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.

Carly Simon "Give Me All Night"

You might be too young to understand this, but...

The sound I hear while listening to "Give Me All Night" makes me think the cassette player is about to "eat" my tape.  The song sounds like it's slower than it should be and a bit garbled.

Sophie B. Hawkins "Walking in My Blue Jeans"

I found an old aircheck from my days at "Today's Soft Rock" Windy 100 in Chicago.  Since it was recorded on a cassette tape, I managed to find a (working) cassette player to play said tape.  While I don't remember the song "Walking in My Blue Jeans", the Sophie B. Hawkins tune aired during an overnight shift on Windy 100 during the Spring of 2001.  The song peaked at #23 on the AC Chart in 2001.

Steve Perry - "Foolish Heart"

My mom belonged to a Cassette Tape club in the mid-1980s where you would get 12 cassette tapes for a penny (but get nailed with a shipping & handling fee of $700) and then every month you'd get another cassette until you fulfilled your contract.  One such cassette was the album Street Talk from Steve Perry.  It was Perry's first solo effort and much like Peter Cetera, Phil Collins, and others who stepped away from their respective rock bands to launch a solo album, it showed Perry's softer side.  One of the two notable songs from the album was "Foolish Heart" which peaked at #2 on the Adult Contemporary Chart.