What I mean is bands who are much better than their one hit wonder would lead you to believe.
First band that comes to my mind is “Seven Mary Three” best known for “Cumbersome”
They were young when Cumbersome was released and have evolved so much since then.
I own the complete discography, and even on American Standard, I would say “Cumbersome” is mediocre compared to the rest.
Queensryche. Mostly known for Silent Lucidity.
The Youngbloods. They’re only known for their his single “Get Together,” but it’s hardly their best song, and their album Elephant Mountain is superb.
It’s my understanding that Bobby McFerrin is immensely better than his cheesy one hit wonder from the 80’s. If it wasn’t for that song, I’d be willing to bet he be better known, that is to say, people would know of him, even if random [non jazz] people didn’t know anything about him. However, that one song has overshadowed his entire career. Looking at his wiki page, he’s won 10 grammys, 6 of which he got before Don’t Worry, Be Happy.
It always bothers me when Devo gets labeled as a one-hit wonder band, simply because “Whip It” was their only top 40 hit. Especially since these VH1 shows always go out of their way to explain why artists like Iggy Pop, Jimi Hendrix & the Grateful Dead also had only one pop hit and therefore technically should be one-hit wonders, but really aren’t, because, duh!
I came here to mention Bobby McFerrin. He’s one of the most dynamic, original performers I’ve ever seen. Here he does Air on the G String by J.S. Bach. Here he is doing the entire Wizard of Oz in seven minutes and forty seconds.
His biggest problem is that he never fit into categories. He performs so many types of music that the recording industry doesn’t know what to do with him.
Gary Numan is another one that irks me the same. Sure, he only had the one hit in the US, but in his native UK he was a powerhouse for years, churning out hits and inspiring countless people to make music. And he’s still active today, to boot.
I’ve long loved this song, so I’m taking the Elephant Mountain challenge. 1:30 in, I’m loving “Darkness, Darkness”, but the echo is a bit much. Hope that won’t ruin it for me, because it started out with a great deal of promise.
Guitar solo. Not my favorite fuzzy guitar sound I have to say. Pretty fun nonetheless, if I try to go with it. Nice start to the album, warrants repeat listening. Quite enjoyed the beginning. Don’t have the time to listen to the whole album now, but I bookmarked it from Youtube, and I’ll pick it up again later.
“Smug” sounds a lot less promising to me so far.
BTW, on “Get Together”, if you listen with headphones, someone is going “doo-doo doo-doo” throughout the entire song. Bothersome and distracting on a song I otherwise love.
Thanks for the lead, RealityChuck. Maybe I’ll find some new material for my everyday random playlist, or this will lead to other music I’ll love. Never know, once you start pulling that thread.
On the other hand, I hadn’t heard Get Together in more than 20 years before last year, and in the meantime had steeped myself deeply in indie/emo, and the guitar tone and melody reminds me intensely of that sort of music. Especially if you speed it up to around *1.2 on YouTube 
Danny O’Keefe. He was a singer-songwriter of the folkish-rock genre who scored a fair hit in 1972 with “Goodtime Charlie’s Got the Blues,” a mostly-accoustic soft-rock song. That was on his first album. His second album, titled “Breezy Stories,” came out in 1973, and in my opinion, was one of the outstanding albums of the time. The first track on side one was AM Radio friendly, but for some reason didn’t click, and without a song on AM radio (and not much FM radio at that time), a relatively unknown artist had a hard time finding an audience. “Breezy Stories” is much more rock than folk, and has a succession of songs that are outstanding examples of good, strong songwriting and story-telling, about some really dark topics. The production is excellent, and some of the best side men of the time played on it. That album should have firmly established Danny O’Keefe as a singer-songwriter of importance, but alas, it didn’t. He continued releasing albums over the years (I have many of them) but never became the star he should have become.
Another guy who was not quite a one-hit wonder was Don McLean, but his major hit, “American Pie,” overshadowed anything else he ever did. The strange thing is, that song was almost totally unlike anything else he recorded. He was mostly a guitar man who sang many types of songs. Probably the best example was his follow-up hit, “Vincent,” which was much more typical of his style. I have several of his albums too, and he did some really good stuff that almost no one ever heard.
A-ha may fit in here? ‘Take on me’ was a smash hit, but I don’t think most people could name another track (maybe the bond theme). They were bigger in certain countries than others. All of their 1980’s albums are worth listening to, IMHO.
Cars is arguably his biggest and best known hit but his first hit in the UK was Are ‘Friends’ Electric? released under the group name of Tubeway Army back in 1979. Synthesiser based it was ‘futuristic’ back then but to me, to this day, nothing about it sounds dated. Not the music, the sound or even the production. I still love that song.
TCMF-2L
Fountains of Wayne should be known for more than Stacy’s Mom. Lots of great music.
So far as I’m concerned, this wins the thread. I’ve been a huge Ryche fan since the 90s. Seen them live more times than I can count.
I also think that Ben Folds/Ben Folds Five and Counting Crows deserve to be more well-known.
But I’m going to suggest Blues Traveler. Known mostly for Run-around, but they should have been bigger. No pun intended for John Popper.
Not a fan, but I’ve heard Thomas Dolby is much more than a one-hit wonder.
“The Pleasure Principle” was a great album, and “Cars” was one of the lesser tracks on it, IMHO.
Also true- he probably regarded “She Blinded Me With Science” as a jokey novelty tune on an otherwise serious album. I liked “Europa And The Pirate Twins.”
Focus is also known for a jokey novelty tune ( “Hocus Pocus”) rather than for their more ambitious prog-rock.
In Europe, Status Quo has been popular and prolific, making great hard rock for 40+ years.
In America, they’re one hit wonders known solely for “Pictures of Matchstick Men.”
The Texas band Bloodrock put out several albums of very listenable rock, ranging from rapid drivers like “Kool-aid Kids” and “Whiskey Vengeance” to ballads and dark dystopians such as “Breach of Lease” and “Hangman’s Song”.
But everything they did sits in the shadows of “DOA”. Which is an excellent track in a variety of ways and deserves recognition, but so does their mostly-ignored material.
Yes, that’s an excellent song. I’ve always loved the instrumental breaks with the synthesiser arpeggios. I’m sure an acoustic version would sound just as good, which is my litmus test for songs.