

Soulseek must have a conscience after all, electing to spare you from the sonic blight that is the Speedwagon's excretion.

Didn't Bryan Adams spending 16 weeks at no. 1 help to (temporarily?) kill off the power-ballad?

that reminds me.....EYES WIDE OPEN *ducks*

"where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods/where's the streetwise hercules to fight the rising odds"

"Unbreak My Heart" was one of the best singles of its year.

No, really. Go look right now.

...I cry now.

Dude, that's not cool.

Well, Jim certainly looks pleased.

http://www.jimsteinman.com/wwwboard/jim198.gif

"And I need you now tonight / I fuckin need you more than ever"

"Beautiful" is ass.

If there's a problem with Diane Warren/Celine Dion effect it's that it has tended to iron out all eccentricity in the power ballad. That's partly why Bedingfield's "If You're Not The One" is so great, and why "Never Gonna Leave Your Side" or whatever it was is so drab.

Ah, bless you Mr. Finney. Again you are a genius. :-) But yeah, this sums it up. There is also very little sense of...well, 'camp' is such a loaded word, but the lack of same in favor of sheer pointless formalism in so many of these ballads is wearying. I was thinking of this in particular when watching an episode or two of Pop Idol with Martin during my UK trip, the sheer dullness of one soundalike ballad after another -- more than a few selections coming from Ms. Warren's pen in particular, I seem to recall -- made the whole exercise pure pain. There was nothing to get excited about, no reason to care.

the song is indeed camp, overproduced, manipulative tosh - and i LOVE it. although maybe it's because i remember asking this cute girl maria to slow dance in grade 7 to this song and she said yes, so i guess it has some sort of significance on a personal level only...

Like Rob says, it's great BECAUSE it's so overblown, camp and manipulative.

that just reeks of some stuck-in-1992 gen-X cliche

HTH

they are not as long as there's an element of 'smarts' to it - not necessarily irony. also if you apply these to other genres (rock, dance) you will surely then have a pop single anyway?

In a 500 page novel if the overblowness etc isn't there all the way through it could be tolerable. Same with a movie: certain awful scenes but its a two hour thing.

I think there is space for grandiose but it is precisely bcz its all concentrated in a 3 minute pop single that it makes it 'bad' to me. Maybe if you played this in a disco it would be fine but I just don't understand how anyone could listen to this kind of thing at home.

yes, 'we' are better than you.

Hey, I didn't say that everything that's bloated and camp and manipulative is great. In this case, however, I just relish the it's a big, melodramatic wedding cake of a song. Is it entirely ridiculous? Of course, but it's crafted with so much loving care that I find it hard not to appreciate.

They aren't. Not neccessarily. Not when done by the likes of Genesis or Yes, that is, in a tastefull and sophisticated fashion.

Hair metal ballads don't fit into that positive category though

This is an oxymoron.

however,i was curious whether more people would be sympathetic to julio's arguement/reasons if we were talking about my heart will go on or something...

also,i was only a kid,but what did people think of this song when it was first released?

more classic clip on that video: the kid with no legs on the skateboard being chased by the rabid dog

Oh, and to answer the thread question, unutterably classic. And I was listening to it last week at my mum and dad's.

Total classic.

Source?

This should be in the FAQ!!!

I figure the reason I can't stomach power ballads like this one is that they're embarassing, though I don't mean that as a pejorative. Bonnie Tyler sounds so exposed, so naked when she sings TEOTH that I feel embarassed for her when I listen to it. It's the same feeling I get when hanging out with singers who frequently burst into song in public. In one sense I envy them for being so free and unrestrained, but I also know I'm not like that. When I want ballads, I listen to singers who sound timid or beaten down but still composed enough to sing their song with their head held high (Billie Holliday, Nick Drake, Robert Johnson, etc).

Look at how I originally spelled "artificially".

Actually, come to think about it "Make Over" is pretty out there...

W T F

Total Eclipse of the Lawsuit
He was a retiring co-pilot. She was an aging 80's rocker flying first class. No one expected her multi-platinum hit to "fall apart" but when Air France flight attendants awoke Bonnie Tyler and asked her to sing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in honor of a pilot making his final flight, passengers did more than just "turn around", they up and sued the airline. According to reports, a group of disgruntled travelers, believed to be Belgian, first lodged a complaint claiming they were traumatized by the experience, and are now alleging in a lawsuit, that Tyler's 1983 hit incited a celebration so raucous they feared for their safety. Good thing she didn't try "Holding Out For a Hero" or things might have really turned ugly.

