Robbed Hit of the Week 4/29/13 - The Pointer Sisters' "I Need You"...

The Pointer Sisters - "I Need You"
from the album Break Out (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #48

This week's "robbed hit" is by the funky sibling group the Pointer Sisters, who had evolved by 1983 into a competent though moderately successful lite-R&B trio. Their ninth album, I'm So Excited, produced another top-20 hit with the rather tame "American Music", and followed it up with the future re-release party jam of the title track. Taking a full year to release another record, although they returned to producer Richard Perry, their next album would take them into a more adult, sensual sound hinted at with their "Slow Hand" smash from the early 80s.

The first single released from the new album, Break Out, was the R&B mid-tempo jam "I Need You", written by Nan O'Byrne, Richard Feldman, and John Black, and established them back on R&B radio. I love the vocal interplay between the sisters here...

"I Need You" went to #13 on the "Black Singles" chart, their highest rank since "Slow Hand", and peaked at #15 on the adult-contemporary chart, where this soft soul belonged, but it stalled out at #48 on the pop chart, most likely since mainstream radio was in full new wave and Jackson/Price rock/R&B hybrid mode. Looking back, it was an odd choice for a first single, considering the mad success of its successors on the album, but maybe the record company tried to play it safe at first. Proof that the newer grooves were to be big was the release of the 12" of "I Need You", backed with what would be their next top-5 hit, "Automatic", with stayed at #2 on the club play chart in Billboard for four weeks. Since then they've never looked back (or released a slow jam single), but it remains one of my favorite PS songs because it shows them so well as a cohesive vocal group with all three getting time to shine.

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..and here are the Sisters in concert...