Billy Joel "Piano Man"

After slipping into a taxi outside of an all-inclusive resort in Cancun, the cab driver peered into his rear view mirror and noticed me and the handful of fellow Americans. He quickly grabbed a compact disc and slid it into his player. Moments later, the Eagles "Hotel California" came blaring out of his crackly speakers. With Don Henley and company introducing us to the place you can check out but never leave, the driver continued his drive into the bustling downtown area. Similar to cabs in America, he didn't run the air conditioning during this hot and humid March night -- is this some sort of universal rule among cab drivers? Other songs we heard on his CD included "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Piano Man". My guess is the driver had a special "gringo mix" of popular sing-along tunes for whenever he chauffeurs American tourists. I could also be wrong, but I don't think I am...

Concrete Blonde "Joey"

Remember when receiving mail was exciting? Granted we were probably 10 years old, but still. My Aunt Laura always addressed our birthday cards to "Master Todd" which always made me feel special. Nowadays, we just get bills and advertisements from Comcast. Receiving packages, however, was something altogether different. Today, it's the familiar smile on the box from Amazon, but back in my teen years it was the familiar Columbia House logo that put a smile on my face. Once day after returning from Spring Break 1994, a Columbia House package sat resting on my bed. I quickly dropped my luggage and tore open the tiny cardboard box and found an album from Concrete Blonde. Concrete Blonde? Who ordered that? I know I didn't order that album, but before calling to complain, my brother admitted that he ordered it for me because he thought "I would like it" which translated to "he wanted it".

Aretha Franklin "Another Night"

Dad wanted one thing for Father's Day: he asked me to convert his old cassette tapes to CDs. In essence, he wanted me to bring his musical technology from the 1980s into the 1990s. No problem (even though it was the 2000s). After handing me a shoe box filled with his old mixtapes that he created by taping songs off the radio, I went to work. At first, I was surprised by his eclectic tastes: Phish, Nirvana, Paula Abdul, and even Heavy D and the Boyz made appearances. One constant among his dozen of mixes: the song "Another Night" by Aretha Franklin. This song (which I had never heard before) make quite a few appearances on his tapes. Perhaps that was testament to my Dad's life at the time because this and several other sad ballads littered his tapes among Motown, Grunge and House music.

My Dad made these tapes shortly after he and my mom divorced in 1992. While my mom, brother and I stayed in the house he built, my Dad moved a few miles away into a dingy studio apartment he rightfully nicknamed "the dungeon" . One particular mixtape contained a handwritten title on the label "Exile on the Boulevard". Once again, this tape contained "Another Night". My Dad wasn't one to show his feelings...much less put them into words, so I believe the lyrics to the Aretha Franklin song revealed what was going on in my Dad's heavy heart...

Another night without you

Another night, I know I can get through

Another night, it's only

Another night, I won't be lonely

Another night

Another night

Another night, it ain't much

Another night without your touch

Sting "Nothing 'Bout Me"

One of the forgotten gems from Sting's wildly successful Ten Summoner's Tales album is the final song on the album known as "Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me)". While not a huge hit on the radio, the uptempo (by Sting's standards) song sounds like something you'd hear during the credits of a late-'90s rom-com starring Hugh Grant, Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Aniston.

Mariah Carey "Love Takes Time"

"Love Takes Time" almost never happened. Mariah Carey's debut album was already complete when she recorded the song. Since her album was in the process of being pressed into CDs and (at that time) cassette tapes, no one at Columbia Records wanted to add it. So Mariah went straight to the top and played the ballad for a record executive who liked the song, but didn't want to stop production of the album just to include another ballad. Mariah protested and eventually got her way. "Love Takes Time" is the name of the song, but the song itself took next to no time. From start to finish, the song took three days to complete -- something virtually unheard of. "Love Takes Time" became the album's second single and proved Mariah to be correct -- the song hit #1 on the Hot 100, Adult Contemporary, and R&B Charts in 1990.

Ricky Martin & Christina Aguilera "Nobody Wants to Be Lonely"

It was 2001 and the only way to get a copy of Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera's monster duet "Nobody Wants to Be Lonely" was to buy the song's album or record it off the radio.  Why?  The song was never released as a CD single -- meaning you couldn't go out and buy the song (or in today's terms: you couldn't just download the single from iTunes).  The song wound up being one of the biggest songs of the year and a real head-scratcher as the record companies who would soon lose their grip on CD sales with the rise of Napster and illegal downloads.

*N-Sync "(God Must've Spent) A Little More Time on You"

If you went out and bought the CD single to *N-Sync's "(God Must've Spent) A Little More Time on You", you also received quite a smooth little treat: the single's B-side was a live cover of "Sailing" from Christopher Cross.

Electric Light Orchestra - "Can't Get It Out of My Head"

During the 1990s, guys used to make mixtapes for girls -- this practice usually was a result of guys having a crush on the recipient of the mixtape.  In my case, a somewhat annoying girl (who reminded me of Jan Brady) in one of my classes knew that I owned a huge CD collection and asked if I could make her a mixtape.  I told her I'd be happy to...provided she picked out her own songs and bought her own cassette tape.  Looking back, I admit that wasn't very nice of me, but I didn't want the girl to think that I liked her (because I didn't...and because I was 17 years old and acted like a stereotypical 17-year-old).  Her mixtape contained the usual mix of popular songs from 1994 (Bryan Adams, The Cranberries, Michael Bolton), but I remember she chose the song "Can't Get It Out of My Head" by Electric Light Orchestra.  I had never heard of the song and this girl was a couple years younger than me yet she somehow knew a song released in 1974.  Much like the song title implies, this memory is firmly etched in my brain.

98 Degrees - "The Hardest Thing"

I used to buy all those "Now That's What I Call Music" CDs.  The first Now CD I purchased came after calling an 800-number from a late-night TV commercial, but I scored the other dozen or so discs from music stores and/or work.  You have to go all the way back to "Now That's What I Call Music Volume #3" to find "The Hardest Thing" from the Nick Lachey-fronted boy band 98 Degrees.

Marty Balin - "Hearts"

The song that plays during that moment of the Time-Life Music infomercial when they say, "But, wait, there's more!"...

Tina Arena - "Chains"

One of the (few) perks of being an intern at a radio station in the 1990s was getting free music.  In this instance, my boss asked me if I wanted a CD from an upcoming artist named Tina Arena.  "Sure!" I exclaimed while wondering who the hell Tina Arena was.  "Chains" was Tina's only US hit--though it was only a minor hit (peaking at #17 on the AC Chart).  Being the sentimental guy that I am, I still have Tina's album stuffed on one of those old-school CD towers in my basement.

Go West - "Faithful"

In 1997, I worked as a board operator for an AC radio station.  A board operator did everything a DJ did...except talk.  So, I just sat in a room and played music into the wee hours of the night (what a deal!).  Around one o'clock in the morning, the afternoon DJ (who went by the nickname "Big Ken") called me and asked if I would play "Faithful" by Go West.  He was out on a date with a young lady at the time, and she wanted to hear it.  Without question, I found the CD and played the song.  Doing something like that today would likely result in my being fired.  I certainly hope that girl enjoyed her request, and I wonder how she thanked Big Ken.

Londonbeat - "I've Been Thinking About You"

You probably know one lyric in this song: sha-bow-bow.  "I've Been Thinking About You" proved to be Londonbeat's one and only US hit sha-bow-bow.  Back in the day, when you purchased a compilation CD of 90s music at Coconuts Music, the disc surely included "I've Been Thinking About You" sha-bow-bow.