One Hit Wonders

[Nicola1968]

Re: One Hit Wonders

Japanese Boy by Anneka, think it went to #1 - was my holiday song when I was on holiday in the Isle of Wight aged about 12

[Desperately Sought Susan]

Re: One Hit Wonders

My favourite one hit wonder was Stan Ridgeway's Camouflage. I still know all the words to that song... He was an awfully big marine, y'know... Seem to remember a Smash Hits interview with him which had the headline 'Sex Is Okay With Stan'.... Which is nice to know.

[stud1al]

Re: One Hit Wonders

"In my Guinness Book of Hit Singles that I used to have when I was a teenager, IIRC their definition of a one-hit wonder was an act that reached Number 1 once and then never charted again. Note that the Singles Chart did go up to 75 in the 1980s and I think it goes up to 100 now? Under these strict criteria an artist would be disqualified from being a one hit wonder if they had a second record that reached number 74, for example. Many of the artists listed on this thread would be disqualified using this criteria."

I agree .
I always thought a one hit wonder was an act that had just one hit.Wouldn't even have to be a number 1.
What do you call an act that had a number TWO hit and no other? A "no hit wonder"?

[kevpk]

Re: One Hit Wonders

Hudson Ford?
I remember Pick up the Pieces but nothing else..

They was former Strawbs members who also had another hit(ish) that i have called, Burn Baby Burn
They then reinvented themselves as The Monks, who had a few releases, the only one i can remember was an annoying song called... nice legs, shame about the face.

[Techno]

Re: One Hit Wonders

I don't strictly agree with that defination,Wiklipedia have their opinion

One-hit wonder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In my Guinness Book of Hit Singles that I used to have when I was a teenager, IIRC their definition of a one-hit wonder was an act that reached Number 1 once and then never charted again. Note that the Singles Chart did go up to 75 in the 1980s and I think it goes up to 100 now? Under these strict criteria an artist would be disqualified from being a one hit wonder if they had a second record that reached number 74, for example. Many of the artists listed on this thread would be disqualified using this criteria.

The one I can think of off the top of my head is M/A/R/R/S - Pump Up the Volume. Some of the musicians did release another record under the name NastyRoxx Inc. but no record was released under the name M/A/R/R/S name again.

There is a list on Wikipedia.

[grhaffdd]

Re: One Hit Wonders

Hudson Ford?
I remember Pick up the Pieces but nothing else..

[sixtyten]

Re: One Hit Wonders

Dan I - Monkey Chop!

[stud1al]

Re: One Hit Wonders

Falco also had a big hit with "Der Kommissar."
Yeah,Tiffany had a string of hits."I think we're alone now","Could've been", "I saw him standing there"( A reworking of the old beatles song),a minor hit with "Radio Romance'
and a number 1 U.S hit with "All this time"

[Falco]

Re: One Hit Wonders

Nah, Tiffany released a few songs off that album before dipping into obscurity. Or at least seeming obscurity - her Wikipedia entry begins with this: Tiffany Renee Darwish (born October 2, 1971), known popularly as Tiffany, is an American singer who charted several teen pop hits during the late 1980s. Since then, she has performed in a variety of genres, from country to dance, both in the United States and other countries. Since 2007, she has been charting regularly on the Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart.

The Really Scary bit of this for me is that Tiffany is less than three weeks older than I am...Oh brother...

[Richard1978]

Re: One Hit Wonders

Falco also had a minor hit with Vienna Calling, & Pink Floyd had 2 hits in the late 1960s, See Emily Play & Arnold Laine.

[dwain-dibley]

Re: One Hit Wonders

falko-rock me amadeus
blackfoot sue-standing in the road
space-magic fly..french band not the uk one
landscape-einstien ago go
pink floyd-another brick in the wall

got a mp3 dvd full of one hit wonders

[Richard1978]

Re: One Hit Wonders

I think Whigfield had some other hits, but nothing as big as Saturday Night.

It was the first song in the UK charts to go straight to #1 by an artist who hadn't previously charted, apart from the first ever chart & any charity ensambles.

[darren]

Re: One Hit Wonders

one i remember is whigfield with saturday night.

[stockportyears]

Re: One Hit Wonders

Great thread, only up to page 24, all the posters are older ones I don't recognise. Let's revive this for the current crowd...

Of the ones mentioned, 'Feels Like Heaven' and 'The First Picture of You' are two of the best songs ever. I'd actually be a bit scared of hearing any more Fiction Factory or Lotus Eaters, as they couldn't possibly be as good as the songs they had hits with. I downloaded Feels Like Heaven, but baulked at listening to more than one thirty second clip of their other tracks, as the one I heard sounded a bit rubbish. Best remember them for that one piece of perfection.

Which I think is the point of a one-hit wonder. If they were truly a good artist, we would at least of heard of other songs from them, even if they weren't hits. John Farnham, for example, is thought of as a one-hit wonder here, but I've heard other songs of his and they're excellent. Just never got publicised in this country.
But sometimes, somebody has just one really good song inside them, and it's unfair to expect them to match it with a career or even an album's worth. If I'd written 'The First Picture of You', I simply wouldn't want to write anything else, as I'd know I couldn't match it.

Nowadays, commercial pressure is such that people get handed five album deals (that invariably have get out clauses for the record company after two) on the strength of one or two songs. Look at the Feeling (out of our date range, but an example). They came out with a lovely first album with two really magical pop hits, but I think they were pressured into bringing out their second album too soon, so it was rushed and tbh pretty awful - you really couldn't even guess they were from the same songwriter, there's such a dip in quality. Now everybody hates them, instead of remembering them fondly as good one or two hit wonders.

[Bristol RE]

Re: One Hit Wonders

I remember Wang Chung and Bourgeois Tag. They both should have achieved more.