Robbed hit of the week 11/18/13: Barbra Streisand's "Left In The Dark"...

Barbra Streisand - "Left In The Dark"
from the album Emotion (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #50

This week's "robbed hit" is by one of the most popular and celebrated vocalists of all time, Barbra Streisand, who had spent much of 1983 promoting her pet project movie Yentl, which she directed and starred in. The soundtrack to the film garnered her a top-40 single with "The Way He Makes Me Feel", while the album went top-10 and sold over a million copies.The following year she went to work to record her 23rd studio album, and the first in four years, since the Bee Gees-assisted Guilty. A lot had changed in the pop musical landscape during that time, when soft rock gave way to new wave and heavy metal. Michael Jackson, Prince, Springsteen, and Madonna were now the biggest stars. And Barbra was willing to compete with that.

To do so but still retain her adult contemporary base, she enlisted songwriter and producer Jim Steinman to write and record the first single from the Emotion album, "Left In The Dark". After winning with Air Supply and Bonnie Tyler, it seemed like a great idea to update her for the MTV crowd. Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg from Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band played on the record. And she even brought back A Star Is Born co-star Kris Kristofferson for the music video where she's the point of a love triangle...

...or really a rectangle?

While "Left In The Dark" scored Barbra another big easy-listening hit, peaking at #4, the single stalled halfway up the pop chart in October of 1984. Internationally, while the song was a top 40 hit in Belgium and the Netherlands, it lingered in the 80s in England and Canada.

Barbra would get her "groove" back by the next year by going back to her roots and releasing The Broadway Album, which would sell millions and nab her a People's Choice Award for Best All-Around Female Entertainer.