No Hit Wonders

Cafe Society
1

So i’m watching a show about “One Hit Wonders”. Which included, in addition to bands who really only had one good song (or one crappy but popular song) in them, band that were really good for a long time but only ventured into the charts once.

Which got me to think about those who never did. What bands have been esablished, sucessful (by there own lights anyway) did good shit…but never aproached the charts?

I was thinking, the Ramones. They’re a Budweiser commerciel without, that I know of, having a hit.

I guess Iggy Pop would count too.

To qualify, the band has to be around for a while and be “sucessful” in some sort of sense…otherwise it’s too easy.

2

I once saw folk singing legend Ramblin’ Jack Eliot perform. He said something to the effect of “I’ve made 75 albums, and never had a hit”.

3

(from memory only)

I think (thank the baby jesus that you asked this in the Cafe and not in GQ!) that Led Zeppelin only cracked the US top 40 once with Fool in the Rain.

The Grateful Dead also only had one (maybe two) Top 40 hits - Touch of Grey and Truckin’ (not sure about the latter).

So…they’re not exactly “no hit wonders” but combined have probably sold in excess of 50 million albums and who knows how many concert tickets and between the two of them had fewer hits than Howard Jones.

4

Check out Hot Rods & Custom Classics. I’d say about half of that box set is comprised of no-hit wonders.

5

Have They Might Be Giants ever cracked the singles chart? What about Phish? Leonard Cohen? Tom Waits?

6

Oh, lessee… King Crimson, Hawkwind, (Hawkwind spinoff) Motorhead, PFM, Harmonium, Mark-Almond (two '70s US guys, not the '80s English guy), and Status Quo (huge in Europe for almost 40 years, one hit in the US in '67, then nothing) come to mind right off the top of my head.

7

Primus is a pretty big band, surely one of my favorites, and they sell out all of their shows pretty quickly (trust me, I tried to see them last time they were here), but I don’t think I’ve ever so much as heard one of their songs on the radio.

8

I take that back. “My Name is Mud” was mildly popular after being shown on Beavis and Butthead.

I’ve heard “Jerry was a Racecar Driver” on the radio (only once I think)

And “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” enjoyed mild and short-lived success somewhere around the mid '90s (1995?)

Still, I don’t think they’ve ever had a top 10 song/album, and surely not a number 1.

9

Didn’t he write “If I Were a Carpenter” though? That would probably qualify as a hit but just not by him.

10

Do you count their cover of “N.I.B.” with Ozzy on vocals? Cause that was on the radio about three years ago.

Morbid Angel is one of about three death metal bands to have an album sell more than 100,000 copies, and they’ve never had any mainstream exposure. I think that counts.

11

Jimmy Buffett? “Come Monday” is about as close as he’s come to an actual hit.

12

Pretty sure that was Tim Hardin…that’s what a quick Google seems to indicate, but I’m prepared to be corrected.

13

Whoa. “Margaritaville” is an anthem in most drinkin’ parts of this country. It probably is on more bar juke boxes than any other song in history. That’s a guess, no cite. Might make a good GQ, though.

14

Of the picks that have been made so far:

The Ramones: No Top-40 hits on the US Singles chart.

Iggy Pop: He had one Top-40 hit, “Candy”.

Led Zeppelin: They had (IIRC) several Top-40 hits, one of which, “Whole Lotta Love”, reached #4.

Greatful Dead: Only one Top-40 hit, “Touch of Grey”, although it did reach the Top-10 (#7).

Jimmy Buffett: Four or five Top-40 hits, one of which reach the Top-10.

15

Big Star should of had several hit songs.

Say a prayer for Alex Chilton…

16

At least here in the UK, Iggy Pop had three sizeable hits, highest chart position in brackets:

(10) Real Wild Child (Wild One) Dec 1986
(26) Lust For Life Nov 1996
(22) The Passenger Mar 1998

Led Zeppelin had a policy of not releasing singles in their native land, but there was one lapse and it didn’t chart as high as you’d imagine:

(21) Whole Lotta Love Sep 1997

UK Dopers will be aware of the irony of this. The main chart-based pop show here is called Top Of The Pops. It has been running on the BBC for, oh, a million years or so, and for most of its time the theme tune was a re-vamped version of THAT riff from… Whole Lotta Love. This has given rise to some very ingeniously worded trivia questions.

17

What are we considering a hit? If you count US album and singles charts, then the only artists mentioned so far that qualify are Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Harmonium and Big Star.

If you count only US hit singles, then you can add Hawkwind, PFM and Motorhead to the list. If you count overseas hits, they’re out.

I think Big Star is the best example given so far. I’d also nominate Eugene Chadbourne and Neu, although I can’t say for certain the latter never reached a popularity chart somewhere in the world.

18

Velvet Underground, anyone?

19

Failure was a highly influential band back in the 90’s.
You can still hear some of their influence in other bands, but they never charted.

I guess they were a musician’s musician sort of thing.

20

Some ‘one-hit-wonders’ shows define the hit as reaching #1, only to never see that level again.

ELO, by that defintion is a no-hit wonder. THey had things that cracked the top ten. But never a #1.

On the more open ended side, did the Pixies ever get a hit in the charts? I know the aftermath Breeders had at least one hit (Cannonball, possibly Divine Hammer) but I don’t think the Pixies ever cracked the charts.