Back when MP3s were just a glimmer in a programmer’s eye, albums were treated with more reverence. It wasn’t just that more people purchased CDs, it was that putting a disc in your CD player and firing it up required a certain level of commitment and patience. Sure, you could change your mind and put in something else, but it wasn’t an easy task to wedge a disc back into its proper sleeve, find another, extract it, and insert it into a tiny slot in the dash all while staying between the lines at 70 miles an hour.
Digital music players have made it easy for all of us to develop a bit of musical attention deficit disorder. I rarely listen to my favorite old songs any more, and when I do, my mind wanders and I find myself skipping to something new before the first song is done. It’s hard to imagine going back to the days when all my musical cravings weren’t just a click away, which is why I was dismayed to find the car I rented a few days ago for a business trip had no auxiliary input jack.
Although I was initially sad to leave my iPod at home, I tried to look on the bright side: my road trip would give me a chance to reconnect with some of my favorite oldies. So, I dusted off my CD collection and spent several minutes arming myself for the five-hour drive. To kick off the trip, I listened to my favorite songs on Relish and remembered how much I love the raspy grittiness of Joan Osbourne’s voice. With nearly fifteen years to forget how overplayed “One of Us” once was, the song suddenly felt like a quaint, undiscovered gem. I stared out at the monotonous, corn-flanked highway and smiled, remembering how Joan made every rebellious teenage girl in America want a nose ring of her very own. I also spent some time with Aimee Mann and I listened to several of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits, recalling where I was when the music videos for “Black or White” and “Remember the Time” premiered. I brought along Emotions to ensure I’d have a little classic Mariah on hand, and I observed a moment of silence to mourn the day she traded in her sensible tops and jeans for hoochie shorts and airbrushed tank-tops.
It was nice to spend quality time with all of my adolescent idols, but one diva kept me company longer than any other. Her growling, powerful voice always takes me back to a simpler time when I still thought I might be a straight boy who just happened to be very into good skin care, musicals, interior decorating, and getting out of gym by being a teacher’s aide. I’m speaking, of course, about Taylor Dayne.
Now, I realize some of you might not be familiar with all of Taylor’s work. I can understand if you don’t own two copies of Soul Dancing, and if you’re straight, I could probably forgive your failure to purchase the maxi-single of “Naked Without You.” But if you don’t own Taylor Dayne’s Greatest Hits, I’m afraid we simply can’t be friends any more. It’s nothing personal. It’s just that Taylor Dayne songs elicit certain involuntary responses in me, such as singing into hairbrushes and/or broom handles and taking both hands off the steering wheel to punctuate choruses with faggy swishing and pointing. I find I eventually sabotage all relationships with people who lack this reflex. I’ve never completely forgiven my mother for botching the lyrics to “Tell It To My Heart” during our 2002 Christmas karaoke performance, so I’m sure you’ll understand that I can’t have blog readers who don’t even own her seminal compilation of timeless high-energy hits and sultry ballads.
Taylor Dayne was no one-hit wonder, but most people forget how many of her songs they actually know. Fortunately, there’s a convenient megamix of her greatest hits on YouTube if you need a refresher. However, to truly appreciate Taylor, nothing beats the inconvenient, high-fidelity glory of a compact disc. It may not be as easy to click and shuffle your way to another artist when your attention span wanes. Yet, listening to at least a few tracks from the same album gives musicians the respect they deserve and honors the dignity of their work.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to listen to every track on several CDs I fished out of a dumpster behind a pawn shop in 1998. Looking over these albums after my road trip, I find myself asking what hundreds of thousands of CD-buying teenagers must have asked many years ago: could there be more to Aqua than just “Barbie Girl”? Could “C’mon ‘N Ride It (The Train)” be just the beginning of a musical revolution brought to us by the Quad City DJs? Only an open-mind and a two-hour listening party will tell.