Your favourite 'One Hit Wonder'

[leschirons]

Don't jump off the roof Dad Tommy Cooper

They're coming to take me away (ha ha) Napoleon XlV

Over the wall we go Oscar (although it was Paul Nicholas singing and Bowie wrote it)

Stranger on the shore Acker Bilk

Tip-toe through the tulips Tiny Tim

Pop music M

[tauzero]

Paranoid - Black Sabbath

30 other singles of which two almost scraped into the top 20. I think they probably qualify.

[Billy Apple]

Hollywood Tease by Girl.

[peteb]

Where I Find My Heaven - Gigolo Aunts
Drops of Jupiter - Train
Semi Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind

Latter two one hit wonders only in this country...

[Maude]

Let's have a 90's trip

Screaming Trees - Dollar Bill
Belly - Feed The Tree
Varuca Salt - Seether
L7 - Pretend We're Dead
Soul Asylum - Runaway Train

[Cyrene]

That dancey, funky Spiller tune from c.1998...

[Maude]

[quote name='Cyrene' timestamp='1458067803' post='3004408']
That dancey, funky Spiller tune from c.1998...
[/quote]


Groovejet.

[LayDownThaFunk]

Andrew WK - Party Hard.

[Cyrene]

[quote name='Maude' timestamp='1458069289' post='3004424']



Groovejet.
[/quote]

That's the fella. Great tune.

[spectoremg]

[quote name='bassman7755' timestamp='1458040922' post='3004072']
Ridiculously good song that one.

Moody Blues - nights in white satin
Jefferson Starship - Jane
Eagles - hotel california

Van Morrison - moondance (sorry someone had to)
[/quote]Question made No.2 for The Moody Blues in 1970.

[MacDaddy]

The Venus Hunters - Starburst

[colgraff]

Kraftwerk - The Model.


Lots of good tunes but nothing that came close to this in popularity.

[Rich]

[quote name='Wonky2' timestamp='1458001296' post='3003882']
Gordon is a moron. Jilted john.
[/quote]
Pedant alert: both the song and the artist were called Jilted John. 'Gordon is a moron' was just a line of the lyrics.
[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1458036459' post='3004013']
Goons - Ying Ying Song

And for rubbish, as well as the grandparent songs, there's Sigue Sigue Sputnik's truly dreadful Love Missile F1-1.
[/quote]
Pedant alert: the Goons' tune was called the 'Ying Tong Song' and the Sputniks' was 'Love Missile F1-11'. And yes, it was very definitely truly dreadful.

[tredders]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1457874015' post='3002519']
City Boy - 5705
[/quote]

When I was a young kid, our home phone number ended in 5705. Oh how we laughed as strangers would ring up in the middle of the night and sing the chorus down the phone to us. My folks actually changed the number after about 500 calls in a month!

[quote name='Zenitram' timestamp='1458036664' post='3004018']
Love Missile F1-11 is a fantastic piece of music.
[/quote]

My schoolmate Jim played bass on that song. Not that you can hear any bass on the track.

My nomination for best one hit wonder..... Althea and Donna - Uptown Top Ranking. Great tune and a bass line even I can play...

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMrNDnU6PPk"]https://www.youtube....h?v=OMrNDnU6PPk[/url]

[Mykesbass]

[quote name='tredders' timestamp='1458089076' post='3004688']
My nomination for best one hit wonder..... Althea and Donna - Uptown Top Ranking. Great tune and a bass line even I can play...

[/quote]

Great choice Tredders!

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMrNDnU6PPk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMrNDnU6PPk[/url]

Edited March 16, 2016 by Mykesbass

[BigRedX]

But what counts as a hit? Although a lot of the songs mentioned were the best known or most successful, a lot of the artists mentioned here had other singles that made the Top 40.

Without even needing to look it up I know that Lene Lovich, The Ruts, Kraftwerk and Sigue Sigue Sputnik all had multiple Top 40 singles.

Does Edwin Collins count? He'd already had a hit as the only original member left in Orange Juice by the time they released "Rip It Up"

"The Model" by Kraftwerk wasn't originally released as a single in the UK and only became a hit after being the B-Side of "Computer Love".

"Ça Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertand is actually the backing track to "Jet Boy Jet Girl" by Elton Motello with a new vocal recorded over the top.

"Brilliant Mind" by Furniture was only a one-hit wonder because their label Stiff Records had run into financial difficulties and were unable to press up sufficient copies of the follow-up single "Love Your Shoes" to meet demand.

