I was 13 when this was released....... and remember it because of she was a rock babe .....her voice was amazing .....there will not be another like her ....yet another one gone ....but the great are popping off ..... as we get older .....we still got some old school .....but soon we will be left with vanilla conveyor belt music soon.. ........today's music....... is auto tuned ......... and shite .......hey i am old school what can i say .....
Bonnie Tyler, singer of blockbuster No 1 hit 'Total Eclipse of the Heart,' dies aged 75
The U.K. singer's distinctive raspy vocals helped make "Total Eclipse of the Heart" one of the biggest hits of the 1980s.
Bonnie Tyler, the singer whose hits included "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Holding Out for a Hero," has died. She was 75.
A statement published on the U.K. star's website reads: "Bonnie's family and team are heartbroken to announce that Bonnie unexpectedly passed away last night in hospital in Portugal as a result of the illness that she was being treated for.
"We will issue a further statement shortly, but for now ask for privacy to deal with this tragedy."
The singer was hospitalized in May for emergency intestinal surgery and later placed in an induced coma.
Her global smash "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was released in the U.S. in 1983. The power ballad spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went on to become one of the biggest-selling singles of all time. The accompanying album — Faster Than the Speed of Night — hit No. 3 in the U.S.
The track earned Tyler a Grammy nomination and has since become a pop culture fixture, appearing in Glee, The Office and The Vampire Diaries. It has been streamed more than 1 billion times on Spotify and regularly experiences renewed popularity during solar eclipses.
Tyler, who recorded the song but does not have a songwriting credit, revealed earlier this year that she earns "just about nothing" from streams of the song, but remained grateful that fans had never fallen out of love with it. "I never get tired of singing it," she told the BBC in January this year. "I love it because everyone can't wait to sing it.
"I'm really happy. When you think about it, there's only 8.3 billion people in the world."
Born Gaynor Hopkins on June 8, 1951, Tyler grew up in a village in Wales. She was the fourth of six children, born to a coal miner and a homemaker, and the family lived modestly. Her parents "had it really hard, bringing up a big family on very little," she told the Guardian in 2012.
Tyler said she discovered her love of performing at age seven after seeing a musical at her local church. "I wouldn't say boo to a goose, and yet there was a part of me that yearned to sing in front of people," she wrote in her memoir, Straight from the Heart.
She began her career as a teenage backing singer before launching a solo career in the 1970s. After her record label advised her to change her name, she came up with "Bonnie Tyler" from a list of first names and surnames picked from a newspaper.
She found early success with hits such as "Lost in France" and "It's a Heartache," the latter of which was one of her first recordings to feature her new, huskier voice.
More in Celebrity
In 1977, Tyler had nodules on her vocal cords surgically removed as a result of so much singing. During her post-operation recovery, Tyler screamed in frustration at one point, causing permanent damage. When her voice finally returned, it did so with a new gravelly rasp — which she recalled later her producers loved.
When I went into the studio they all said, 'Bloody 'ell, where's that voice come from?'" she said. "I now sounded like a female Rod Stewart."
Armed with a new sound, Tyler's major commercial breakthrough came in the early 1980s after teaming with songwriter and producer Jim Steinman.
Already renowned for his work with Meat Loaf, Steinman was won over after Tyler sent him demo recordings that showcased the dramatic rock style she believed suited her distinctive voice. The partnership produced "Total Eclipse of the Heart," which Tyler later said she recognized as "the song I had been waiting for all my life."
"I never thought it had a prayer as a single," Steinman told People magazine. Tyler, however, said she knew instantly it was special.
"I just had shivers up my spine," she recalled. "I couldn't wait to actually get in and record it."
With Tyler's powerhouse voice layered on top of crashing piano chords and emotive lyrics, it became one of the archetypal power ballads of the 1980s. "It was an aria to me, a Wagnerian-like onslaught of sound and emotion. I wrote it to be a showpiece for her voice," Steinman said.
Steinman also wrote and produced her follow-up single, "Holding Out for a Hero," for the 1984 movie Footloose. The song became another international hit and has endured through prominent appearances in Shrek 2, Loki and Euphoria.
After that, however, the hits dried up for Tyler. Although she continued to tour and record, releasing 18 albums during her career, most recently 2021'sThe Best Is Yet to Come. She was due to tour this fall.
She is survived by her husband, Robert Sullivan, a property developer and former Olympic judo competitor. The couple married in 1973.
