Track Listing

1. Total Eclipse Of The Heart
2. Faster Than The Speed Of Night
3. Have You Ever Seen The Rain
4. If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man)
5. Here She Comes
6. Loving You's a Dirty Job But Somebody's Got to Do It
7. Getting So Excited
8. Save Up All Your Tears
9. Best
10. Holding Out for a Hero
11. Married Men
12. Rockin' Good Way (To Mess Around and Fall in Love) - Shakin' Stevens, Bonnie Tyler
13. More Than a Lover
14. Don't Turn Around
15. Lovers Again
16. Lost in France
17. It's a Heartache
18. To Love Somebody

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29927 in Music
• Released on: 1999-05-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Album Description
Special gold disc edition anthology of the Welsh siren who set the charts on fire in the late 70's with the hit single "It's A Heartache"

Customer Reviews

Simply The Best, Indeed!
This collection features the songs that many of Bonnie's fans consider to be her strongest. Among them, "Total Eclipse Of The Heart", "If You Were A Woman (And I Was A Man)", "Lovers Again" and "Holding Out For A Hero." Although the bulk of the material here comes from her three albums on Columbia Records, the disc also features "It's A Heartache", "Lost In France", "Married Men", and the beautiful "More Than A Lover", from her RCA albums. The hard to find single versions of many of the songs here, as well as the rare remix of "Save Up All Your Tears", makes this highly desirable to Bonnie's biggest fans. Also of note is "A Rockin' Good Way (To Mess Around And Fall In Love)", a fun duet with '50's loyalist Shakin' Stevens, which never appeared on any of Bonnie's albums. This compilation was also released under the title 'The Definitive Collection', which comes with a second, 5-track disc, featuring the original full-length versions of a few of the tunes found here.

All the obvious tracks
This compilation focuses on Bonnie's eighties music recorded for CBS, but her four UK hits for RCA (Lost in France, More than a love, It's a heartache, Married men) are also included under license. So this collection contains all of Bonnie's UK hits, plus a selection of her other tracks from the eighties.

Apart from the RCA hits already mentioned (two of which made the UK top ten), Bonnie's other UK hits to be found here are Total eclipse of the heart (a number one hit), A rocking good way (a top five hit duet with Shaking Stevens), Holding out for a hero (a number two hit) and three minor hits, these being Have you ever seen the rain (a cover of the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic), Faster than the speed of night and Loving you is a dirty job.

Also here is Bonnie's original recording of The best. Generally known as Simply the best, it completely missed the charts, but Tina Turner covered the song a year later and had a major international hit with it. Another song that you may be familiar with is To love somebody. Originally written and recorded by the Bee Gees, the song has been a hit for several different singers around the world. Nina Simone (in 1969) and Jimmy Somerville (in 1990) both took it into the UK top ten.

There are many Bonnie Tyler compilations to choose from. I wouldn't describe this as the strongest but it contains all the essential tracks that most people expect and it is reasonably priced.

Bonnie's Euro-Only Releases & Early Hits
" ALL THE BEST " actually is a 3 CD compilation of Bonnie's European only early 90's albums, with several of her late 70's RCA hits thrown in for good measure [ IT'S A HEARTACHE, LOST IN FRANCE, MORE THAN A LOVER, etc ]. I bought it for all the European only songs she recorded on 3 albums, & this set is a REAL bargain as you get almost all those album + singles tracks on this set. However, the quality of the songs & production I find not up to par with Bonnie's work for CBS/Sony in the 1980's .

It's hit or miss and take your pick with the songs here. The German label HANSA she signed with had her sing just about anything, with a lot of inferior written & produced songs. I like the songs Bonnie did with actual musicians like I CRY MYSELF TO SLEEP AT NIGHT, SAVE YOUR LOVE with Frankie Miller, WHERE WERE YOU, and others here. There are some good tracks with computer programming like RACE TO THE FIRE and BREAKOUT which both rock hard. Others have really drab computer backing & are just plain bad songs, like the atrocious SALLY COMES AROUND about a girl who sleeps around too much. Some of these songs are WAY beneath Bonnie's stature as a worldwide hit artist, and were written/produced by little know German writers. Other songs do boast big name writers & producers like Giorgio Moroder, Diane Warren, Albert Hammond, & Roy Bittan.

It's a bargain to get all these tracks at this price. Just pick & choose which songs you like best among the pack on this collection.