Falco had many hits. Can only be considered a one-hit wonder in the USA.
Funnily enough he wrote Der Kommisar and was the first to have a hit song with it.
‘After the fire’ is definetely a one-hit wonder.
“I’ve Been to Paradise (But I’ve Never Been to Me” by Charlene – used to great effect in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, where “Billy, Don’t be a Hero” also makes a grand appearance.
C’mon Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runner anyone?
Since you asked nicely, here are some of the lyrics from Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ Constipation Blues:
"Umm-ummmh aeoh! Umm-uoomh! Ooh! Oh! Uh uh!. Aaah. Uoh, aah!
Let it go! Let it go! Let it go! Let it go!
I don’t believe I can take much more. Let it go! Aah!
Got a pain down inside,
won’t be denied.
Yeah, every time I try,
I can’t be satisfied.
Let it go! Woah, ummh!
Let it, let it go! Oh! Waaaoooh!"
Of course, the printed word cannot possibly reproduce the deep-seated emotion, the angst of a true artist. Nobody could wail and moan like Screamin’ Jay.
They had many hits. Just only one in the USA, I suspect.
Not to mention that it is a great song.
Bolding mine.
I have no experience with what gets radio play outside of the U.S., only what comes out of my radio here in the corn fields of Indiana. So your post pretty much verifies that in America (where my radio lives) they were basically one hit wonders. 
“Where’s the Love” and “I Will Come to You” I had to look up a link, but I knew one of the two songs. I’m mildly ashamed.
One-hit wonder in the U.S., I suppose, but Searching for the Young Soul Rebels, the (very different) album that preceded Too-Rye-Ay, is one of my favorites from that era, and spawned several hits in the UK (which I know I said didn’t matter in my nomination of Paper Lace). And anyway, “C’Mon Eileen” is nowhere near as bad as most of the other nominees so far.
The thing is that there are many many acts that have only had one hit in the USA but lots of hits outside othe USA. I have given some examples already. I do not think they should be considered ‘one-hit wonders’
In the Year 2525 is the only song mentioned so far that (1) I actually remember hearing and (2) hated from the first moment I heard it. I work at a radio station, and I see it come up on the Sunday afternoon Oldies log occassionally – I delete it when I see it, substitute something from The Who.
Captain and Tennille had a crapload of sugary love songs back in the early 70s: **Love Will Keep Us Together, Circles, There Is Love ** [I believe that song was played at every single wedding I attended from 1971 to 1983, including my own], **Lonely Night (Angel Face), Shop Around ** [yes, the one Smokey Robinson made famous], **The Way I Want to Touch You ** and a few more I can’t remember.
Interesting note: Captain & Tennille recorded **I Write The Songs ** for their first album with A&M Records in 1974, but it didn’t chart. David Cassidy recorded the song a few months later and his version went to #11. Barry Manilow’s version opened at #48 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in November 1975, and hit #1 in February 1976. Captain & Tennille included the song again in their “Greatest Hits” album in 1977, and while they never charted the single, that album charted in the top 10 (my encyclopedia doesn’t mention a specific spot).
You know, I didn’t even know what the title meant until a couple of years ago, when someone told me.
Man, I’m so lame.
Ooh, I remember that one now. Gee, thanks…
Did I miss someone posting Shuttup You Face by Joe Dolce.
As a song it’s not quite as bad as some, but earnsbonus black marks for keeping Vienna by Ultravox from ever reaching the number 1 slot.
I’m not having a go at you, SA, but that kind of attitude really grates. Now if the OP had stated “one-hit wonders in America,” fair enough. But a band that sells almost 80 million albums worldwide and has a career spanning three decades hardly fits the definition of one-hit wonder. (Not to mention that their second single went Top 20 in the US.)
I left the UK in 1986, and I heard “The Sun Always Shines On TV” on the radio and on MTV when I came to the States. I also saw “The Living Daylights” video on MTV quite a bit when it came out.
And it’s not as if a-ha only had hits in Swaziland, or in Sri Lanka, places that don’t typically register on our radar. Bands that chart in Europe and Australia, for instance, where this board has a lot of members, can’t be considered one-hit wonders. I think it’s cool when we find out that bands or artists we consider to be one-hit wonders turn out to have at least one more. Calling artists like a-ha and Falco one-hit wonders is like saying David Beckham is an average celebrity simply because the US isn’t his biggest market.
I think I’d be willing to permit Kajagoogoo as a one-hit wonder, as those follow-up singles didn’t do anywhere half as well as “Too Shy,” and their profile shrank significantly. a-ha, however, have a Bond film theme, “The Living Daylights,” and played to the largest paying audience for a concert ever (almost 200,000!).
I just remembered The Toll . Does anyone know if Jonathan Toledo made it on the charts anywhere in the world. I think this one is a winner, because as James Eric Gardener of Utica, New York, was told in the Tommyknockers, Poetry and politics never mix.
Sgt Schwartz
Kajagoogoo had 3 top ten hits in the UK and 5 top 30 hits in the UK.
What we need is a good definition of one-hit wonder. There are many bands whose biggest hit overshadows all their other music. Are they one-hit wonders?
Nena. Nina would be Hagen, a woman with operatic training but who did punk.
How about: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer?
Novelty song, doesn’t count. Besides, it’s funny.
My imput:
Love is Like Oxygen by Sweet, says a critic, “Pretentious synth noodling meets abrupt punk riffery. Goofy chorus and portentous bridges pepper the rest of the track.”
However, I confess that I like it.
To continue the “trucker hijack” snerk, anybody remember Red Sovine’s “Classic Narrations” including “Giddy-Up Go Daddy!” ? It actually makes you embarrassed to be a human being.
“Turning Japanese” has a meaning other than “I am becoming a Japanese person”?
Oh Lord, tell me it’s not involving a basket! :eek: