Faster Than the Speed of Night

Bonnie Tyler | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000025VF
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,297 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

2. Faster Than the Speed of Night

3. Getting So Exciting

4. Total Eclipse of the Heart

5. It's a Jungle out There

6. Goin' Through the Motions

7. Tears

8. Take Me Back

9. Straight from the Heart

Editorial Reviews

This Welsh singer eclipsed her 1978 It's a Heartache success with this 1983 Jim Steinman-produced #4 smash. Her signature ballad, the #1 hit Total Eclipse of the Heart , joins Take Me Back; Straight from the Heart; Tears ; the title tune, and more! --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Faster Than The Speed Of Night? Right!, November 11, 2001

By 

Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faster Than the Speed of Night (Audio CD)

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.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars She Could Have Gone Far..., March 30, 2002

By 

Kurt Harding "bon vivant" (Boerne TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faster Than the Speed of Night (Audio CD)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The voice!, April 18, 2004

By 

F. Wecker "Fabster" (Evanston, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faster Than the Speed of Night (Audio CD)

I am a huge BT fan, and I have had the opportunity to meet her twice, which was quite a delight! That voice!!! It is shown off very well on this great album of the 80s, and it does not sound old! As a matter of fact, TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART has been re-released as a duet in Europe, where it has cracked the European top 5, and has held strong atop the charts for 7 weeks in Blegium and 10 weeks in France!!! This has also launched a new album available on the site entitled SIMPLY BELIEVE. Now on to this album!

It is heavy, and the background vocals are simply superb. I agree with most other reviewers; GETTING SO EXCITED has always been my least favorite song on the entire album. Oddly enough, the album title brings out the bombastic Wagnerio-Steinmanesque tone superbly, but I never really LOVED the song as such. Track #1 is absolutely superb, and charged with her powerful voice. Of course, the uncontournable TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART is the must-hear in its extended version of 6:49!!! Ravishing! GETTING THROUGH THE MOTIONS is cute, and not to be taken seriously, while IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE is quite pop. I always like that arrangement. TEARS is a raunching duet by Bonnie and Sctosman extraordinaire Frankie Miller, with whom she collaborated on two subsequent albums. TAKE ME BACK is very powerful as well, while STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART, the Bryan Adams cover is just plain great. Again, that voice alone makes you shiver! A must-have from a great woman, even if you don't like all the songs. For everyone else who is not most familiar with her work, try NOTES FROM AMERICA, my all-time favorite Bonnie Tyler release ever!