One hit wonders that were not actually one hit wonders

Did you know the "Pina Colada Song" guy had a second hit? I sure didn't!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUygQh0iaf8

So did Carl "Kung Fu Fighting" Douglas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKy9ulkIPgo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc3KXwd8ZWQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtwSxi9BGIU

"Think of You" is fucking great, way better than "Saturday Night", but Whigfield had 3 or 4 UK hits iirc

I think it's fair to call Carl Douglas a one hit wonder, "Dance the Kung Fu" wasn't really a hit.

On the other hand, top 10 hit in the US:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WUg6EVcCb0g"; frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

#10 UK, #18 US

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyRPH0cfMeg

Crowded House: "Don't Dream It's Over" (#2) and "Something So Strong" (7).

This is no "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie", despite being pretty much the same song :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DaTtjxWZp8

I don't know that they actually had more than one "hit" (maybe in Germany) but Trio is one of the best "one-hit-wonder" bands I can think of--and one whose sound was generally belied by their hit.

Furthering the point, I can't find almost any other of their songs on YouTube. . .

This is a good one, but doesn't really convey the manic, muscular energy most of their songs possess. "Danger Is" is a favorite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVY0nQw34GE

A hit in the U.K., anyway; I guess they're still a one-hit wonder over here. I had this on my Top 10 that year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N_Nf30ff_o

Baccara are surprisingly popular in much of Europe.

If we're including people like Falco, Nena's Nur Getraumt was waaaay better than 99 Red Balloons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d70-tkYPHYQ

i don't think i've ever heard anyone actually call Crowded House a one hit wonder

Be careful in one hit wonder threads.. Some have a tendancy to recall that 1 other song that was only on the radio for like 1.5 weeks peaking at like #39 and considering that their 2nd hit.

although apparently there are pages about them on 'onehitwondercentral.com' and 'toponehitwonders.com' so i guess people are that dumb (xpost)

Perceptions of one-hit wonders can be weird. My favourite example is the Pet Shop Boys: I'm pretty sure there are thousands of casual music fans in North America who vaguely remember them as the one-hit-wonder band that did "West End Girls."

yeah as time goes on and acts that aren't undeniably huge with multiple unavoidable hits, more and more medium-level acts get reduced to one song on shrinking radio playlists and movie soundtracks

xpost I recall "What Have I Done To Deserve This" fondly from my childhood.. I think it has more to do with nitpicking than radio forgetting to play their other songs.

My critique has more to do with ILM's perception.. not the general public.

I think if a group only has one song with any lasting cultural impact, or if they had one song that was a way, way bigger hit than their others it's fair to call them a one hit wonder, even if they had another song or two to chart.

'if they had one song that was a way, way bigger hit than their others' - by this rationale whitney houston, elton joh, and pearl jam are one hit wonders (but not falco).

What about bands who get pejoratively billed as "one hit wonders" that were actually established acts that got a late career hit by near-accident?

like dazzey dukes

you forgot to log back into your non-sock account, bro

Wasn't 'Rock Me Amadeus' a big hit in most countries?

't Was in the Netherlands

also nirvana, olivia newton john, yes, led zeppelin, run dmc (but not the escape club)

and how do you classify a case like benny mardones?

What about bands who get pejoratively billed as "one hit wonders" that were actually established acts that got a late career hit by near-accident?

Probably not a 'near-accident' tho.

What was Led Zep's one actual "hit" by the way? "Whole Lotta Love?"

or 'send me an angel' by real life?

Benny Mardones would still be one hit that charted twice.

Nena's Nur Getraumt was waaaay better than 99 Red Balloons

Nur Getraumt is one of my all time favorite songs. She rerecorded it about 10 years ago but it was nowhere near as good as the original.

'whole lotta love' hit #4

or modern english who charted higher (barely - #76 vs #78) w/ their re-recording of 'i melt w/ you'? although sinceneither can be considered a hit - top 40 seems the most liberal definition anyone can make an argument for and top 20 seems the most accurate - maybe it's a moot point.

