In her seventh season of The Kelly Clarkson Show, the pop-star host finally covered Bonnie Tyler‘s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” — a song that many consider to be the ultimate karaoke ballad — for her popular Kellyoke segment.
Clarkson stayed true to the 1983 original for her two-minute cover on Thursday’s (May 29) episode, getting a boost from backup singer (and the daytime talk show’s vocal director) Jessi Collins on the essential “turn around” interjections.
“Total Eclipse of the Heart” — written by late composer, lyricist and record producer Jim Steinman — was a four-week No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for Tyler and was nominated at the 1984 Grammys for best female pop vocal performance.
In the Billboard staff’s list of the 100 Best Karaoke Songs of All Time, “Eclipse” stands alone as the only solo ballad in the top 10, sitting at No. 9. (Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born duet “Shallow” is the only other ballad in the top 10.) As Billboard‘s Jason Lipshutz wrote for the list, “If your karaoke night ends with ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart,’ it’s been a good night.”
Tyler’s enduring hit returned to national prominence back in August 2017 following a total solar eclipse that passed across the United States, breaking onto Billboard‘s Digital Song Sales chart for the first time with 31,000 digital downloads sold — up 546 percent from the previous week. To capitalize on the song’s surge in popularity, Tyler performed “Eclipse” on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship on Aug. 21, 2017, in the Caribbean Sea, with the Joe Jonas-fronted DNCE as her backing band.
Watch Clarkson’s Kellyoke cover of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” below:
