INOJ

Lately, I've found myself missing INOJ. Remember her? She was a breath of stale air in the late '90s. Don't get me wrong, she has a sweet singing voice, but each of the three singles she released was a cover song. Songwriting is hard, y'all! Almost as hard as saying INOJ's name. I always said it phonetically, but apparently it's pronounced "I Know Jay."



INOJ's first single was "Love You Down," originally by Ready for the World. It's a beautifully romantic song, as you would expect any ode to statutory rape to be. Next she hit the Top Ten with her version of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time," a song that's still my jam. Afterwards she tried a cover of Anita Ward's "Ring My Bell," but it failed to chart when Americans sighed enough is enough.



The catalyst for writing this post was actually to reminisce about how much I love INOJ's song "My Boo." But in researching for this post (by which I mean using Wikipedia), I learned that "My Boo" is actually recorded by the Ghost Town DJs. My ITunes had that wrong, but apparently half the internet incorrectly attributes "My Boo" to INOJ, so I'm not alone. Maybe everyone just figured she covered it since that's her thing, or perhaps they just assumed a recording artist ought to have at least one original song and did some covering (up) of their own.



So while my intention was to come here and say that INOJ's only original song was her best, this was a misconception. Maybe it's actually the Ghost Town DJs that I miss. I may Know Jay, but it's like I don't even know INOJ anymore.