Songoftheday 8/29/14 - Here we are the two of us together, taking this crazy chance to be all alone...

Atlantic Starr - "Secret Lovers"
from the album As The Band Turns (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

Today's Song of the Day is by the rhythm and blues band Atlantic Starr, who were one of the many "Starr/Star" groups having success in the early 80s on the radio. In 1982, they crossed over to the pop charts with their post-disco top-40 hit "Circles", but while they scored a couple more hits on soul stations, they had trouble following up that success on mainstream Top-40. In 1986, the third single from their sixth album, As The Band Turns, was released, and it was a ballad much more in tune with easy-listening radio than R&B. "Secret Lovers", written by bandmates and brothers David and Wayne Lewis, made cheating a much more romantic affair than most songs on the topic...

"Secret Lovers" hit big, becoming the group's first top-10 pop hit in March of 1986. The single also topped the Adult Contemporary radio chart in Billboard, and climbed to #4 on their R&B/Black Singles chart. Internationally, the record made #10 over in England, whilegoing all the way to #1 in Canada. They would continue to have success with similar ballads through the rest of the decade...

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Here's the band performing on Soul Train (amazingly, not lip-synched)...

 R&B trio Next interpolated the verse from the song into their album cut "Problem" featuring Koffee Brown (who sung that part)...

 In 2008, Usher sampled the record for his top-40 pop hit "Love In This Club Part II"...

That same year, Alexander O'Neal covered "Secret Lovers" with Mica Paris...

Up tomorrow: a chunky soulster knows he's better at romance.