Musical Montage: Taylor Dayne “Original Sin”
A movie as ridiculously charming as 1994’s The Shadow deserves a theme song that is equally ridiculous and bombastic and Taylor Dayne delivered and then some with “Original Sin”. The song was written by Jim Steinman, a Grammy-winning producer, and composer who worked with artists like Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, Celine Dion, and Air Supply, and it was originally on the album of the same name from the group Pandora’s Box. Taylor Dayne, probably best known for her eternal 80s jam “Tell it To My Heart”, covered the song for The Shadow soundtrack and Meat Loaf also covered it later as well on his album, Welcome to the Neighborhood. The song and music video are the zenith of 90s excess, with bombastic vocals from Dayne, an army of shirtless back-up dancers, Dayne flying over the city and tons of clips from the movie and the song gets more and more operatic and insane as it goes along. The song was only part of the soundtrack and didn’t seem to be released as a single, so there’s no Billboard info and there’s not a lot of info on how well the soundtrack album did either. The legendary Jerry Goldsmith composed the score for the movie and received massive praise from critics for his distinctive themes for The Shadow and his nemesis, Shiwan Khan. You can check out the music video for “Original Sin” below.
