Robbed hit of the week 12/8/14 - Neil Diamond's "Headed For The Future"...
from the album Headed For The Future (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #53
This week's "robbed hit" comes from singer/songwriter Neil Diamond, whose long career had blessed him with a truckload of hit singles, from "Solitary Man" in 1966 up until his 1982 album Heartlight, which spun off two top-40 pop hits with "I'm Alive" and the top-5 title track. However, his next album, Primitive, nicked the top-40 on the albums chart, and was his first studio album since 1971 to not sell over a million copies. I guess that was the label's intent to "modernize" his sound, recruiting Bryan Adams, Stevie Wonder, and the guys from Chicago (with producer David Foster) for his next record Headed For The Future. The title track, written by the singer with keyboardists Tom Hensley and Alan Lindgren, seemed overly trying to be current, and the then 45-year-old artist looked totally out of place with this OTT dance routine going on around him in the video...
While "Headed For The Future" got him back into the top-ten on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") chart, the single stalled down at #53 on the Hot 100. Most likely kids wouldn't be caught dead with this, but their parents (or grandparents) would - the album went to #20 and was one of the top sellers of the year. But this single would be Neil's final trip to the pop chart.
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