By Emil Steiner | September 6, 2006; 2:29 PM ET

You're a sick man. I see your broader point about JS though. As with Bat Out of Hell, I played the hell out of it for a while after buying it (the 7" in this case) but I don't know if I'll ever put it on again. Classic with a shelf life?

I don't understand why anyone in their right mind would like this song now, despite the fact that I loved it when it came out.

Thank fuck I'm not in my right mind.

total classic. awesome beyond belief. age shall not wither her.

I'm not sure I "like" it, in the traditional sense - it's not a song I'm going to go home and put on and soak in because I want to, ever - but one has t6o admire the sheer fucking structural power of it. It's a phenomenon.

Tyler's duet with Todd Rundgren on "Loving You Is a Dirty Job (But Somebody's Got To Do It)" is IMO Tyler and Steinman's best moment. Great title too.

Great song, and I guess everyone's already seen awesome cover of it.

I liked the Eurodance cover version of this song too. Actually, I think there were two Eurodance covers of it back in the nineties, but the first one was better.

The Hurra Torpedo version is of course classic.

They actually did this as part of a project where they would "slaughter" various not-too-credible songs, mostly Norwegian language ones. But it's this cover version that has stuck and gotten international attention.

oulseek must have a conscience after all, electing to spare you from the sonic blight that is the Speedwagon's excretion.

I suppose it's statements like this that get me in trouble.

"It's a Heartache" is so much of a better song than this wanna-be Meatloaf song.

Just because Ronnie Scott co-wrote it doesn't make it so.

*yadadadadadadah!IREALLYNEEDYOUTONIGHT!*

It occurs to me that one day Kanye will fully remake the video if not the song. And maybe both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=840B27zYfOk

Then again, Flight of the Conchords has already been there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vQuf49Ya30

I'm concerned of what this says about me, but I fell semi-in love with a girl while slow dancing to TEOTH the other night. Jeez.. I've always liked the song, but only in the usaual ironic, waxing 80s nostalgia kind of way. But for a moment that night, all of that was gone, and what was left was the sheer power of that gigantic ballad. I may have been fooled, manipulated, whatever, but it felt pretty fucking great.

Classic.

so you're trying to say that forever's gonna start tonight

this song reminds me of my mom

At this second someone is singing this in a karaoke bar.

xpost

Well, it depends on the girl, I suppose

"the sheer power of that gigantic ballad"

That why this song is freaking awesome and will rule forever. I hear it's out on Rock Band. Must investigate. Classic classic classic.

wow, don't know what drugs i was on 7 years ago as i re-read my posts and was shocked at how sounded snotty and dismissing i sounded,

love the song,

turn around bright eyes is brilliant and will feed into another post

Hero

39 years on and I still can't explain this pic.twitter.com/y3RY9Z51bz

— Bonnie Tyler (@BonnieTOfficial) September 20, 2022

dud atp

Madness

It is one of the most perfectly overwrought songs ever written and performed. Total classic.

I love Total Eclipse of the Heart. I had never paid it any attention, until this one time I was trying to get over a rough breakup and it came on the radio in the IHOP I was working at. I had to conceal actual tears while slinging pancakes. Very overwrought and cheesy, but it hit me like a missile.

Haven't knowingly listened to the rest of her music, except in the course of doing research for the Givin' It All You Got thread, when I came across this 1990 song of hers from German action sports film Fire, Ice, and Dynamite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nlWeTL4dtk

<3 lovely post

absolute classic btw, especially for drunk karaoke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsgWUq0fdKk

When I was in high school a dance troupe came through to perform for the entire school. The lead dancer gracefully danced until one by one, her skills faltered as she shared a dance with different partners. Each partner was dressed completely in black and had a different word written on their back. ALCOHOL. MARIJUANA. COCAINE. HEROIN.

She eventually fell to the ground, at which point the blacked-out dancers lifted her up and placed in a Jesus Christ crucifix pose to the audience.

This entire performance was done to “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

Wish I'd been there!

lol, that's amazing.

xxp this isn't the one i witnessed but holy moly they were doing this bit in front of 5 year olds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoRL-xzdlVI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl5PLKr-Zcc