[Zenitram]

Rock Me Amadeus!

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Zenitram' timestamp='1458122992' post='3004822']
Rock Me Amadeus!
[/quote]

"Vienna Calling" was a Top 10 hit in the UK.

And "Der Kommissar" was a massive hit everywhere in Europe except the UK.

Edited March 16, 2016 by BigRedX

[Billy Apple]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1458122597' post='3004818']
"Brilliant Mind" by Furniture was only a one-hit wonder because their label Stiff Records had run into financial difficulties and were unable to press up sufficient copies of the follow-up single "Love Your Shoes" to meet demand.
[/quote]

So it was a one hit wonder then?

If if's and and's was pots and pans..

[tauzero]

[quote name='Rich' timestamp='1458078937' post='3004600']
Pedant alert: the Goons' tune was called the 'Ying Tong Song' and the Sputniks' was 'Love Missile F1-11'. And yes, it was very definitely truly dreadful.
[/quote]

Bloody autocorrect, why does it want to change 'tong' to 'Ying'? Bah.

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1458123714' post='3004837']
So it was a one hit wonder then?

If if's and and's was pots and pans..
[/quote]

I'm not denying that it was a one-hit wonder. It was posted more as a piece of pop trivia. Most artists achieve one-hit wonder status because they only have a single song worthy of being a hit. In Furniture's case the record company could have released pretty much any track off their album and it would have been successful provided that people had been actually able to buy a copy!

The demand was certainly there. "Love Your Shoes" was getting lots of radio play, but very few singles were making it to the shops. I recall having great difficulties getting a copy at the time.

And to give you an idea of the kinds of financial and contractual difficulties the band and record company got themselves into, it took almost 25 years for their album "The Wrong People" to get released on CD.

Edited March 16, 2016 by BigRedX

[tauzero]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1458125413' post='3004866']
I'm not denying that it was a one-hit wonder. It was posted more as a piece of pop trivia. Most artists achieve one-hit wonder status because they only have a single song worthy of being a hit.
[/quote]

I did a little digging around for surprise one hit wonders - I mentioned Black Sabbath who did have another couple of top 40 charting singles, but released a whole lot more. Pink Floyd were another surprise as though I knew they had at least two and possibly three hits (Arnold Layne, See Emily Play, Another Brick in the Wall), they've actually released 27 singles. And Led Zeppelin have a rather pathetic one song getting to number 21.

[BigRedX]

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1458127975' post='3004904']
I did a little digging around for surprise one hit wonders - I mentioned Black Sabbath who did have another couple of top 40 charting singles, but released a whole lot more. Pink Floyd were another surprise as though I knew they had at least two and possibly three hits (Arnold Layne, See Emily Play, Another Brick in the Wall), they've actually released 27 singles. And Led Zeppelin have a rather pathetic one song getting to number 21.
[/quote]

In the 70s though, if you were a "serious" rock band you didn't really do singles. Your audience were all album buyers. Apart from Freeman and Peel you didn't hear the music on the radio, so there was little point releasing a single. if there was one it was simply 2 tracks off the most recent album that the majority of fans already had, so no wonder there were so few hits.

Apart form some initial single buying when I first discovered pop/rock music I only bought albums until the late 70s when DIY post-punk made the single/EP rather more essential, as in many cases that was all the band released and if there was eventually an album there was no guarantee that the singles would be on it.

And I thought that Led Zeppelin had a strict no singles policy?

Edited March 16, 2016 by BigRedX

[colgraff]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1458122597' post='3004818']
But what counts as a hit?
[/quote]

I would say that these are the criteria in descending or of importance:[list]
[*]If you asked a random sample of people of approximately appropriate age, would they remember it?
[*]If you asked the same sample, would they be able to name any other singles by the same artist?
[*]Chart positions.
[/list]
So I would class Falco as a one-hit wonder in the UK, because I remember Rock Me Amadeus and could sing the chorus, but couldn't name any other songs. The word 'wonder' is also important because the song is widely remembered 30 years later and the song's longevity is more important than the chart position.

[colgraff]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1458130336' post='3004933']
In the 70s though, if you were a "serious" rock band you didn't really do singles.
[/quote]

I imagine this policy would have been something of a surprise to Queen, David Bowie, etc.! I take your point that there was a certain pretentious sneering at singles as the lesser art form by some bands, though.