Bonnie Tyler

Bonnie Tyler (2016)

Bonnie Tyler (* 8. June 1951 as Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen, Neath , Wales ) is a British pop and rock singer . Her breakthrough came in the 1970s with Lost in France and It's a Heartache . In the 1980s she became known worldwide through hits like Total Eclipse of the Heart and Holding Out for a Hero . She has received numerous awards and has been nominated for a Grammy and Brit Award several times .

biography

Childhood and youth

Tyler grew up in a Welsh working class family of five siblings. Her father was a miner . The mother, an opera fan, shared a love of music with her children. When she was young, Bonnie Tyler sang in a group called Bobby Wayne and the Dixies , then formed her own band called Imagination . For nearly a decade she performed with her band in pubs and nightclubs in South Wales . Since 1973 she has been married to Robert Sullivan, a cousin of the father of Catherine Zeta-Jones .

Career

Beginnings (1975–1977)

Bonnie Tyler, 2005

In 1975 Bonnie Tyler produced her first single, My! My! Honeycomb at RCA Records , which did not make it into the charts. Her second single Lost in France reached the top 10 of the British pop music charts. The single was also a great success on the European continent and reached number 3 in Germany.

The success of Lost in France prompted Bonnie Tyler to record her first album in 1977. This album, entitled The World Starts Tonight , had only modest success outside of the Scandinavian countries. The following singles were at least small, regional hits: The trendy More Than a Lover reached the top 30 in Great Britain, while the country-like Heaven made it into the top 25 of the German single charts. Shortly after, Tyler underwent surgery to remove nodules on her vocal folds . Since she did not follow her doctor's instructions not to speak, her voice became harsh. Her career in the music business seemed to be over.

International breakthrough (1978–1987)

However, with the next single It's a Heartache from her second album Natural Force in 1978, she achieved a world hit. The single reached number 1 in France and Australia, number 2 in Germany and the top 5 in Great Britain, some other European countries and the USA . During this time she undertook her first tour in the USA.

After that, the international success initially subsided again, but Bonnie Tyler was able to record some regional hits: In the summer of 1978 Here Am I reached the top 20 in Germany and Scandinavia, the following year it climbed to 3rd place in France and with the country song My Guns Are Loaded had a top 40 success with the movie song (The World Is Full of) Married Men in the British homeland.

The following albums Diamond Cut (1979) and Goodbye to the Island (1981) had only moderate success, and Tyler became increasingly dissatisfied with her recordings, especially as her production team increasingly pushed her to country, which she was uncomfortable with. Therefore, she changed the record company in 1982 and signed a contract with CBS Records . Their 1983 album Faster Than the Speed ​​of Night became very successful, and the single Total Eclipse of the Heart , composed by Jim Steinman , climbed the charts worldwide and stayed at number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic for weeks (number 16 in Germany). The multi-million-dollar album, which debuted at # 1 in the UK, earned Tyler two Grammy nominations for best pop singer and rock musician in 1984 .

In the same year she recorded the rock'n'roll duet A Rockin 'Good Way with Shakin' Stevens and landed another top 5 hit in the British singles charts. Also in 1984 she had another great success with the single holding Out for a Hero (No. 2 in Great Britain, No. 19 in Germany). In 1985 she received another Grammy nomination for best rock musician and for the song Here She Comes . The second album, which was recorded under the direction of Jim Steinman, was released in 1986 under the title Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire . It was not a success in the USA and sold rather mediocre in Great Britain and Germany. It was only able to build on the success of its predecessor in the Scandinavian countries, France and Switzerland. The singles extracted from it were not successful everywhere either, so the rock anthem If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man) was a top 10 hit in France, but was just as unsuccessful in the rest of the world as the lavish one Bombast ballad Loving You's a Dirty Job in a duet with Todd Rundgren .

In 1987 Tyler sang the theme song Islands from Mike Oldfield 's album of the same name . The following year she released the album Hide Your Heart , on which she showed herself from a very rocky side and in which the Bon Jovi producer Desmond Child and the hard rock group Kiss were involved as songwriters . The album also contained a first version of the later Tina Turner hit The Best . Although Tyler's favorite album is still declared, the record flopped except for the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland. After that she retired from the international music business.

