“Nothing ever felt as amazing as sneaking down to my basement as a little girl, ripping open my parents’ record cabinet and playing all their vinyl 45s. I would be transcended into a world that my cassettes and CDs just couldn’t take me to. That first crackling sound as the needle dropped onto the record was intoxicating and I immediately wanted more.”
“I made a conscious decision as an independent singer/songwriter to embrace all genres of music and to embrace the sounds of artists who made music that meant something. I credit my parents’ records that I listened to as a child as one of the most influential things that made me love music and want to create my own.
Artists like Journey, Prince, Genesis, (but also performers like Jane Powell and Doris Day) made me learn early on that music comes in all different shapes and sizes and I began to appreciate all kinds of musical genres. The more I listened, the more I learned from these amazing musicians and was able to translate different colors into my own music today.
One of the things that made me stand out in the musical sea of anonymity is that I have really been able to create my own unique sound and write music that isn’t just fluff and overly produced, digitally altered noise. I have been able to create music that means something and can hopefully be relevant not only today, but also 30 years from now. I thank those amazing vinyl artists for giving me the knowledge to do it.
“When I created my solo debut album Magic, I patterned that entire album after the record albums that I would listen to as a child. Pink Floyd’s The Wall was not just a bunch of $0.99 downloads and throw away extras, it was a complete album with a story from beginning to end. The songs were made not only as a complete entity to stand together, but also be able to stand alone.
One of the saddest things I see today in music is that there is no musical journey being created for the listeners. Records created a listening experience. You put the needle down and you were immersed into a different world for the next hour or so. People bought a whole album and listened to the whole album, not just a single. When I created my breakout album, I wanted to paint a story for the listener. I wanted whoever played track 1 to stay and listen to track 11 from beginning to end and I truly brought back the premise of what albums had done so many years ago.
My new song “Colors of the USA” which will be released worldwide on April 11th at www.colorsoftheusa.org is a great example of the versatility that I gained from loving vinyl as a child. I was given the tremendous honor of being selected by the National Parks Conservation Association to write, perform, and produce a national anthem to benefit the NPCA in honor of the National Parks, their upcoming centennial in 2016, and to help the NPCA protect and enhance those parks for the future.
The song that I created is truly a testament to the different sounds I heard in that basement listening to my parents’ records. I wanted to write a song that would withstand time and would be able to reach, touch, and inspire others and I believe I was able to achieve that. I am so proud to have been given this honor and even prouder to be able to make a difference through my music.
I am so happy to see that vinyl is making a comeback, if even just among true music connoisseurs. Music has become so digitalized that it has lost its soul. I long for the days when music can go back to being able to evoke those same emotions from people as they evoked from me in my parents’ basement all those years ago.”
—Doreen Taylor