CB Milton - It's A Loving Thing & Send Me An Angel

Jimi Hendrix - only Top 40 hit was "All Along The Watchtower" (#20)

'album rock' acts that sold millions without getting mentioned by casey kasem often or at all are always going to skew these kinds of conversations

Like Jay-Z's outside his home market? One hit wonder w/ "Hard Knock Life", then hooks up with Beyonce a few years later - instant worldwide superstar w/ hits galore.

Probably not a 'near-accident' tho.

― Siegbran, Saturday, October 8, 2011 12:58 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

troll so hard muhfuckas wanna fine me

I think most people in the US would think of Dexy's as one hit wonders. In the UK they had 2 #1s but Geno didn't even chart in the US.

People always call Quiet Riot a one-hit wonder and those people are assholes

I never understood that; "Metal Health" was all over the radio.

there's a Simpsons gag about Dexy's being one hit wonders that always makes me shout at the TV

Hell, Vanilla Ice even had a second single go top 10, so this really is about the selective memory of people who's knowledge of LIKE SRSLY THE EIGHTIES or WTF THE NINETIES is based on what Michael Ian Black tells them on Vh1 clip shows

I would say "check the VH1's top 100 one-hit-wonders" for examples on how subjective this term can be...

Vanilla Ice "Ice Ice Baby" -- for those who were in 5th grade at the time, he had several follow-up songs that received frequent airplay during the 6 months after Ice Ice Baby, but for all intents and purposes, who honestly identifies this guy with "Play That Funky Music" or "Turtle Power"?

Twisted Sister "We're Not Gonna Take It" -- I know "I Wanna Rock" but it might only be from seeing the video on Beavis & Butthead .. I know "Burn in Hell" but probably only from the 5 seconds in Pee Wee's Big Adventure .. overall I don't think they're considered one-hit

House Of Pain "Jump Around" -- kids went apeshit over these dudes when I was in middle school so it never occurred to me that most people weren't familiar with the phrase "Boom sha-lock lock boom"

hey whiney remember the 90s?

ughhhh

What about bands who get pejoratively billed as "one hit wonders" that were actually established acts that got a late career hit by near-accident?

Definitive: the Grateful Dead.

I remember once in college ca. 1999 some campus group did some presentation that involved the phrase "EIGHTIES MUSIC" and I was completely apopleptic at this idea

Minus the "pejoratively billed" part...

nobody listens to techno

And now the terrifyingly narrow SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO playlists that diharrea up every local restaurant has made our revisionist all-Flock Of Seagulls EIGHTIES MUSIC past the nightmarish revisionist reality that the Wedding Singer foretold.

xpost Blame the Grateful Dead hit on late-80's woodstock nostalgia..

I remember Bob Weir appearing as a guest on a Nickelodeon's "Don't Just Sit There" to help promote "Touch Of Grey."

my favorite "lol he had a second hit?" is dj unk

"Porcelain" felt ubiquitous at the time, but checking, it was only a pop hit in Britain (did well on the dance and "modern rock" charts here...sorry, still can't type the phrase "modern rock" without bemused quotation marks).

what was Unk's 2nd hit?

whiney mtv had a 'hey remember the 80s?' show in 1989. they even got martha quinn (who had been off mtv for all of two years by that point) to host it.

2 step xp

which actually has a straight classic remix

i feel like the early '00s cartoonish "eighties revival" has given way to a more accurate, pluralistic view of the decade's music in recent years

the same way that over the course of the '90s the "disco and hard rock" caricature of the '70s gradually wore off

I thought "Touch of Grey" was great. And you must never say anything bad about The Wedding Singer.

http://www.hark.com/clips/nvbxmlqvnm-ah-glenn-doesnt-deserve-her-see-billy-idol-gets-it

Yeah I like Touch of Grey.. but I don't think it would have charted without that 60's-nostalgia thing.

did love when dee and dennis were all 'put on some eighties music!' in aerobics class on its always sunny in philadelphia and it turned out that their definition of eighties music was steve winwood.

