It’s actually a cover, because Jim Steinman, as original a sound he creates, ironically loves to remake his own stuff. In the summer of 1994, he was just coming off the surprise comeback smash for his frequent collaborator (and, okay, muse) Meat Loaf, “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).” “Original Sin” should have benefited from that association. But had The Shadow‘s theme song “Original Sin” been released in 1989 or 1992, it probably would have hit the top 10.Īfter listening to that song, one thing is for certain: it was written and produced by Jim Steinman. Had the big-budget film adaptation of The Shadow been released in the summer of 1989 or 1992 well, it still would have bombed, because the idea of a superhero who can read minds and cloud thoughts is so hokey and dated that it could work only as a radio show in the 1930s, and also because it starred Alec Baldwin, who only ever had, like, one movie that was a bona fide hit. Unfortunately, for Taylor Dayne, the ’80s abruptly ended in the summer of 1994.(Consequently, it was right around the time the ’60s ended, with Woodstock ’94, brought to you by Pepsi). It was still so ’80s that even Taylor Dayne could still get work. And big movie theme songs could still be big hit songs even if the movies that spawned them were not, such as “Stay” from Reality Bites, “Baby I Love You Way” from Reality Bites, and “All for Love” from The Three Musketeers. I mean, the biggest group of the year was Ace of Base, and all of the Friends wore acid wash and poofy bangs. A look at songs that aren’t necessarily good or bad, merely ones that, because of the climate of the music world during their release, somehow, someway, were not the massive hit songs they should logically have been.

Songs about the movie original sin