Well, Inner Circle did have another modest hit with “Sweat (A la la la la long)”.
My college roommate even bought the CD. Drove me insane with it.
I vote for " Barbie Girl "
and " tubthumping"
Hum- Stars?
“She thinks she missed the train to Mars/She’s out back counting stars.”
I don’t know that I heard any of their other songs on the radio, or if I did, I didn’t know it was them.
I’d also like to throw in my vote as another that was surprised to see Soundgarden on this list.
That couldn’t’ve been written in 2000 - it’s a New Zealand song that was a hit at least a year before I moved to Australia, so that makes it 1998 at least.
It may have been released in the States in 2000, though.
brimful of asha by cornershop, a song played to death by the radio stations in britain, which when finally released (overdue as well i think) went to number 1 with massive sales, but then noone else bought it and it never surfaced again, and they have never been heard of again, there probably on some desert island sleeping on money, i also think blue by eiffel 65 is just the worst #1 ever
It was released in the US in 1997, while it was out in NZ in early 1996. I think it’s a definite candidate for supreme one hit wonder. Not only does OMC have a pathetic discography, there are no evident fan sites and they are completely ignored/forgotten, even in New Zealand (the country which keeps trying to claim Russell Crowe as a success story). “How Bizarre” is now available for $0.20 used at Amazon.
Zephonith, I remember an interview that NZ had with that guy (Pauly Fuemana I think his name is) just before his big break in the US, and he voluntarily said something like “I’m not in this for the fame and money, I’m doing it for my love of music.” and I knew instantly that he was doing it precisely for the fame and money. He wasn’t fooling anybody! It had “one hit wonder” written all over it in red ink!
Quintessinal one-hit wonder? Has to be Macarena, hands down.
Lessee…
- It’s actually a remix; the original had been done by numerous artists for years without drawing any attention stateside whatsoever.
- Not only do the lyrics bear absolutely no resemblance to the original, the point of view isn’t even the same (from an innocent bystander to Macarena herself).
- The guys who did the chorus…and the entire song in the original, natch…had a tremendous body of work (in Spanish, which is probably why you’ve never heard any of it) before their “breakthrough” hit. It’s a miracle they made any impact on the English-speaking market at all.
- The dance…everything about its phenomenal run had to do with the dance…which, of course, didn’t exist at all before the Bayside Boys Mix. Ask any Dance Dance Revolution player, a senior class a few weeks before prom night, or anyone who still remembers the silly “swing revival” just how neurotic we can get over dancing.
- The media frenzy. All but doomed the entire rest of their discography to never again see the light of day. (See also “Barbie Girl, Aqua”.)
- And finally, sports…the nail in the coffin. Once your song gets airplay in our nation’s stadiums, expect it to get TONS of airplay in our nation’s stadiums…and no amount of explaning yourself will prevent a massive backlash.
Just a silly, kinda dancable song that hit exactly the right buttons with our media-saturated overreact-to-everything culture, and it was off to the races. (Kinda like Elian Gonzales, come to think of it.) All it needed was misused taxpayer funds or controlled substances, and we’d have the one-hit wonder of the century.
As for the others mentioned:
I Want You: Savage Garden had at least one other big hit that I know of, Truly Madly Deeply (which came out well after I Want You), so it’s not even close.
Barbie Girl: Fell in the same trap as Macarena (minus the sports), but this was never really all that huge, so I wouldn’t call it the one-hit wonder. It is the one Aqua song I absolutely cannot listen to anymore, however.
Back For Good: Plenty of success in Europe, so I’m not counting this one.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s: I dunno, sounded like a pretty ordinary breakup song to me. I don’t care if it was “alternative” rock, it was a breakup song…what did you expect?
Lack of musical knowledge seems to be the key factor in some of these picks. Soundgarden? Sponge? Toad the Wet Sprocket? When you have multiple successful songs and albums over a number of years, you really can’t fall in this category.
Despite the fact that I like some of these songs, I think the following ones that were mentioned previously fit the one-hit wonder status pretty well. Almost every band has a follow-up song that gets some airplay, but in these cases, it didn’t get anywhere from there.
Hum - Stars
Spacehog - In the Meantime
New Radicals - Get What You GiveSquirrel Nut Zippers - Hell
Geggy Tah - All I Want to Do (hated this one)
Dogs Eye View - Everything Falls Apart
Marcy Playground - Sex & Candy
Cornershop - Brimful of Asha (hated this one too)
Chumbawumba - Tubthumping (shudder)
Deep Blue Something - Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Also, people should remember that being a one-hit wonder is not automatically an insult. Sometimes really good bands don’t get the attention they deserve more than once.