Robbed Hit of the Week 5/13/13 - Paul Simon's "Allergies"...

Paul Simon - "Allergies"
from the album Hearts & Bones (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44

This week's "robbed hit" is by famed singer/songwriter Paul Simon, who after a critically and professionally lucrative career with Art Garfunkel resulting in three #1 pop hits, split for a solo career at the beginning of the 70s. He released his first American solo album in 1972, which gave him a top-10 pop single with "Mother and Child Reunion". Three years later he finally scored his first solo chart-topper with "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover".

Simon started out the 80's with his film project, One Trick Pony, which earned him yet another top-10 single (his last so far) with "Late In The Evening". After the less-than-stellar performance of the film/soundtrack, he took a break, where he reunited with Garfunkel for the classic concert in Central Park in New York City, and even got another top 40 hit with their live version of "Wake Up Little Susie".

In 1983, Paul released a much more introspective album, Hearts And Bones, which was originally intended to be a Simon & Garfunkel "reunion" album. The first single from the set, "Allergies", featured an amazing guitar cameo from legendary axe-man Al Di Meola, which is so so underrated...

The stark yet personal work made it just under the top-40, though in it I can hear what alternative rock in the 90s gleaned on for inspiration. It did a little better on adult-contemporary radio, peaking at #26 there.

Simon, disheartened by the relative failure of the album, took yet another break, and his next effort would become one of the iconic pop/world music fusions of all time, Graceland. But I rank "Allergies" (as well as the rest of the Hearts & Bones album) as equally essential to his catalog.