I once worked with a guy mixing TV programmes and live DVDs; I knew he’d been a studio engineer at one point in his career. We were re-arranging our studios one day and as I picked up a pair of NS-10s he casually said “I mixed ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ on those…”
I went to the Reading Rock Festival back in the 80s. she was viewed very much as middle of the road and when she came on, got roundly booed and many bottles of nefarious liquids were tossed at her and the band.
she and they were total pros, shrugged it off, she hurled some abuse back and within a couple of songs had the crowd eating out of the palm of her hand.
Back in 1999, the UK had its first total solar eclipse for several decades and VH1 played the music video (though, not this one ;-)) on loop for an hour while it was happening.
My mum had a cassette with some of her songs. We'd have it on for long trips. I loved the long version of Faster than the speed of night. it's basically just "carpe diem" in a different format, but i loved her voice and the slight melancholy and almost call to action that the song brought with it. Also, the video (of the shorter version) is peak 80's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm4CgwRxw3Y
Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf, and now Bonnie Tyler. It truly all has come to an end. I think Celine Dion is the last one still carrying on Steinman's legacy.
Too soon, she could have had a lot more life left to live these days, but a bad surgery ended it. Sucks. Try to avoid needing surgery as much as you can.
I'm curious now when this was announced. Yesterday, out of nowhere, TikTok showed me a video about someone praising "Total Eclipse of the Heart", despite not having this bubble in my profile. Kinda spooky to see the news now.
Before that. Her breakthrough album was 1977 and Total Eclipse of the Heart came out in 1982, so it was more the 8-track era. It remained a staple of radio plays (remember those?) through the 80s and 90s though, and was remade by Nikki French into a chart-topping dance version in 1995.
A lot of HN is folks in their late 30s, 40s, and early 50s (and sometimes even older!), so many folks here would've overlapped with the radio era. A lot of folks here were involved in making YouTube/Instagram/TikTok, not listening to it.
I'm old enough to remember Walkmans coming out in 1979, which was the start of the end of the boombox era. Approximately no-one was using 8-track at that point.
I'm not quite that old, but didn't people look down on cassettes due to their lower audio quality? Weren't most home systems (hi-fis) still vinyl or 8-track for a while longer?
A big driver of cassettes then was the write ability, unlike 8 tracks. You could borrow your friend's new vinyl album, pop in a new cassette tape on your hi-fi, and record a copy of the album to the tape. Of course the Walkman then made listening to your new album fully portable.
That's not how it works. If upvotes alone mattered, HN would quickly degenerate into Reddit. The bar is whether "good hackers" would find this interesting.
Death notices of famous artists are the definition of off-topic: "most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." If normies care about it, good hackers by definition probably don't.
I flag this and every such thread I come across. If Hacker News is going to be consistent in its espoused principles, this is non-technical content and thus not welcome. If that standard applies to far more substantive stories regardless of the quality of conversation they produce, it must apply here as well.
I do think HN should have an obit: category and filter them out the main page.
It's one thing to have obits for people who wouldn't be covered by regular news, but "75 year old celebrity dies" is not any kind of new phenomenon.
It generates a decent amount of upvotes and discussion based on name recognition and nostalgia, but every thread is essentially the same, "Oh, that's sad, I liked their work, <personal anecdote of how they were touched by it>.".
I did not say upvotes alone matter, but they should be the final say after all other mechanisms.
> The bar is whether "good hackers" would find this interesting.
If this were true, the majority of frontpage-entries would have to be removed.
> "most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities,[..]If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
I guess the notable point here is "most" and "probably". The exception seems to be always news which are so important or dramatic that they are still not removed, and leaving the final decision to the upvotes. Which is why there are also regularly political and sometime seven sports entries (once or twice a year).
Despite being called hacker news, reality is not binary and rules should not be handled like that.
Very famous singer, multiple very famous songs, 40 yo song topped the carts during the 2024 Eclipse, was pretty much the theme song for a very small indie movie called Shrek 2.
she and they were total pros, shrugged it off, she hurled some abuse back and within a couple of songs had the crowd eating out of the palm of her hand.
RIP Bonnie. A class act.
RIP Ms Tyler, you will be missed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgmUgFEFzco&list=RDHgmUgFEFz...
“Haaaand comes out…”
https://jeannr.tumblr.com/post/165291081/i-made-a-flow-chart...
I believe that's the original source, but it looks cut off. Here's a full version:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b1/82/dc/b182dcc291495c013c98...
https://youtu.be/FfUU1wJKXDc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Steinman
I still want to see the dream realized on Broadway of a Native-American inspired musical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWcASV2sey0
"Suuuuure. Kidnap the humans, DESTROY THE MACHINE."
We might need a white night on a fiery steed. One can dream.
I'm curious now when this was announced. Yesterday, out of nowhere, TikTok showed me a video about someone praising "Total Eclipse of the Heart", despite not having this bubble in my profile. Kinda spooky to see the news now.
Edit: guys, I get that it's not a "substantive comment" but there's no excuse for 3 downvotes. Get a life
A lot of HN is folks in their late 30s, 40s, and early 50s (and sometimes even older!), so many folks here would've overlapped with the radio era. A lot of folks here were involved in making YouTube/Instagram/TikTok, not listening to it.
Death notices of famous artists are the definition of off-topic: "most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." If normies care about it, good hackers by definition probably don't.
I flag this and every such thread I come across. If Hacker News is going to be consistent in its espoused principles, this is non-technical content and thus not welcome. If that standard applies to far more substantive stories regardless of the quality of conversation they produce, it must apply here as well.
It's one thing to have obits for people who wouldn't be covered by regular news, but "75 year old celebrity dies" is not any kind of new phenomenon.
It generates a decent amount of upvotes and discussion based on name recognition and nostalgia, but every thread is essentially the same, "Oh, that's sad, I liked their work, <personal anecdote of how they were touched by it>.".
I did not say upvotes alone matter, but they should be the final say after all other mechanisms.
> The bar is whether "good hackers" would find this interesting.
If this were true, the majority of frontpage-entries would have to be removed.
> "most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities,[..]If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
I guess the notable point here is "most" and "probably". The exception seems to be always news which are so important or dramatic that they are still not removed, and leaving the final decision to the upvotes. Which is why there are also regularly political and sometime seven sports entries (once or twice a year).
Despite being called hacker news, reality is not binary and rules should not be handled like that.
Guidelines:
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, (...) If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.