From Clive's book:
“Unlike Exposé, Taylor was able to transcend genre. She wasn’t identified with a specific type of material, and as long as the songs were good, she could really deliver on their potential. I considered her a long-term artist.
So what happened? The short answer is that Taylor fell victim to her ambition to be a songwriter, but that would be an oversimplification. You could argue that after two double-platinum albums, she’d earned some creative leeway, and there was no reason she shouldn’t try to co-write some songs. Singers who start selling albums get bombarded from all directions by writers trying to get on their albums, and by producers they’re working with: “Hey, let’s get together and co-write!” As if that’s something that anybody can do, no matter what their experience or track record. How hard can it be? Well, even for professional, established songwriters, it’s hard. It’s not something to be treated casually, and it’s truly condescending to the people who do it for a living to assume that you can put anyone in a room and have them come up with a worthwhile song. It’s really nonsense, and it’s exasperating to have that conversation time and time again, to come up against the claim that a true artist also needs to be a songwriter. That not only disrespects the songwriting craft, it disrespects artists who have never written.
From her first hit, “Piece of My Heart,” to her last, “Me and Bobby McGee,” Janis Joplin relied almost entirely on material written by others. So did Streisand and Aretha and countless other pantheon artists in every single musical genre. What indication did Taylor Dayne ever show that she had songwriting ability? Hit song after hit song was given to her and her very capable producer, Ric Wake.
“Nervously, I decided to let her try to explore her songwriting ability. If she was going to have blinders on regarding her career, it was my place to give her the benefit of my expertise and advise her, but I couldn’t stand in her way. She at least could start the process, and we’d see where it took her. The process took years—years during which she wasn’t on the radio, wasn’t visible to the public. For a singles-based artist, that’s a lifetime to be away, and you’d better come back with a blockbuster hit. You can’t expect your fans to wait around, or radio programmers to jump on a new single just because it has your name on the label.
It became an impossibly tough effort, culling the decent songs from the ones Taylor was co-writing, shoehorning in some outside songs, putting together a presentable album. When it finally came out in 1993, Soul Dancing was a nonevent. ”
