Robbed hit of the week 6/1/15 - Luther Vandross & Gregory Hines' "There's Nothing Better Than Love"...

"There's Nothing Better Than Love" - Luther Vandross with Gregory Hines
from the album Give Me The Reason (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #50 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from smooth soul crooner Luther Vandross, whose Give Me The Reason album had garnered him another top-20 pop hit with the second single, "Stop To Love". For his next release he paired up with dancer/actor Gregory Hines, who was coming off a successful movie in White Nights that was full of hit singles, so it was only right to start a mainstream recording career of his own (he's already appeared before on stage numerous times). The resulting ballad, "There's Nothing Better Than Love", was co-written by Luther and fit squarely in his woman-wooing wheelhouse, though it really seemed like the two were singing to each other...

While "There's Nothing Better...." went on to top the R&B chart in Billboard magazine, the single stopped at the halfway mark on the Hot 100 in May of 1987. The track also crossed over to the adult contemporary radio chart at #20.

Hines would use that momentum to score his own solo top-10 R&B hit the year after with "That Girl Wants To Dance With Me". He sadly passed in 2003 from liver cancer, two years before Luther left us.