Robbed hit of the week 1/12/15 - Chaka Khan's "Love Of A Lifetime"...

"Love Of A Lifetime" - Chaka Khan
from the album Destiny (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #53

This week's "robbed hit" comes from soul and funk veteran Chaka Khan, who had broken big on the pop charts in 1984 with her remake of Prince's "I Feel For You". Although none of the other singles from the album made the top-40, the set still sold over a million copies, paving the way for her to record another pop-oriented album, Destiny, in 1986. With collaborators like Glen Ballard, and both Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford from Genesis, the album was even more diversified than I Feel For You. The first single, "Love Of A Lifetime", was written and produced by the members of the British new wave band Scritti Politti, who had their own success not too long before with "Perfect Way". With a jazzed up bright synth-y polish, I adored this song. Even more than "I Feel For You", at the time...

Although the single signaled a fresh start for Chaka, the single stalled below the halfway point on the pop chart, while stopping one rung short of the top-20 on the R&B chart. The best showing was in the dance clubs, where it just missed the top-10 at #11. It was one of my "sure-things" that I was positive would be a hit that somehow just missed its aim. But it still sounds just as fun and fresh now as when I bought the vinyl  12" (and then the album) in 1986. And her Destiny album did grab a Grammy nomination for best R&B album.

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...and here's Chaka live with the song in 1986...