Robbed hit of the week 6/27/16 - New Edition's "Can You Stand The Rain"...

"Can You Stand The Rain" - New Edition
from the album Heart Break (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the Boston R&B vocal group New Edition, whose first album after replacing the departed Bobby Brown with Johnny Gill, Heart Break, returned them to the pop top-10 with the single "If It Isn't Love" in the fall of 1988. While the follow-up single, "You're Not My Kind Of Girl", reached the #3 spot on Billboard's R&B chart, the single relatively stiffed at pop radio, popping in at just #95 on the Hot 100. The third release was also written by their production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (the guys behind Janet Jackson), but it turned out to be their finest ballad moment of their career. "Can You Stand The Rain", a missive on weathering the worst of problems in a relationship when everything is seemingly going swimmingly...

Although "Can You Stand the Rain" scored New Edition their fourth #1 R&B hit and first since 1984's "Mr. Telephone Man", the single amazingly stalled out right under the pop top-40 in March of 1989. However, within the next year or so they would all land top-10 hits, albeit under three different acts (Johnny Gill, Ralph Tresvant, and Bell Biv Devoe).

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Here's the band doin' it live on the Arsenio Hall Show...

The act's musical legacy, Boyz II Men, covered the song for their Evolution album in 1997...

Guy Sebastian, who won Australian Idol and represented his country for the first time in Eurovision last year, did a respectable version on his debut...

In 2011, rapper Big Sean interpolated the track on his single "My Last" (with Chris Brown),  which peaked at #4 on the R&B chart and #30 pop...

Lastly, here's the Edition sounding just as amazing in 2005...