If your 97 Deville is the stock head unit, I don't think the file format would matter because the stock ones couldn't read mp3 or wma is I remembers correctly. Only cds burned as audio cds (74 or 80 minutes max).
There are special lens cleaning kits. I have one that is a cd with two brushes on the data side. You put some special liquid on it, and run it in the cd player. Its just regular rubbing alcohol.
As long as the cd was burned as an audio cd (normal ones like form the store) as opposed to a data cd (mp3, wma, the way you get 20 hours+ on one cd), it should play in most cd players. If the unit is picky, like some cars or home stereos, cd-r/cd-rw won't play well or at all.
Because the Bose unit read it after you kept shoving it in, it is the cd player to me. Because it sound like it plays the first time, everytime in your 97 Deville, the cd isn't excessivle flawed (bad burn, bad program, bad data, etc...)
Just for the record, I use some no name cds that I got at 200 cd-rs for $15 two years ago. I just finished the last one yesterday. I burn them real slow (below 12x), and they play in every single cd player they have ever been put in. On my mom's stereo, my sisters stock Mitsubishi cd player, dad's corvette, the minivan, my old HU, my new HU, my pc, etc...