Changeable success in Europe (1990-2005)

Bonnie Tyler at the Eurovision Song Contest 2013

In 1991 Dieter Bohlen helped her to make a comeback with the title Bitterblue (17th place in Germany), which he wrote under the pseudonym Howard Houston. Bohlen and Tyler produced a total of three successful albums together: Bitterblue (1991), Angel Heart (1992) and Silhouette in Red (1993). A hit album The Very Best of Bonnie Tyler , released in 1993, was ennobled with platinum in German-speaking countries. In 1994 she received the RSH Gold Award, the ECHO and the Golden Europe as the most successful artist for her great sales success . In addition to the German-speaking countries, the Bohlen productions sold well in Scandinavia, while Tyler was unable to land this soft pop music in Great Britain and the USA. In 1995 she wanted to recapture these countries and changed the record company and producer again. She played another rock album with Free Spirit . Despite the famous producers like Jim Steinman and the Scorpions , the record was a commercial flop, mainly due to poor marketing.

In the years that followed, her success continued to decline, not until 2002 brought her a new Greatest Hits album to the top 20 in Great Britain and shortly thereafter landed in the top 10 in other European countries. In December 2003 Tyler sang with the French Singer Kareen Antonn Si Demain , a French version of Total Eclipse of the Heart as a duet. The song was released in January 2004 and reached number 1 in the French, Belgian and Polish charts. The second new edition, Si tout s'arrête (It's a Heartache) , also in a duet with Kareen Antonn, made it into the top 20 of the French single charts place. In autumn 2004 she released the song Vergiss' es (Forget It) in a duet with Matthias Reim , which reached number 64 in the German single charts. In 2005 the studio album Wings followed .

Comeback attempt and Eurovision Song Contest (since 2013)

On February 13, 2012, Tyler's official website reported that the singer was working on a new country rock album in Nashville . The songs would come from the pen of Desmond Child and Frank J. Myers , among others , and it would include a duet with country singer Vince Gill . On April 16, the duet entitled What You Need From Me was confirmed. In an interview in Norway in July 2012, Tyler first announced the album's title, Rocks & Honey . In December 2012, she reported on Australian television that the recordings had ended.

On March 7, 2013, Tyler was chosen by the BBC after an internal election to represent Great Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö . There she performed on May 18, 2013 with her new single Believe in Me and reached 19th place with 23 points. The accompanying album Rocks & Honey was released on March 8, 2013 under the German label ZYX Music .

Six years later, their next album, Between the Earth and Stars , was released on March 15, 2019 .

Discography

→ Main article : Bonnie Tyler / discography

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1977	The World Starts Tonight	-	-	-	-	-	First published: 1977
1978	Natural Force / It's a Heartache	-	-	-	-	US16 gold (17 weeks)US	First published: 1978 Sales: + 525,000
1979	Diamond cut	-	-	-	-	US145 (5 weeks) US	First published: 1979
1981	Goodbye to the Island	-	-	-	-	-	First publication: 1981
1983	Faster Than the Speed ​​of Night	DE20 (14 weeks) DE	-	CH19 (3 weeks) CH	UK1 silver (45 weeks)UK	US4th platinum (32 weeks)US	First published: April 4, 1983 Sales: + 1,060,000
1986	Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire	DE24 (9 weeks) DE	AT23 (2 weeks) AT	CH3 (11 weeks) CH	UK24 (12 weeks) UK	US106 (8 weeks) US	First published: May 4, 1986
1988	Hide Your Heart / Notes From America	DE64 (1 week) DE	-	CH13 (8 weeks) CH	UK78 (1 week) UK	-	First published: May 1, 1988
1991	Bitter blue	DE22 (17 weeks) DE	AT1 platinum (20 weeks)AT	CH21st gold (16 weeks)CH	-	-	First published: December 1, 1991 Sales: + 250,000
1992	Angel Heart	DE28 gold (24 weeks)DE	AT9 gold (16 weeks)AT	CH14th gold (20 weeks)CH	-	-	First published: October 19, 1992 Sales: +285,000
1993	Silhouette in red	DE28 (12 weeks) DE	AT25 (8 weeks) AT	CH23 (6 weeks) CH	-	-	First published: October 18, 1993
1995	Free Spirit	-	AT43 (2 weeks) AT	CH39 (2 weeks) CH	-	-	First published: October 15, 1995
1998	All in one voice	-	-	-	-	-	First published: 1998
2003	Heart and Soul / Heart Strings	DE41 (3 weeks) DE	AT32 (5 weeks) AT	-	-	-	First published: March 2, 2003
2004	Simply believe	-	-	CH35 (7 weeks) CH	-	-	First published: April 11, 2004
2005	Wings / Celebrate	-	-	-	-	-	First published: May 15, 2005
2013	Rocks & Honey	DE59 (1 week) DE	-	CH59 (1 week) CH	UK52 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: March 8, 2013
2019	Between the Earth and Stars	DE23 (4 weeks) DE	AT24 (2 weeks) AT	CH11 (4 weeks) CH	UK34 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: March 15, 2019

