Once upon on a time, Bonnie Tyler was singing about falling in love. But now, 34 years later, she’s atop the charts.
Bonnie Tyler staged a total eclipse of the iTunes chart
Thirty-four years after its release, Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is the No. 1 song on iTunes
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
On Monday, a.k.a. solar eclipse day, Tyler’s song “Total Eclipse of the Heart” made its way to the top of the iTunes chart, displacing Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito.” USA Today reported:
On Aug. 11, the song had 55,768 streams according to Nielsen’s preliminary reports. A week later, on Aug. 18, that number increased 67% to 93,148 streams. Plays on Amazon and Apple were not taken into account as those figures were not yet available, but on Monday the song hit no. 1 on iTunes.
The original song — half torch tune, half behavioral command ballad — was written by Jim Steinman and released in 1983, selling more than 6 million copies. Since then, its popularity has waxed and waned, joining the pantheon of karaoke classics and peaking again in 1995 with a version sung by Nikki French.
Thanks to the natural phenomenon of the total solar eclipse and our urge to celebrate our sky going dark when it’s not supposed to be, Tyler’s song is No. 1 again. Tyler was joined by DNCE to perform the song at Royal Caribbean’s Total Eclipse cruise in honor of the celestial event.
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