And you must never say anything bad about The Wedding Singer.

no, Billy Madison is the movie Whiney is hilariously reverent of

xpost hahaha, i wonder if they know that's chillwave's definition of eighties music

billy madison and happy gilmore are stone cold classics

troll so hard muhfuckas wanna fine me
― yung huma (J0rdan S.)

yeah i thought it was clear what you were referring to but i dunno if jordan did

From what I've seen on the UK charts, it somehow completely makes sense that Jay-Z went unnoticed until "Hard Knock Life."

siegbran i think all of ilx is well aware that barring betty boo nobody in the uk 'got' hip-hop until mike skinner provided the proper gateway.

Snow had a number one hit in Japan with this one after Informer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eavLfdngNWk

At the time, I liked this more than "MMMBop." I was wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK5obmgq6u0&ob=av2e

(They're someone who fits the thread more in spirit than in fact: they did have one other Top 10 song and another Top 20--neither one "Where Is the Love?"--although I can't remember them anymore.)

Same thing with Snow. He's a one-hit wonder to most people, but there are three other singles of his I like: "Girl I've Been Hurt" (Top 20 in the States), "Everybody Wants to Be Like You" (#2 in Canada), and "The Plumb Song" (Top 30 in Japan).

Hanson had "This Time Around" or something in 2000.. It aired on TRL several times.

TRL = hit (imo)

I don't know if there's a thread for this type of question, but it seems somewhat related..

I get confused about those lists of the Top 100 Billboard hit songs from 1 specific year.. People have made torrents with all 100 mp3s for just about every year. I'm confused about how these lists are compiled, since there are songs which hit #1 which somehow do not make it onto these..

I downloaded 1990 and 1991 recently and neither of them included "I'm Your Baby Tonight" or "The Postman Song (Because I Love You)" both of which hit #1.. and it's even more confusing because they include songs which I have no memory of ever hearing on the radio or elsewhere.

whiney mtv had a 'hey remember the 80s?' show in 1989. they even got martha quinn (who had been off mtv for all of two years by that point) to host it.

I watched that!

Liquido never garnered the attention of Narcotic but this is the closest they got to a second hit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2RYCQ9RBFE

siegbran i think all of ilx is well aware that barring betty boo nobody in the uk 'got' hip-hop until mike skinner provided the proper gateway.

I had to look up TRL...If someone's compiled a Top 100 based on Billboard, presumably that means the standard Hot 100 chart. In '90 and '91, that would have been relatively straightforward: the weekly lists, and therefore the year-end list, would have been based on some combination of sales + airplay. I don't pay much attention to Billboard anymore, but I believe they factor lots else into the rankings now--downloads, ringtones, Google hits, Jon Huntsman references, etc.--so I don't know what the Top 100 means anymore. Anyway, if "I'm Your Baby Tonight" and "The Postman Song (Because I Love You)" weren't on the year-end list, I assume they hit #1 on one of the specialty charts other than the Hot 100. Otherwise their omission doesn't make sense.

Billboard says those lists are "ranked by radio airplay audience impressions," so i guess they're not purely based on Hot 100 chart performance. but you've also gotta remember that doing things year by year can also undervalue songs that peaked at the very end of a year going into the beginning of the next.

That's what I mean--I haven't a clue what "radio airplay audience impressions" means.

afaik it basically means that Nielsen counts every time a song gets played on the radio but weights it according to roughly how many people were probably listening to that station when that song was played

Okay what the fuck.. I'm viewing the list on wikipedia and both songs are there. Ignore me.

This is a different list which makes a lot more sense as a whole.

