When a performer is noted for finding the drama in a song and bringing it forward, you'll notice a pattern. You can always find vocal drama at its finest in whatever songs that recur with drag queens throughout the world, and that tradition is a mark of quality for those who delight in musical performance. The divas that inspire drag performance all over the world are interpretive singers of a most unique sort, with gender nonspecific acolytes so swept into Dionysian frenzy by the power of rhythm and voice that they let the song inhabit them.

Taylor Dayne is that kind of performer. New York born and bred, Long Island to be specific, this diva with that clarion voice has been working with her voice for decades, starting with recordings of musicals--Man of la Mancha, The Fantasticks, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, Fiddler on the Roof--and encompassing rock singer/songwriters like Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, and The Beatles.

"My tastes and inspirational artists were always rather eclectic and diverse," says Dayne. "I would sing in the shower, or along with the radio--a little transistor by the pool. But the gift was there, I just ran with it. Fortunately, through the years I've trained with a couple of wonderful teachers."

After her travails with the rock group Felony ("Bands stink; five people have five opinions and there are lots of egos to bruise"), she broke into the international spotlight with her debut single (and album) "Tell It To My Heart."

"Who could have foreseen that?" she asks, "I was in my car the first time I heard it on the radio," and its domination of dance clubs as well as pop and R&B radio followed.

It is hard to underestimate the innovation of "Tell It To My Heart," as in form it is neither Hi-NRG, pop, freestyle, or a power ballad, yet it synthesizes elements from all of those musical styles and forged a new path for dance music. And even at the height of pop success, Dayne never turned her back on the dance music community. E-Smoove's pulsing take on "I'll Wait," Thunderpuss' reworking of "Naked Without You," Friburn and Urik's trance-cendent remix of "Planet Love," C+C Music Factory's mix of "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love," and the list goes on and on.

When not working on her new album, recording in the U.S. and Europe, you can find her sweating it out onstage, "eight shows a week." You can always count on hearing some of the old favorites; "Tell It To My Heart" and "Love Will Lead You Back" getting the biggest response from audiences, and you can always count on The Voice. When asked about how she feels to have diva newcomer/fierce belter Anastacia compared to her, Dayne demurs, "flattered."

Dayne's voice has always shown a very cinematic sense of phrasing and power, and it's no surprise that her work has been tapped by the movies for many years. Her fierce "Planet Love" was all over the film and soundtrack album Flawless, and now, under the ministrations of circuit/house god Tony Moran, "How Many," from Dirk Shafer's Circuit, is everywhere.

"I was always eager to work with him," she says of Moran, and "fun" is how she describes the twenty or so remixes that span that song's double CD. But no discussion of the fruitful intersection between the cinema and Taylor Dayne would be complete without discussing "Original Sin," the theme to 1994's The Shadow, which Taylor cut with legendary writer/producer Jim Steinman, the creative process behind which she compares to "working with a great director like Martin Scorsese." As stated earlier, that kind of power and drama in a record leads one back to the fundamentals of performance. Onstage, in the club, and on the radio, Taylor Dayne is more than just The Voice. But in a prefab pop world with girls who can't sing and whose stageshow is weak, The Voice satisfies amply.

"There is no yellow brick road," she says, "but persistence and talent will always pay off."