Whatever happened to Taylor Dayne? Turns out her career is chugging along well enough, but I would have figured she’d have been a bigger hit. She had everything, it seemed, to hit Mariah Carey-esque heights, but before such a thing even happened for Mariah. She had the voice, the power, the glory, and the biggest set of lips. Surely that was enough.
#89 “Love Will Lead You Back” is barely a 90’s song. From the album “Can’t Fight Fate”, it debuted in January of 1990 and it has that in-between feel of an R&B hit trying to find its way out of the 80’s and into the 90’s. If the guitar solo had any harder an edge, we would definitely be veering into Joan Jett or Pat Benatar territory, but it manages to restrain itself and it faintly echoes something Slash would belt out for Guns N’ Roses.
It’s a classy song overall, and something of a curio amid 90’s music. A grandiose ballad by neither Mariah Carey nor Whitney Houston, yet it still packs a bemoaning, sobbing, musical punch. An interesting fact about the song, it was written by Oscar-nominated songwriter Diane Warren, who wrote music for Celine Dion and that big power-ballad comeback for Aerosmith “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” for terribad film “Armageddon”.
That’s good company to keep (well… except for the whole “Armageddon” thing), and maybe it’s due to being crafted by a skilled songwriter that I enjoy Taylor Dayne’s performance of it so much. If anything, this song heralded the style of soulful pop that continued to be popular for the rest of the decade.
Sit back and have a listen, and pray Taylor Swift doesn’t swoop in and cover this as a duet with Justin Bieber.
