Customer Reviews

Bonnie Tyler The Best

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
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This collection features the songs that many of Bonnie's fans consider to be her strongest. Among them, "Total Eclipse Of The Heart", "If You Were A Woman (And I Was A Man)", "Lovers Again" and "Holding Out For A Hero." Although the bulk of the material here comes from her three albums on Columbia Records, the disc also features "It's A Heartache", "Lost In France", "Married Men", and the beautiful "More Than A Lover", from her RCA albums. The hard to find single versions of many of the songs here, as well as the rare remix of "Save Up All Your Tears", makes this highly desirable to Bonnie's biggest fans. Also of note is "A Rockin' Good Way (To Mess Around And Fall In Love)", a fun duet with '50's loyalist Shakin' Stevens, which never appeared on any of Bonnie's albums. This compilation was also released under the title 'The Definitive Collection', which comes with a second, 5-track disc, featuring the original full-length versions of a few of the tunes found here.

This compilation focuses on Bonnie's eighties music recorded for CBS, but her four UK hits for RCA (Lost in France, More than a love, It's a heartache, Married men) are also included under license. So this collection contains all of Bonnie's UK hits, plus a selection of her other tracks from the eighties.

Apart from the RCA hits already mentioned (two of which made the UK top ten), Bonnie's other UK hits to be found here are Total eclipse of the heart (a number one hit), A rocking good way (a top five hit duet with Shaking Stevens), Holding out for a hero (a number two hit) and three minor hits, these being Have you ever seen the rain (a cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic), Faster than the speed of night and Loving you is a dirty job.

Also here is Bonnie's original recording of The best. Generally known as Simply the best, it completely missed the charts, but Tina Turner covered the song a year later and had a major international hit with it. Another song that you may be familiar with is To love somebody. Originally written and recorded by the Bee Gees, the song has been a hit for several different singers around the world. Nina Simone (in 1969) and Jimmy Somerville (in 1990) both took it into the UK top ten.

There are many Bonnie Tyler compilations to choose from. I wouldn't describe this as the strongest but it contains all the essential tracks that most people expect and it is reasonably priced.

" ALL THE BEST " actually is a 3 CD compilation of Bonnie's European only early 90's albums, with several of her late 70's RCA hits thrown in for good measure [ IT'S A HEARTACHE, LOST IN FRANCE, MORE THAN A LOVER, etc ]. I bought it for all the European only songs she recorded on 3 albums, & this set is a REAL bargain as you get almost all those album + singles tracks on this set. However, the quality of the songs & production I find not up to par with Bonnie's work for CBS/Sony in the 1980's .

It's hit or miss and take your pick with the songs here. The German label HANSA she signed with had her sing just about anything, with a lot of inferior written & produced songs. I like the songs Bonnie did with actual musicians like I CRY MYSELF TO SLEEP AT NIGHT, SAVE YOUR LOVE with Frankie Miller, WHERE WERE YOU, and others here. There are some good tracks with computer programming like RACE TO THE FIRE and BREAKOUT which both rock hard. Others have really drab computer backing & are just plain bad songs, like the atrocious SALLY COMES AROUND about a girl who sleeps around too much. Some of these songs are WAY beneath Bonnie's stature as a worldwide hit artist, and were written/produced by little know German writers. Other songs do boast big name writers & producers like Giorgio Moroder, Diane Warren, Albert Hammond, & Roy Bittan.

It's a bargain to get all these tracks at this price. Just pick & choose which songs you like best among the pack on this collection.

At a time when most divas sound like crying infants, it is refreshing to hear the leather-lunged vocals of Bonnie Tyler. Tyler combines the crispness of Rod Stewart with the brawn of The Dave Clark Five's Mike Smith and the tenderness of Petula Clark to form a terrific vocal package.

Tyler's brawn shines brightest in Total Eclipse Of The Heart and Holding On For A Hero. Eclipse is a duet for which credit should have been given to the unidentified singer who helps Tyler along. Hero is a NASCAR-fast raver (even using the melody of an NFL Films riff used by MRN to open its broadcasts) that leaves the listener exhausted at conclusion.

Tyler downshifts to tenderness in It's A Heartache and Lovers Again. Here her brawn comes through again, though tempered. Complain if you will that she comes on too strongly; she nonetheless does well.

Faster Than The Speed Of Night combines a Meat Loaf-flavored melody (not surprising given that the song's writer, Jim Steinman, also penned for ML) with Queen-style guitar and backing vocals mixed with Supertramp-influenced piano. And it rocks.

Though it takes awhile to get used to many of the songs on this album, it's still worth a listen.

Bonnie Tyler had hits with Lost In France and It's A Heartache before she teamed up with Jim Steinman and created the album Faster Than The Speed Of Night which was a sort of female version of Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell. The album was a megahit on both sides of the Atlantic and gave her top 5 hits in the form of Total Eclipse Of The Heart and the title track.

Her husky voice is backed by powerful rock instrumentation, rolling, pounding drums, shimmering keyboards and blistering guitar riffs. This comprehensive Best Of collection includes her other great hit Holding Out For A Hero plus a stunning version of Have You Ever Seen The Rain and a duet with Shakin' Stevens.

The tracks from Faster Than The Speed Of Night are exuberant and theatrical, but her sensitive side is also displayed here on songs like the aforementioned Lost In France. If you love the hook-filled big rock sound of artists like Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, Meat Loaf, Ellen Foley, Tina Turner or Jim Steinman, you'll love this album.

I had forgotten about her until I heard her on the radio. Guess who had the best price for a new CD, Amazon. It was perfect thanks!!

I really enjoy this CD. The songs are great and it is very upbeat. I tend to drive a lot faster while listening to it....Ha!

I love this cd and the artist. Bonnie Tyler is a great voice that is just wonderful to listen to.

Very happy with this CD. Have always been a Bonnie Tyle fan. Amazon's service was great

Some songs are super but some of them are not. Even though some songs are "old-fashioned" I liked that. It's inevitable that some of the compositions are less dynamic than leading ones, which is why you could skip some songs.