Also not a one hit wonder. The Distance was their first hit.
And, arguably, there’s not that much more to Cake (though I dearly love them): all of their songs sound roughly the same 
Agree completely on Fountains of Wayne, great band with great pop sensibility.
In the same vein, I’d offer up Dada, known primarily for the song DizzKneeLand. I personally feel it’s one of their weaker tracks, and they have several albums of just top notch guitar rock with great harmonies, but it’s almost all overlooked.
And Saigon Kick is a great choice as well, another ‘metal’ band from that got pigeon-holed by their ballad. I actually prefer the couple of albums after they booted the singer and the guitar player took over vocal duties.
Remember Trio? Da da da.
Taking the question into Pre-Rock Irrelevancy Land, it used to be rare for bands to have even one hit record. Until WW2 the average person didn’t even buy records, and radio didn’t play them because it was illegal.
Case in point: Ted Weems, who led a band from 1923 to 1960 with exactly one hit record. Heartaches was something he’d recorded in 1933 that no one gave a rat’s ass about till some dj got hold of it in 1947. What’s more, it was the only instrumental and the only Latin number Weems ever played - virtually assuring that no one would care about anything else he’d done.
What were hits before records? Songs. The metrics? Sheet music sales and, later, times played on the air.
I’ve still got that one album. Not because it’s good, or because they deserved better, but because none of the second hand CD shops I’ve gone to will take it.
Dada is a great example, though. Lots of really nifty original rock songs with a unique sound.
How about the sad story of Keith Relf and Jim McCarty? They founded a blues band called the Yardbirds in 1963. Their original guitarist left and was replaced by a blues purist named Eric Clapton. Graham Goulding wrote them a poppy little song called “For Your Love.” That was a solid hit, but Clapton hated being commercial so he left.
He was replaced by Jeff Beck. Beck was voted the #1 guitarist in Britain, but each song seemed to chart a little lower than the last in America, though they were still hot in Britain. Then the bass player left and Jimmy Page filled in. But he and Beck played twin lead guitar on “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” with John Paul Jones doing the bass work. It went all the way to #30 on the U.S. charts and couldn’t even make that in Britain. They fired Beck. With Page as lead guitarist, the group sank from sight. (Page tried a revival with a group originally called the New Yardbirds, but Keith Moon told him it would go over like a lead zeppelin.)
Relf and McCarty went off and started a progressive folk band called Renaissance. Which went nowhere. The band members were replaced one by one until not one original remained. That Renaissance, with the unbelievable voice of Annie Haslam, was and is one of the great bands, as evidenced by last year’s tour. But they had a total of one Top 40 single and one Top 40 album in the UK and not even that in the US. They deserved way better.
And so especially did Relf, who is mostly known for the footnote that he was electrocuted by an improperly grounded electric guitar while rehearsing at home for a new album. Dead at 33.
**Semisonic **pops to my mind. They only had one hit with Closing Time, but between the three cds I have of theirs, there were a lot of songs that could’ve made it just as well.
Since they’re still one of my favorite bands over the years, I’ll still throw out my usual Alien Ant Farm. They were only known for Smooth Criminal and future singles didn’t really hit the same amount of popularity. It’s a shame because they’re a genuinely good band (awesome live!) and their wide array of music is simply stunning. The songs on Anthology sound somewhat similar, rockish, but they really hit their variety stride in TruANT. It’s a shame that they’re only known for Smooth Criminaland it got so overplayed, it’s far from their best song. Attitude, Glow, These Days, the list goes on and on but unfortunately those are the only ones on Youtube. After they got screwed over by Geffen they just kind of fell off the radar.
“But it’s BOC, how can it be pussy?”
“Lemmie tell yeah something Joe, every band has a pussy song so they can find out who the faggots are.”
The Outfield had at least a couple of songs on the radio, but they’re only remembered for Your Love. The whole “Play Deep” album is great.
Was that Cake? I only know them from “The Distance”
Joe
I’m kicking myself for not thinking of Dada. The album Dizz Knee Land is off of, Puzzle, is my single favorite album that I own. So wonderful that it inspired to go out and buy three more of their albums without having heard a single track off of them. I wholeheartedly agree. That album was a masterpiece.
(and I already know I’m an old guy, too, OK?)
I doubt too many pop music fans could name any Zevon songs besides the ubiquitous ‘Werewolves of London’. Zevon was one of a kind…
I, too, love Fountains of Wayne. ‘Hackensack’ has to be the saddest love song ever written…
Okay, I withdraw Counting Crows, though I still contend that they do not get the respect they deserve.
I was at a flea market today and, inspired by your post, I bought a copy of Welcome Interstate Managers.
Jimmy Eat World deserves more than just “The Middle.”
Fiona Apple never really followed up “Criminal” and “Sleep to Dream” with anything, but I think she’s pretty okay.
The Replacements are well-known and well-respected within music circles, but I don’t think very many people know them other than for “I’ll Be You” and Paul Westerberg’s solo stuff from the Singles sooundtrack.
Her song “Spiderweb” is amazing.
It happens. Big Boi of Outkast is a huge, I mean huge, Kate Bush fan. As in threatening to camp out on her front lawn to try to get her to produce his next album fan. I’ll be damned if I can her any of her in his music, and I would have assumed that, of the two, Andre would be a fan.
Coldplay, on the other hand, are Kate fans and you can hear the influence, especially in Speed of Sound.
They toured together, sharing the problem of being known for one, quirky hit.
I just saw her in concert, touring with John Doe (of X) and yes, she has a great collection of “should have been hit” songs. She was thankful to Katy Perry for naming her song “I Kissed a Girl”, as a considerable number of confused 14 year old girls bought her song instead.
I was always miffed that Sinead O’Connor is more famous for Nothing Compares 2U, a song she didn’t even write, than her albums full of amazing songs that no one has heard.
It’s weird that “One of Us” was probably the worst song on that Joan Osborne album. Her problem was not just that she waited five years for the next album, but that it didn’t come close to being as good.
Osborne wrote all her own stuff. Maria Muldaur is a one-hit wonder for “Midnight at the Oasis” but while not a writer she had an exceptional ear for singer-songwriters to cover.
And Laura Nyro was a singer-songwriter who wrote a million songs that other people covered but her own albums were cult successes at best.
She grew up in the area where I live. I met her a time or two before she ever recorded that album. I think another reason she never really took off is that she’s a phenomenal cunt.
It’s really funny that you’d say that (to me) because I despise the regular non-Vanessa version of that cover, but I can tolerate the one where she sings in it just because I love the sound of her voice (I just generally love everything about her, actually.) But it never gets played on the radio where I am. I only ever hear the wretched, bland Counting Crows-only cover, which I despise despite generally liking the Counting Crows’ songs. For me, her voice is the only redeeming thing about that cover, and yet the version I like is never the one I hear.
I think Hanginaround actually sounds nothing like the rest of the Crows’ catalog, and the whole feel of the song seems to belong to a different band. I like the song a lot but it doesn’t sound like a Counting Crows song to me. Mr. Jones, Rain King and Daylight Fading sound distinctively Crows to me.