Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Faster Than The Speed Of Night? Right!, November 11, 2001
Listen, over on the radio there! Is it Rod Stewart? Is it Dusty Springfield, No, it's... Bonnie Tyler! Faster Than The Speed Of Night, able to do decent covers of CCR ("Have You Ever Seen The Rain") and Bryan Adams songs ("Straight From The Heart"), and with a scratchy and silky voice that needs to be appreciated more!This is a change from the country and soul she used to do on her first four albums. With Jim Steinway wearing the producer's helmet, Bonnie definitely went into another direction, especially as evidenced by the title track. It's a seven minute plus opus that opens with a quick keyboard, a rock beat, and includes operatic backing vocals. The pace is cranked up at an exciting and excited pace in the last minutes of the song. Okay, the song sounds at home on a Meat Loaf album, but Jim Steinway produced this album, so that's hardly surprising. Right? Right. "Total Eclipse Of The Heart", which spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard singles chart, has probably netted most of Bonnie's royalties with its countless appearance on 80's compilations and radio airplay, is another classic of that era. Even its near 7:00 running time does not hurt the song's loveliness at all. It's that opening piano, Bonnie and Rory Dodd's vocals, that repeated refrain, "Turnaround...", its split chorus, one heavy with emotion, the other subdued, and the heavy keyboard synthesizers that Heart would later do during their 80's period that really makes this song worth playing over and over. Trivia note: Bonnie beats Meat Loaf in saying the lines "I'll do anything for love, but I won't do that" by eight years. She says the line in "Getting So Excited". "Tears" is a worthy ballad that is only overshadowed by "Total Eclipse" and "Take Me Back" ends with the same operatic chorus present in "Faster Than The Speed Of Night". The album ends with a version of Bryan Adams' "Straight From The Heart", which is comparable to the original. It gives Bonnie yet another chance to exercise those scratchy vocals of hers. There's quality talent in her band. Drummer Max Weinberg and keyboardist "Professor" Roy Bittan gained fame being in Bruce Springsteen's band during his Born In The U.S.A. days, and Rick Derringer gives Bonnie his own rock and roll hootchie-koo support as her guitarist. It's a shame that Faster Than The Speed Of The Night is the one-hit album for her. She has followed through with other decent albums like Free Spirit, Bitterblue, and Silhouette In Red.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Are the two masterpieces worth it?, February 2, 2001
If I had listened to this CD before I bought it, I probably would have left it on the shelf. I have plenty of CDs that are by far worse, but I don't think this is any form of masterpiece. There are two masterpieces here, the ultra-classic "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" and the extraordinary "Faster Than The Speed Of Night". Four well-done songs "Have You Ever Seen The Rain", "Tears", "Take Me Back", and "Straight From The Heart". But the remaining three songs are just plain awful, the worst being "Getting So Excited". Since Jim Steinman's songs tend to be the best in an artist catalog it's possible they just overshadow the rest of the material. But is there any excuse for songs like "Getting So Excited", "It's A Jungle Out There" or "Goin' Through The Motions". I agree with one of the reviewers about the quality of this release because I find a lot of the same faults."Have You Ever Seen The Rain" is drastically rearranged, and while it takes some getting used to, it ends up sounding quite good. "Faster Than The Speed Of Night" is the faster of the two epics, and is extraordinary. Bonnie Tyler sounds remarkable on this classic. One of the worst songs ever recorded is placed in between the two masterpieces. I'd like to know whose idea it was to record "Getting So Excited" on an album that contained some brilliant music of the degree of "Total Eclipse Of The Heart". "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" is legendary. It's the defining song of Bonnie Tyler's catalog and of the decade. But another display of bad-taste follows THE classic. "It's A Jungle Out There" is mainly ear-strain, though not as bad as the third track. "Goin' Through The Motions" is designed to be cute, but it isn't, it's barely listenable. A children's chorus might sound good on "Yellow Submarine", but on a song like this? "Tears" at times can be somewhat moving, not brilliant, but not bad. It took me several months before I could move beyond the first seven tracks to hear the rest of the disc. There are two gems at the end. "Take Me Back" was a minor hit, and while its disappointing on this CD, I'd like to hear it out of this context. "Straight From The Heart" is terrific, she handles the song well, but it pales in comparasion to the Steinman material. FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF NIGHT is a hard one to decide on: two masterpieces and other stuff. A couple months after I bought this, SUPER HITS, was released. I haven't heard it yet, but I noticed "Getting So Excited" and "It's A Jungle Out There" weren't listed, so it can't be that bad. As for FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF NIGHT listen to it completely, and then decide. Are two of the best hits of the decade worth what comes with them?
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
She Could Have Gone Far..., March 31, 2002
I don't usually listen to or buy commercial pop, but I like Bonnie Tyler's delivery of Total Eclipse of the Heart so much that I bought this to see what else she could do.
Well, you know, though there is nothing deep here, she's not bad. She's got a great husky, powerful voice and given the right material and promotion, she could have gone very far. And the right material is what she lacks.
There are a couple of decent songs here beside the aforementioned monster hit. Tyler does a good job covering CCR's Have You Ever Seen Rain and the title cut. But I am in the amen corner of many of the other reviewers who deplore the inclusion of the disco meat-market songs Getting So Excited and Its a Jungle Out There, the lyrics of which are cringingly jejune. In addition, the kid's chorus in Goin' Through The Motions nearly had me retching.
Despite those, I give the CD four stars because Tyler somehow manages to overcome most of the lame material she was given and presents the listener with an enjoyable overall musical experience.
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by Bonnie Tyler 