Men Without Hats are often included in One Hit Wonders lists with "Safety Dance" although they also had this other hit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zUUtf7gOe8

The one I grabbed has "Black or White" at #3 which isn't on the official 1991 list at all, although that would make sense as it was only around for the last 2 months of the year.

iirc dan perry has made claims re: the greatness of the album that men w/o hats hit came from. always liked the bridge.

The Vh1 top one-hit wonders of the 90s includes Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. And, this def went Top 10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHUDlXJ5Wfc

Also, Kris Kross had TWO more top 20 hits and people STILL come up to me like 20 years later and say "Warm It Up, Chris"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAhp17Mp7Xs&ob=av2e

Also, Inner Circle, duh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kfTuNdku3A

Pop Goes the World is one of the best songs ever. Fact.

Wait - who doesn't remember Sweat? I feel like that huge. x-post

Actually Rupert Holmes had 3 Top 40 songs. Those VH1 One Hit Wonder countdown shows were very deceptive. Some of those artists had more than one hit. I guess VH1 doesn't think people have access to Joel Whitburn books or simple Wikipedia searches. Others that people always think are 1 Hit Wonders include Nu Shooz, Martika, Animotion, Rockwell, Young MC. Go ahead look 'em up, they were right there on the Billboard Top 40.

Don't forget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjAqz9lovHI

It was a hit in Canada, anyway.

What an awful song, and it got airplay here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMLPbO7DjWA

Poor Cynthia Rhodes.

Pop Goes The World is one of the greatest *albums* ever. Fact.

I interviewed Ivan once. (The man without a hat.) He was quite silly. Fact.

:)

My favourite thing ever about them is something my friend Tim said: "You can't really call them the Hats, because they didn't have any."

I interviewed Ivan once. (The man without a hat.) He was quite silly. Fact.

― clemenza, Saturday, October 8, 2011 5:18 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is a very catchy couplet

re: hanson, "if only" was one of their biggest on trl if you consider that a relevant metric

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKKog8lyzRo

was this a hit anywhere? or "feelin' alright"?

Falco is sort of a 1.5 hit wonder. "Rock Me Amadeus" was the big one, and "Der Kommissar" was big too though it was made popular by another band. "Jeanny" and "Vienna Calling" were minor hits but I don't think most Americans know of them

Gary Numan is a good example - "Cars" is all he's known for here, while apparently in the UK "Are Friends Electric?" was his one big hit

They Might Be Giants finally managed UK hit no 2 with Boss Of Me, 11 years after Birdhouse In Your Soul.

I don't think Cryptic Souls Crew was ever much of hit. I think I may have heard "Feelin Alright" more than that.
Speaking of Canadian artists from around that time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjIPQ5FB66k

Maybe I'm in a weird minority, but I've been surprised that Blessid Union of Souls have had four songs in the top 40, as well as a few others popping up in other charts, and yet the only song I've ever known by them was "Hey Leonardo (She Likes Me for Me)".

My favourite example is the Pet Shop Boys: I'm pretty sure there are thousands of casual music fans in North America who vaguely remember them as the one-hit-wonder band that did "West End Girls."

Thought their version of "Go West" was a pretty big hit in the 90s? I remember hating it so.:P

Apparently Living In A Box had several hits apart from, erm, Living In A Box.

Yeah, Room In Your Heart was as big a hit I think. Sure it went top ten.

Kind of boggling at the notion of Gary Numan being a one hit wonder.

Rush only had one Top 40 hit. What's odd, though, is that it was "New World Man," not "Tom Sawyer."

in canada, a lot of people perceive men at work as only being responsible for "down under." "who can it be now" is usually forgotten, and needless to say the (sublime) "overkill" is completely ignored. that said, i was a trivia game recently and about 5 secs of the instrumental break to "overkill" turned up in the song recognition round. was quite the surprise -- i'm pretty sure we were the only team to identify it!

