I like a lot of one-hit wonders. I do genuinely think most of these are great songs, and the ones that aren’t so great are at least fun to listen to. Some are Australia or UK specific.
Amii Stewart - ‘Knock On Wood’
Apollonia 6 - ‘Sex Shooter’
Blind Melon - ‘No Rain’
Brainbug - ‘Nightmare’
Buggles - ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’
Cornershop - ‘Brimful Of Asha’
Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip - ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’
Happyland - ‘Don’t You Know Who I Am?’
Harold Faltermeyer - ‘Axel F’
Hot Butter - ‘Popcorn’
Iio - ‘Rapture’
Joan Osborne - ‘One Of Us’
Junior Senior - ‘Move Your Feet’
Kate Winslet - ‘What If?’
Los Del Rio - ‘Macarena’ (I have an un-ironic love for this song and I am not ashamed. I play it in the car all the time, much to the annoyance of all human beings around me.)
M - ‘Pop Musik’
Matthew Wilder - ‘Break My Stride’
Men Without Hats - ‘The Safety Dance’
Mini Viva - ‘Left My Heart In Tokyo’
Moony - ‘Dove (I’ll Be Loving You)’
Mr. G - ‘Naughty Girl’
Nena - ‘99 Luftballons’
Pauline Pantsdown - ‘I Don’t Like It’
Rockwell - ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’
Stardust - ‘Music Sounds Better With You’
Unique II - ‘Break My Stride’
Visage - ‘Fade To Grey’
White Town - ‘Your Woman’
Yoko Ono - ‘Walking On Thin Ice’
1 Giant Leap featuring Maxi Jazz & Robbie Williams - ‘My Culture’
Anything that involves Danielle Brisebois is great. It is a crime that no one has heard her two CDs, 'cause she’s got a ton and I mean TON of talent. If you ever get a chance to check out “Portable Life” or “Arrive All Over You,” DO IT. Those are two of the best CDs ever made.
Waiting for a Star to Fall by Shannon Rubicam and George Merrill, a.k.a. Boy Meets Girl, is a classic 80’s one-off hit. Just a great, catchy pop tune. They were actually quite successful journeymen songwriters, writing well-known songs for Whitney Houston and others, but for some reason the big names turned this song down, so they released it themselves.
Lots of cop shows and movies use “Nasty Girl” as the background music for the strip club they inevitably end up in to question someone.
Having seen Vanity perform this live, it’s not surprising this tune has become the basic strip club intro. I can’t ever look at a mic stand without Vanity’s grinding coming back to my thoughts
OMG, I watched that and the music video and wanted to go back in time and punch her. The song isn’t bad, but something about her dancing and general performance style sets my teeth on edge.
I’m going to second “Come On Eileen” as the greatest One Hit Wonder Of All Time. I love that song so much. I’m also partial to Sophie B Hawkins’ “Damn, I Wish I was Your Lover” despite the clunky title.
I may be one of the only people that own the Buggles album, but it’s a good one. Video Killed the Radio Star is a good song, but the whole album is enjoyable.
I’ll go with
Tommy Tutone - 867-5309/Jenny
a-ha - Take on me (I know a-ha wasn’t a one hit wonder in Europe, but in the US, this song is pretty much it)
Blues Traveler, Run Around
I think the early 1970s was a great time for one-hit wonders. I don’t want to simply create yet another list of one-hit wonders of the 70s, so I’ll just mention one that is one of my very favorite songs from that era:
Another vote for “You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals, “Video Killed the Radio Star” (the first video played on MTV!) by the Buggles, and “99 Luftballons” by Nena. I’m also partial to “Driver’s Seat” by Sniff ‘n’ the Tears, “Heart and Soul” by T’Pau, “Take Off” by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, and “Into the Night” by Benny Mardones.
No, my pop music tastes aren’t what you’d call sophisticated…
Gary Numan - Cars. Still one of my favorite songs.
I don’t know if Gerry Rafferty is considered to be a one hit wonder or not, but most people who aren’t fans probably only know Baker Street, which is another of my most favorite songs.
You wait your whole life for a great one-hit wonder from a UK Asian specializing in poppy sampled beats, and two come along at almost exactly the same time. Actually Cornershop had another decent hit (“Sleep On The Left Side”) which was better but not as big as “Brimful”. As for White Town…well, I have the album “Your Woman” is from (Women In Technology), and let’s just say Jyoti Mishra had issues. A lot of issues.
Walter Egan’s lone Top 40 entry was “Magnet and Steel,” a great song helped out by the presence of Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
And from the same page of Joel Whitburn’s Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a One-Hit Wonder group from my hometown, The Edsels — whose “Rama Lama Ding Dong” is one of the really fun doo-wop/R&B songs of the 1950s.