Retro Spins: Bonnie Tyler - Faster Than The Speed Of Night

I'm a fan of educating myself. Especially when it comes to 80's toys, comics and music. Today was a day in class for me.

First and foremost, I didn't know Bonnie Tyler was Welsch. When I read this bit of information, I immediately called a time out and headed for any interview video I could find with her. Sure enough, when she's talking, there was a thick accent behind every word she said. Blew me away, but that was only the start of it.

As I listened to Faster Than The Speed Of Night, the title track stuck out to me almost immediately. I found myself saying, "That sounds like a Meat Loaf song." So further I dug into the album's history. While it wasn't a Meaty Meat Meat song, it was written by his long time songwriter, Jim Steinman. As such, it made perfect sense as to why it sounded the way it did.

Looking even further at the album's writing credits, I came to find out that even Tyler's most popular song of all time, Total Eclipse Of The Heart, was also written by Jim Steinman. As if to predict the future of Meat Loaf, Getting So Excited, AKA track number three, has a spoken portion where someone says, "I would do anything for love, but I won't do that." The song wasn't written by Steinman, but it was a freaky moment.

The album features a fair amount of cover tracks, which included, Creedence Clearwater Revival's Have You Ever Seen the Rain, Blue Öyster Cult's Goin' Through the Motions, Bryan Adam's Straight from the Heart and Billy Cross's Take Me Back. In fact, Tyler herself has zero writing credits on Faster Than The Speed Of Night. You know what that means? All she gets is performance royalties. Ouch. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she's well off, but a lot of people got richer in the process.

What's interesting about the album itself is Tyler's unique voice. It has this interesting ability to make a song sound really good that would otherwise be one you would skip, while at the same time making good songs sound really bad. This is more so prevalent on the covers she is destroying paying homage to.

Overall, Bonnie Tyler walks away with more of my respect than I initially had for her, not that she cares. I used to think she was just that chick with the two silly 80's songs that had grown tired over time. However, knowing that Jim Steinman was the man behind one of them somehow makes it more so appreciable and, dare I say, good. I enjoyed hearing this record, and even pulled a fair amount of tracks for my shuffle list.

Okay, Bonnie Tyler. I'm listening. Show me more of what you've got.

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