These are the top 10 vote getters in the one-hit wonder poll found here.
Let’s settle this once and for all.
You get just one vote.
I was veering toward Spirit in the Sky, an old favorite, but my heart made me go with the perfect City of New Orleans.
mmm
I voted “I Melt With You,” but it was a tough decision between that, “Take On Me” and “My Sharona.”
I love “City of New Orleans,” but only listen to (and really know) the Steve Goodman version.
Both are great choices and real OHW.
The Kingsmen and Aha are not One Hit Wonders.
What’s next?
Let’s all vote in* She Loves You*- Beatles- best One Hit Wonder!
So it turns out that Norman Greenbaum is still performing at the age of 75.
And he looks pretty much like you’d expect him to look.
mmm
Had to go with “I Melt With You” - that one always triggers memories of the high school French Club Ski trip. Eyes locking while she and I were both mouthing the words along with the radio… (sigh)
“My Sharona” and “Wipe Out” are more favorite songs, but I can’t bring myself to consider either from a one-hit wonder. I still remember “Good Girls Don’t” and “Surfer Joe” getting a lot of airplay, in “Surfer Joe”'s case on oldies stations a good 15 years after its release.
Well, I own 2 of them on vinyl from when they came out, which makes them favourites by definition! So it was between Soft Cell and Norman Greenbaum.
In the UK, though, Soft Cell had several other hits so I’ve never considered them as OHws, so* Spirit in the Sky* it is.
It was a choice between Norman and the Surfaris, for me. The fuzz pedal won out this week.
I just can’t consider Arlo Guthrie a one hit wonder, so I will got with Norman Greenbaum.
I could happily listen to almost all the pop songs on the list but only City of New Orleans has a truly lasting quality in my eyes (or ears)
That was very hard. I feel bad for the three I didn’t pick.
“Take On Me” was the highest-rated choice in the world-famous Ponch8 Music Rating System. I also considered “City of New Orleans.” A couple of the other early-'80s songs are fine songs (“Tainted Love,” “Come On Eileen”), but I’ve just heard them too often to really love them anymore.
Yes, it’s a fine song, but not a One Hit Wonder.
It doesn’t belong here.
This was a no-brainer for me, since “Come On Eileen” was the only song I voted for in the first poll that made it over into this one.
By your definition. By popular definition, it does seem to fit, given that every major list of one-hit numbers out there has it on their list. One can nitpick a list like this to death. Is a-ha a “one-hit” wonder because they had another song that charted that almost nobody remembers (and it only got as high as #20–though listening to it, it does sound vaguely familiar.) Is “Melt With You” even a “hit” to qualify on a one-hit wonder list, as it barely broke the top 80, and didn’t even make the Top 40, much less top ten? Is “City of New Orleans” a one-hit wonder, even though “Alice’s Restaurant,” I’d bet, is almost as well-known and connected to Arlo Guthrie? At least he wrote that song.
And so on.
Wikipedia’s definition is pretty reasonable, and works to fit a lot of these:
Clearly “one-hit wonder” doesn’t have as exact a meaning as “band who only had one song chart in the top 5/10/20/40, etc.”
I definitely agree with the Arlo part of your post. I guess I just have a fundamental problem with the poll’s definition of a One Hit Wonder. To me, a One Hit Wonder refers to a song and an artist who appeared out of nowhere, became a hit, and more or less disappeared. And as far as I recall this description fits most of the acts in the poll.
But not Arlo Guthrie. Hell, in the original suggestion thread for the poll, people were nominating not only him, but acts like the Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills, & Nash. That’s pushing it way too far for me.
Although, in the end I still voted for City of New Orleans.
Rather than getting caught up in the technicalities of what constitutes a one-hit wonder, I simply went with my favorite song on the list, “City of New Orleans”.
I’ve heard this song hundreds of times. It randomly popped up on my playlist yesterday and it sounded fresh and perfect still. I’ll never tire of it.
mmm
I intended to vote for Take on me but remembered that A-ha had had other hits, something I pointed out in your first thread. Since at least one of these was an even better song, I decided to pick another entry.
Tainted Love was a tempting choice as it reminded me of my first nights out, dancing “ironically” to it in the early '90s. But I don’t really like it much anymore, even ironically. Video Killed the Radio Star was another serious contender. I still like that song quite a bit, but I’m not sure it’s that well-known anymore to be named “best one-hit wonder of all time”.
The crown ultimately went to Come on Eileen. A tune that’s still fun and still catchy from a very forgettable band : the Queen of one-hit wonders.
Hunting High and Low didn’t even show up on the US charts, so far as I can tell. If we’re including international charts, then Dexy’s definitely cannot be a one-hit band, as they’ve had a couple number ones in the UK, a couple more top tens, and a number of other charters. I personally would not characterize them as “forgettable” except from a US context, perhaps. They were a solid band.