The Number Fortys: Joyce Kennedy & Jeffrey Osborne - "The Last Time I Made Love" (Again)

In The Number Fortys, we review whatever song was sitting at #40 on the Billboard charts. We began in the first week of January 1984, right around the time this writer became cognizant/obsessive about music, and will continue until we get bored. The seeds for the idea came from Tom Breihan's Number Ones column over at Stereogum. However, we here at k-postpunk believe that the bottom is more interesting than the top (and obscurity is more interesting than either). Also, if you want to read the Number in the title as meaning "more numb," I think that's totally understandable at this point.

It's always amazing to me when the #40 song stays at #40 the following week. When I first thought about doing this series, it hadn't occurred to me that it was even possible. But this is the second times it's happened in nine months of chart action. I wonder what that felt like for the artist. Your song enters the charts at #40, you've got to be thinking it's going to go up, right? But nope. Right where it was. It's like watching a rocket, or a firework, go into the air. It reaches its peak and just...kind of sits there for a while. Nothing happens. You know it's going back down, but it hasn't gone down yet.

Anyway, I present to you, once again, JK & JO.

Here's a link to what I posted yesterday, in case you're too lazy/obstinate/confused to find it over there on the right in the BLOG ARCHIVE. I chose to do this on blogspot because I wanted to pick the lamest possible hosting site as a protest/counter-narrative against slickness & metrics. Turns out it's extremely difficult to get your blogspot blog to show up on search engines, or to incorporate tagging features. If you're thinking that's insane that a blogging platform provided by google doesn't show up when you google, well...welcome to the 21st fucking century.

Anyway, last time we talked about this song, which was last time we talked about any song, I suggested some other, more interesting, scenarios that could have taken place the last time someone made love. Here's one more.

The last time I made love...I got a cramp in my leg, in the back of my calf muscle, you know where I'm talking about? and I had to stop for a few minutes. When the pain finally subsided, it turned out they weren't in the mood anymore. I mean, Jesus, I can't help it if I get a cramp in my leg.... Bananas? What do you mean bananas would help? Is that some kind of weird BDSM shit? Bananas?.... Oh. Potassium. Yeah, I get that. Maybe I'll try it.

I think I gave the song a 2 last week (I'm too lazy/obstinate/confused to go back and check). I'll give it a 2 again. Why the hell not.

THE NUMBER ONE

Remember when I took the fact that a song as exciting and unique as Let's Go Crazy could reach #1 as some sort of sign that humanity wasn't a total cesspool of misdirected fear and ignorance? Those were good times, man. Not only did this here insipid bland-out reach #1, it stayed there longer than Let's Go Crazy. Humanity can go to a local sex shop, purchase a bag of fake dicks, boil them, chop them up into bite-sized pieces, grill them in soy sauce, sprinkle some nutritional yeast on them once they're tender, and them proceed to eat that whole bag of dicks. This song is a 1. If you're thinking to yourself, how can I rate that nothing of a #40 song higher than a sweet earworm from a total legend, I'll just say that at least I can forget the #40 song. It's forgettable. But walking around with this bopping around my head? Jesus.

And it stayed at the top of the charts so long that I need to leave more to talk about in the next installment.