Robbed hit of the week 5/1/17 - ZZ Top's "Doubleback"...
from the album Recycler (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #50
This week's "robbed hit" comes from the Texan rock trio ZZ Top, whose second "electrofied" synth-rock album Afterburner had scored them four top-40 pop hits with "Velcro Fly", "Rough Boy", "Stages", and the #8 single "Sleeping Bag". After a long tour, the band took a little time off before re-emerging in 1990 with their tenth studio album Recycler. The lead track from the set was also the theme to the third movie in the Back To The Future movie franchise starring Michael J. Fox. "Recycler", written by the band's Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons, and Frank Beard, and produced by Bill Ham, who helmed all three of their "neo-Texan boogie" synth-enhanced sound...
While "Doubleback" shot all the way to #1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart (their third after "Sleeping Bag" and "Stages"), the single stalled at the halfway point on their pop Hot 100 chart in June of 1990. The record did better internationally (helped by the success of the film), reaching #9 in Sweden, #29 in the UK, #13 in Switzerland, #33 in Germany, and #28 in New Zealand. In fact, tt two more tracks from Recycler, "Concrete and Steel" and "My Head's In Mississippi", also climbed to #1 on the Rock chart, but missed the pop list altogether. A fourth, "Give It Up", slipped in at #79, while peaking at #2 on rock radio.
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