Tale of the Tape

Social media has corroded our brains, but there's also some cool aspects. In all my years posting online, I've been lucky to find interesting things in my fields of interest that I might not have found otherwise. Musically, I've encountered many fine folks, some of whom have become real-life friends, others who just post things that I find intriguing.

Take Bluesky user Bill Zuka, who posts various singles' debut dates and positions from years past. (For those who don't follow the pop charts closely: before 1991, chart data was surveyed by calling record stores and reporting on whatever they said they sold most. While this was an inexact science, it did lead to a much different chart arc, where hits would build instead of debut high and gradually decline.) On May 19, he shared a quartet of tracks that debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on that date in 1984: The Cars' "Magic," ZZ Top's "Legs," Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do with It" and...The Alan Parsons Project's "Prime Time."

Three of those, of course, are personal and universal favorites, played on the radio to this day. The Parsons track? I couldn't pick it out of a line-up. In fact, I realized, I can only name three of their tracks by ear. There are the openers of 1981's Eye in the Sky, the instrumental "Sirius" (the intro music for the Chicago Bulls in the '90s) and the title track (a U.S. Top 5 hit). But there's also the instrumental "Mammagamma" from the same album. And how do I know that? Thank the Ford Motor Company.

In 1996, like many suburban parents, my mom purchased a minivan: Ford's Windstar model, a sliding-door number in a champagne color. This was the vehicle that shepherded us to extracurricular acitivies and family vacations, and the fine folks at Ford threw in, as a bonus, a copy of their Ford Audio Systems Demonstration Tape for the stereo.

Now, while the Windstar was the pinnacle of new family vehicle technology (compared to our old Dodge Aries station wagon), this particular tape had been sitting around for some time. (Even older versions exist!) It played fine, but it was manufactured sometime in late 1991 by Arista Records, a home for some of the softest hits of a generation. Founded by still-living impresario Clive Davis after he was fired from Columbia/CBS for allegedly appropriating company funds for his son's bar mitzvah, Arista would make stars of middle-of-the-road pop hitmakers old and new like Barry Manilow, Dionne Warwick and Davis' proudest discovery Whitney Houston.

Arista didn't rock any harder by the time the business was caught off-guard by a new wave of alternative rock bands. And while my pre-adolescent years could have certainly been dominated by the explosions of hip-hop and teen pop that marked most late '90s experiences, I was instead grooving to some of the softest sounds imaginable. I'm not mad; this is what made me the kind of listener I am today.

Zuka's post—I understand people call BlueSky's messages "skeets," which I will never do—inspired me to find a digital copy of the tape (one track is not streaming, making a playlist impossible to recreate on Apple or Spotify) and play it for my daughters during lunch yesterday. They initially grooved happily in their high chairs, but by the end it was clearly my preferred sound more than theirs. But that doesn't mean I can't share the tunes with you! Buckle up, adjust your mirrors and get ready for a pleasant drive through my memory palace.

David A. Stewart feat. Candy Dulfer, "Lily Was Here" (1989)

Cursed forever to be the "other guy" in the pop duo Eurythmics, Stewart nonetheless had a solo hit before he and Annie Lennox parted ways with this slightly silly but catchy instrumental, part of the soundtrack to a Dutch film he scored. Candy Dulfer, the daughter of jazz saxophonist Hans Dulfer who'd become a favorite of Prince's, made her international breakthrough on this track, later released on her debut album, the punny Saxuality. Without her improvisational spirit, it's hard to imagine how Stewart's staid playing and Olle Romo's percussion loop would have been a surprise No. 11 hit in America. (3 Windstars out of 5)

Taylor Dayne, "I'll Always Love You" (1988)

Taylor Dayne, the distinctive-voiced Long Islander ("sweeeeet, sexxxxxy wheyyyyys") who'd appealingly howled over Top 10 freestyle hits "Tell It to My Heart" and "Prove Your Love," went for her first ballad and scored even higher on the Hot 100. (Her second album would repeat the same format: another ballad, "Love Will Lead You Back," was her only No. 1.) I'm not sure what kind of a driving playlist some of these songs would ideally be featured on. When you think of slinky synths on a night drive, it usually coalesces into Phil Collins going off, the better to keep your focus on the road. (2.5 Windstars)

Daryl Hall & John Oates, "So Close" (1990)

My daughters kind of lost interest around this point in the tape, which could have been more about their wish to not sit and eat an avocado. Their loss! This was the last major radio hit for the now-fractious Philadelphia duo, and even taking VH-1 comeback track "Do It for Love" out of the mix, it's a button on a terrific legacy of hits. The production pomp by Danny Kortchmar and Jon Bon Jovi, who slightly re-arrange the chorus on this version, might be divisive, but the sublime bridge and Hall's emotive voice (those outro ad-libs!) are catnip for a fan like me. (5 Windstars)

Kenny G & James Newton Howard, "I'll Never Leave You" (1991)

