When power-house vocalist Taylor Dayne announced she was coming to Perth in October the first people to squeal with delight over Facebook and Twitter were our local drag queens. Dayne shows enthusiastic appreciation down the phone line from her home in Los Angeles at the news that Perth’s queer community is gearing up for her impending visit and says drag queens are her most loyal and devoted audience.
‘Yay! Well you know, HELLO, they know they know they’re going to get a little bang bang for their money. They get a big voice and a big personality and big hits, that’s what they want,my gay audience is brill, always wonderful to perform for, a lot of fun.’
Dayne first broke into the music stratosphere back in the late 80’s with hits like ‘Tell It To My Heart’ and ‘I’ll Be Your Shelter’, ‘Love Will Lead You Back’ and ‘Every Beat of My Heart’. She found success on radio, charts and on the dance floors. In the early ’90s she scored another massive hit with her version of Barry White’s ‘Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love’.
“I had the absolute pleasure to perform it with Barry many times before he passed. What a class act.” said Dayne.
Alongside her own hits Dayne also penned Tina Turner’s 1996 hit single Whatever You Want. When she hits our shores next month Dayne will be drawing on her whole repertoire to entertain Australian audiences.
“Well I’m very blessed to say that I can sit here and have music over the last twenty three years. I put out my last full length about 2008 – 2009. I had my seventeenth top ten single off that which was ‘Beautiful’. I’ll do a couple of songs from that record and the greatest hits. It’s the time for me to come back to Australia and reconnect with an audience that I’ve hadn’t seen in about six years. My greatest hits, some new stuff and tell them some new stories about myself, It’s a great thing to tour.”
Last Year Dayne sang the theme song for the Gay Games, ‘Facing a Miracle’ and performed at the opening ceremony.
‘The Gay Games are every four years. It’s just grown and grown, I don’t know how many years it’s been going on. Twenty five thousand people came to the opening in Cologne. It was amazing!’
The dance-focused song which came with a bundle of different versions is representative of Dayne’s latest work which is all dance floor friendly. Her newest single ‘Floor on Fire’ has been given the remix treatment by a host of DJs. Dayne says working with producers on remixes has always been part of the process for her.
“I was one of the first artists that really did remixes, late eighties I started that with ‘Don’t Rush Me’, ‘Prove Your Love’, ‘Tell It To My Heart’. I went back in and redid the vocals on a lot of them. You know for the dub mix I’d redo the lead vocals but also what we call the scat vocals, the stuff at the end. It’s super important for the DJs and the people in the clubs.
“For ‘Floor on Fire’ we’ve got eight remixes right now and I’m talking to two others, Bimbo Jones is going to be doing some mixes for the United States, some things are more euro-based which is how we originally started the single and now we’re going for the US and potentially Australia.”
The recording industry has changed significantly since Dayne first found success in 1988.
“It’s a digital world now, it didn’t even exist then. It went from CDs right to iPods and computers. I didn’t even have a cell phone when I first broke. It’s a different world. [In the studio] It’s completely different, it’s Pro Tools, we used reel to reel when we first started.’
Regardless of the technology, to Dayne the key to success is having a good song, being able to sing and adding the production style of the day.
‘Whenever you’re listening to music it’s about production. A song that’s great, a melody that sticks in your head is really the translation of what pop music is. It’s the popular music for the population, so whatever that means at the time whether it’s The Beatles or whether it’s The Stones or whether it’s what we consider Top Forty and now.
‘Whether it’s Bruno Mars or Lady Gaga, a lot of that has to do with production. What it really comes down to is the song ultimately. Sometimes it’s about the production value especially with dance music, but if you’re not singing the song. it’s not a hit song, bottom line.’
Taylor Dayne plays Mundaring Weir Hotel on Saturday October 22.
Graeme Watson
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