My favourite example is the Pet Shop Boys: I'm pretty sure there are thousands of casual music fans in North America who vaguely remember them as the one-hit-wonder band that did "West End Girls."

This would be a pretty bizarre perception (is that what you mean?) since "Opportunities," ""It's a Sin," "What Have I Done to Deserve This," and "Always on My Mind" were all US top tens and "Domino Dancing" was top 20.

Oh, and the Cutting Crew had another hit song besides "I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight"

This would be a pretty bizarre perception (is that what you mean?) since "Opportunities," ""It's a Sin," "What Have I Done to Deserve This," and "Always on My Mind" were all US top tens and "Domino Dancing" was top 20.

Yeah, but again here we get into the issue of which songs sink into the public view over the years. I'd say you are about 1000x more likely to hear "West End Girls" on nostalgia radio or satelite than you will any of those other songs. Yes, they were hits, but they aren't nearly as well remembered.

That's not true at all; you are just as likely to hear "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" or "It's A Sin" as you are to hear "West End Girls".

(although the last PSB song I remember hearing on nostalgia satellite radio was... "Love Comes Quickly")

I heard "Opportunities" in the grocery store just the other day.

The original VH1 One Hit Wonder list had an objective criteria of only one top 20 hit, which makes sense. Apparently they've relaxed that for more recent lists.

Down here it was definitely true that in the nineties the PSB's other hits disappeared down the memory hole; but just the other day I heard "Always On My Mind" on the same station which only played "West End Girls" fifteen years ago.

I've always been intrigued by two-hit wonders whose hits meet similar success yet only one gets remembered. "Fly Robin Fly" and "We Are Family" become disco icons; "Get Up And Boogie" and "He's The Greatest Dancer" are rarely revived.

"Get Up and Boogie" is a thousand times bigger than "Fly Robin Fly" in the UK

and "He's The Greatest Dancer" is really well-known

Sure, but not really really well known

Well known enough to have a recogniseable sample in KonKan's "I beg your pardon"

Really? I was aware of three other samples in the song but not that one!

(Not really really familiar with "I Beg Your Pardon", it must be admitted)

u won't hear "He's the Greatest Dancer" as much as "We Are Fam" only because the latter has such a gigantic hook, "Greatest Dancer" is v. familiar wedding disco fare to a lot of us tho. Comparing the well-knownness of most things to "We Are Family" is unfair really.

What is this bizarro world where no one knows "He's the Greatest Dancer"???

also "Lost In Music" is probly bigger than "Greatest Dancer", just about

The bit in the middle:

"Rock-- Freak" is from, um, "Rock Freak"
"That's Right!" is from "Get up and boogie"

Just looking chart positions up now, and I did not realise 'Lost in Music' wasn't a massive hit.

-xpost-

right, i just assumed. in terms of post-chart popularity i was thinking.

84 remix went top 5 over here tho. with Duran Duran on it hmmmm

10 weeks in the chart though.

The original version , I mean,.

standard practice back then wasn't it?

Frankie was #1

and a young Norman Tebbit taught us how to laugh

Where has the 1984 version of the 'Lost In Music' been all my life?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6ZNcIJmn5I

Accounting for UK/US chart differences & perceptions is pretty much assumed I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd2aeZhu9xY

Fastball had a second song in the top 20 (okay, so this song was #20) and have stuck around on AAA radio all the way up to the present day.

(And in the sidebar: "Top 10 One Hit Wonders from the 90's", so this definitely counts.)

u won't hear "He's the Greatest Dancer" as much as "We Are Fam" only because the latter has such a gigantic hook,

Getting adopted as a season-long anthem by a major league sports team back in the day probably also a factor here.

I think it has to do more with Girls going out clubbing with their sisters more. Real and 'spiritual/gang' ones...

Also, the former has more to do with being in a boring dance club, so who's going to DJ that one?

I would have to think that "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" has increased the profile of "He's the Greatest Dancer" though, right?

Oh, is that sampled on it?