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

Awards

• Music Retailer Magazine 1978

  Most promising newcomer

• Dail Express 1978

  Best New Artist

• Bravo Otto 1977

  Golden Otto category singer

• Golden Europe

  1978: International Singer

  1983: Comeback of the Year

  1993: International Singer

• Yamaha Prize 1979

  Grand Prix International "Sitting on the Edge of the Ocean"

• Academy Country Music 1979

  Best New Artist "It's a Heartache" (nomination)

• Guinness World Record 1983

  First British female artist to have an album enter the UK chart at no.1 "Faster Than the Speed ​​of Night"

• BRIT Awards

  Best Newcomer (nomination) 1978

  Best singer (nomination) 1984

  Best singer (nomination) 1986

• American Music Awards 1983

  Favorite Pop / Rock Female Artist (nomination)

  Favorite Pop / Rock Single "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (nomination)

• Grammy Awards

  1984: Best Pop Vocal Female "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (nomination)

  1984: Best Rock Vocal Female "Faster Than the Speed ​​of Night" (nomination)

  1985: Best Rock Vocal Female "Here She Comes" (nomination)

• Variety Club of Great Britain Award 1984

  Best Recording Artist of the Year "Total Eclipse of the Heart"

• RSH Gold Award 1992

  Most successful German-produced interpreter or catchy tune of the year

• Echo Award

  1993: Best International Singer "Angel Heart" (nomination)

  1994: Best International Singer "The Very Best Of / Silhouette In Red"

• Radio Rainbow Award 1999

  Lifetime Award

• Writs Welsh Music Awards 2001

  Best Singer "Greatest Hits" (nomination)

• Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama 2002

  Honorary Fellow in recognition of outstanding achievements within the fields of music.

• Les Hits de Diamants 2004

  "It's a Heartache" & "Total Eclipse of the Heart"

• Steiger Award 2005

  Lifetime Award

• ESC Radio Awards 2013

  Best Song: Believe In Me

  Best Female Artist: Bonnie Tyler

• BASCA Awards 2013

  40th Gold Badge Awards: Lifetime Award

Web links

Commons : Bonnie Tyler  - Collection of Images

• Official website
• Literature by and about Bonnie Tyler in the catalog of the German National Library
• Bonnie Tyler in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Bonnie Tyler in the nndb (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} musicline.de < ( Memento of the original dated August 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Bonnie Tyler Official Site , LATEST NEWS, February 13, 2012 ( memento of the original from October 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Bonnie Tyler updated news ( memento of the original from October 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Bonnie Tyler's official website, accessed April 19, 2012.  
4. ^ "Very expensive for the public are full" , VG Nett, Norway, 10 July 2012
5. ↑ Today: Bonnie Tyler , "Nine" on MSN, accessed December 15, 2012.
6. ↑ CMN: Bonnie Tyler finished 19th at the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö . Retrieved May 19, 2013.
7. ↑ Chart sources:
   • Bonnie Tyler in the German charts on OfficialCharts.de
   • Bonnie Tyler in the Austrian charts on AustrianCharts.at
   • Bonnie Tyler in the Swiss charts on Hitparade.ch
   • Bonnie Tyler in the Official UK Charts (English)
   • Bonnie Tyler on Billboard 's US charts
8. ^ Bonnie Tyler in: ESC Radio Awards
9. ↑ BASCA ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.