This is a re-arrangement of the duo's theme to the 1991 melodrama Dying Young, which starred Julia Roberts and Campbell Scott in a sort of reverse Love Story plot. Whereas the original theme arrangement centered G's soprano sax, he makes more of a dramatic cameo here, with a piano taking most of the main melody. There's probably a reason they used this version, which you'll understand along with my immunity to the sounds of this wildly divisive smooth jazzer a little further down the page. (3.5 Windstars)

Whitney Houston, "Miracle" (1990)

While Houston's third album I'm Your Baby Tonight was meant to be a rejoinder to critics who thought she'd ceded too much ground to pleasing white audiences, the LP's main architects, Antonio "L.A." Reid and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, weren't immune to the smooth and stately. "Miracle" reminds me of her Olympics anthem "One Moment in Time," which I like a lot more. (2.5 Windstars)

Aretha Franklin, "Everyday People" (1991)

The Aretha Franklin on Arista formula—pair her with hitmakers until a hit appears—yielded an improbable chart comeback in the '80s with hits like "Freeway of Love" and the George Michael duet "I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)," her first No. 1 since "Respect." Her ability to place or show abruptly ended with the grab bag of 1991's What You See is What You Sweat, a brazen attempt at genre-hopping that exposes the limits of the Queen of Soul's gracenotes. Neither she nor producer Narada Michael Walden tarnish one of Sly & The Family Stone's best hits, but it's not surprising that this New Jack-ish take missed the chart entirely. (2.75 Windstars)

Carly Simon, "Holding Me Tonight" (1990)

Simon, who never met a melodrama she couldn't illuminate, is usually best at tightly-wound, detailed slice-of-life story songs—not unlike Taylor Swift, in that way. Like Swift, I think she stumbles with the swoonier, vibes-based numbers, and "Holding Me Tonight" is one of 'em, despite a descending chorus that is catchy in spite of myself. (2.25 Windstars)

Alan Parsons Project, "Mammagamma" (1981)

We're now on our third instrumental of the tape, which is maybe starting to push it. But I honestly dig this one: it reminds me of the music to my beloved Donkey Kong Country video games from around the same time, although it's older than anything on the cassette. (4 Windstars)

Lisa Stansfield, "You Can't Deny It" (1990)

More than any song on this tape—and there are plenty like it here—this is what I call "shoe store music." You're likely to hear this as you're trying on something affordable but fashionable in a mall store. (Dire Straits' "Your Latest Trick" is the pinnacle of this, to me.) It's certainly not a patch on "All Around the World," I know that much. (2 Windstars)

Kenny G, "Going Home" (1989)

The closer to Kenny G's first live album is, improbably, a somewhat mystical song in mainland China. Apparently, it's quite customary to close out public establishments and encourage folks to disburse by playing "Going Home" on a loudspeaker. Kenny once played it in the middle of a set in Asia and was surprised to see folks making for the exits, thinking the show was over.

This is one of a hundred bizarre things I've learned about Kenny G instead of knowing normal things. My mom was and is a pretty solid fan of the curly-haired sax god. I don't know how. When you're a kid, your parents' music taste just seems like it's always been there. I don't know how a cassette of Breathless ended up in our home, as it did for millions of other suburbanites in America. What I do know is, as sometimes happens with a parents' taste in art, I'm immunized from thinking Kenny G is "bad." Silly? Corny? Sure...but I'll listen to him willingly, and at one point, I worked for a musical conglomerate that controlled most of his catalogue, meaning that knowledge meant as much as it could.

That's how I found myself sitting in the audience at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ, taking in a night of mostly holiday hits with my parents and brother in tow. (The dude has released three seasonal collections, and his second-biggest hit is a version of "Auld Lang Syne" featuring famous clips of radio and television moments to mark the millennium.) Well on his way to becoming a meme, G gamely mugged for his devoted faithful: arriving to the stage down the center aisle of the theatre, playing as he walked; giving away something (a car, maybe, or the chance to be on stage?) to a swooning fan; and, of course, doing that circular breathing thing where he holds a note for longer than God intended.

I think the normalcy of the night is what made it so weird, or at least made people act so weird. At one point, after a dark-skinned percussionist powered through a lengthy improvised conga solo to close a number, G shouted out his bandmates, who'd been on tour with him since the '80s. Without warning, a man behind me yelled, "IS HE JAMAICAN, KENNY?"—which, thankfully, no one acknowledged. During the second half of the set, when he self-deprecatingly apologized for playing one of his originals instead of a Christmas tune, that same man attempted to assuage the millionaire Starbucks investor, which prompted my brother to hiss, only loudly enough for me to hear, "Yo, shut the FUCK up!" My mom did not appreciate my laughter, and I could not explain it to her.

On the frigid walk to the parking garage, my brother recalled that he'd recently taken in a show commemorating our college radio station's 25th anniversary as one of the New York metro areas preeminent metal-focused frequencies. Early into a set by Anthrax, some guy moshed too hard and was carried out, bloodied, on a stretcher. "This was weirder," he said. Kenny G will surprise us all. (4 Windstars)