These posts are about the songs that just barely failed to cross the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41.

When Peter Frampton released I’m in You, his fifth solo studio album, he was about as big as a rock star could get. A renowned guitarist with a reasonably healthy career, Frampton went supernova with the 1976 release Frampton Comes Alive! The double live release went platinum several times over — temporarily nabbing the title of best-selling live album ever — spent ten nonconsecutive weeks on top of the Billboard album chart and yielded three Top 15 singles.

Then it came time for the dreaded follow-up.

“That was probably the least favorite period of my life,” Frampton recalled later. “The pressure was so great. There was absolutely no need to do I’m in You then and there. The biggest mistake was just not shutting down at that point. I had so much out there. The world was going crazy about Comes Alive! I didn’t need to go and rush into something else. You’re only as good as your last record, so don’t put one out for a while.”

Initially, it seemed I’m in You was going to duplicate the success of its immediate predecessor. The album made it to the runner-up position on the Billboard chart, on its way to platinum status, and the lead single and title cut reached the same numeric peak on the singles chart, actually outperforming all of the Comes Alive! singles.

Things started to slip from there. The third single, “Tried to Love,” couldn’t even push into the Top 40, finishing its climb at #41. Even the backing vocals from no less than Mick Jagger could give it the extra boost it needed.

Frampton only delivered one more Top 40 single — “I Can’t Stand It No More,” from the 1979 album Where I Should Be — before sliding into an enduring status as the poster boy for short-lived rock ‘n’ roll superstardom. He was good on The Simpsons, though.

Other entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Top 40 Smash Near Misses” tag.