| re: "The Worst Rock 'n' Roll Records Of All Time" | |
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Posted by: |
Vin 01:30 pm UTC 03/12/07 |
| In reply to: | "The Worst Rock 'n' Roll Records Of All Time" - Scarecrow's_Brain 09:03 am UTC 03/12/07 |
| This reviewer is so obnoxiously off-base and lacking in imagination that it pisses me off. Don't like the song? Fine. But at least offer criticism that makes sense. Just because this dude has no vision and can't fathom what a "partial eclipse of the heart" might be, does not mean its bad song. And Jim scarcely "yelled" BfG. Color me annoyed. I wonder how high this fuckstick's book charted. > Does anyone else have this book? It's from 91, written by > Jim Guterman and Owen O'Donnell. Jim came in at # 30 in > the worst singles category for "Faster Than The Speed of > Night". I've typed out the text below. > > **** > BONNIE TYLER > "Faster Than the Speed of Night" > Columbia, 1983 > highest chart position: did not chart > > Some one-hit wonders will do anything for another shot. > When singer Bonnie Tyler scored her number-three smash > "It's a Heartache" in 1978, she immediately seemed primed > for one-hit oblivion. Her singing style (caused partially > by a 1976 throat operation) went out of its way to ape Rod > Stewart's primal rasp; she seemed nothing more than a > slightly talented clone jumping on a true original's > bandwagon. None of her follow-up singles charted, and it > seemed that was that. > > But five years later Tyler hooked up with another > second-tier one-hit rocker trying to pump some life into a > dying career. Songwriter and producer Jim Steinman had > also enjoyed tremendous success in 1978 as the musically > flatulent Geppetto behind Meat Loaf's inexplicably > multiplatinum Bat Out of Hell LP. His barrage of lengthy > declamations, stolen Springsteen riffs (whose existence > was not excused by the presence of several E Streeters on > the record), and adolescent double entendres made Meat > Loaf a massive star and Steinman an instant millionaire. > Then the roof fell in. > > Mr. Loaf (as the New York Times called him) blew out his > voice on tour and couldn't record a follow-up for years. > Frustrated by Meat's debilitation and envious that he > wasn't yet a star in his own right, Steinman took the > songs planned for the next Meat Loaf record, yelled them > himself, and talked the folks at Epic into releasing it. > The resulting album, Bad for Good, was such an > over-the-top disaster that neither Steinman's nor, by > association, Meat Loaf's career ever recovered. By 1983, > both Tyler and Steinman were at the end of their > respective ropes. > > Tyler was desperate and willing to try anything new, even > if it meant succumbing to Steinman's least grounded ideas > ever. Their album together, Faster Than the Speed of > Night, coupled Tyler's gruff tenor with Steinman songs > that were so far out of her range she would have needed > another operation to capture them. The album delivered a > hit in "Total Eclipse of the Heart", a typically random > Steinman image (what, we ask, is a partial eclipse of the > heart?) that has no relation to any of the other lyrics in > the song. > > The deadliest cut on the disc was its title-track single. > On it, Tyler is swamped by an enormous arrangement that > sounds like every musician in the New York local took a > turn adding clutter to the mix. Steinman's arrangements > always squeeze too many instruments into too little space, > but here there's so much nonsense that there's no place > left to put the song. Tyler gives up when confronted with > lines like, "You're such a pretty boy/Let me show you what > to do and you'll do it/But you gotta move faster than the > speed of night." Faster than the speed of night, Jim? > What if we only move as fast as the speed of night? Will > that be fast enough to escape this song? | |
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