Doh!
The Vapors. Americans only remember them for “Turning Japanese,” but their two albums are surprisingly good.
There’s a reason I never post to one hit wonders threads, I never know what bands to count. But if Blur was a one hit wonder, even though they’ve had 10-11 songs with radio airplay, I agree with that.
I love Blur. But maybe they didn’t get as much airplay in the States as they did in Canada. Song 2 isn’t a Blur song, it’s a Pavement song. Eveyone knows that. 
I second the Blur and Devo mentions.
I’m a big fan of Elastica, who most people only know from “Connection.” Also, the entire Republica album is pretty good; “Ready to Go” is one of the weaker tracks.
A lot of these are more like 1 1/2 hit wonders.
Such is the case with Odds. (Heterosexual Man, and a minor hit with “Someone Who’s Cool”.) All of their albums are pretty solid with good music, especially “Nest” (one of my top 5 favorite albums.)
Same with Fountains of Wayne. Hardly a bad song among all their albums, yet they’ve only had around 3 songs get much airplay, and certainly none as much as “Staci’s Mom”.
Actually, power pop is rife with nearly one-hit wonders that really have lots of good songs. Not only the above two, but also Squeeze: plenty of decent songs besides “Tempted”, although their albums aren’t as solid as the above two acts.
Hey, I’m from Canada, and I know what you’re talking about - there were a good handful of Blur songs that got airplay. I used to belong to the ancient popscene-l mailing list, and there were many Americans there who needed the help of their Canadian and British buddies to hear/see some Blur videos. I call them a “one-hit wonder” (gah!!) because even today, most people I know or speak to about Blur say “Ohhhhh, you mean that ‘woohoo’ band! Wonder if they’re still around?” :eek: One poor girl I used to work with was unfortunate enough to come up to me and ask “Hey, ever hear that Blur band? I like that ‘woohoo’ song.” She learned far, far more about Blur that day than she’ll ever need to know in her entire lifetime. After all, I own every. single. single. Every b-side, rarity, obscurity, or lost track, I own every blip and bleep and guitar twang. sigh Obsessed - a little much, me. :o
I also meant to second Devo. I grew up listening to those guys, and I just assumed the whole world thought they were as great as I thought. 
Sometimes I forget.
Well, any time VH-1 or MTV has one of their “50 Best One-Hit Wonder Bands” specials, one of my old favorites is always mentioned - The Cardigans. This actually pisses me off, because while they did have one huge international hit (Lovefool) they had several Top 40 singles in Europe, like My Favorite Game, Erase\Rewind, Been It, Your New Cuckoo, Carnival and Hanging Around, just to name a few.
If you haven’t heard anything else by them, their music was much like Lovefool - seemingly happy Europop music with Nina Persson’s dark lyrics over the top of it. One thing I really enjoyed about the band is that the three albums that came out at the peak of their popularity - Life, First Band On The Moon, and Grand Turismo were really good as a whole. I like all but 1 or 2 songs off those three albums combined, which is impressive as I’m the worst about “cherry picking” my songs - which is why I only own “best of” albums from The Smiths, New Order and The Cure.
Oh, I agree. They rereleased both albums on a single CD. I’ve worn my copy out.
I don’t recall them having a hit but Shriekback has been a long running favourite of mine. Great basslines and cool lyrics.
“Nemesis”??
My vote goes to The La’s, who had the huge smash with “There She Goes”, only to have the lead singer wig out, sort of.
I’m glad to hear they’re still together. They were definitely ‘ruined’ by Sex and Candy.
I’d add Nada Surf, who had the teen anthem “Popular” but wrote no other songs like that one and dropped into obscurity. However, The Proximity Effect and especially Let Go are fantastic albums from them.
Amen, brother/sister. Just to give one example, “The Sun Always Shines on TV” was arguably a far better song - and it got a good deal of airplay - but in most countries, not as much as “Take On Me”. Which isn’t a crappy song or anything, but hardly typical of a-ha’s music.
Worse, people remember the video, which was indeed very very clever and original in its day… but which doesn’t exactly count as the band’s work, y’know?
I realise Blur, Madness and The Specials may not have been so big in the States etc, but theres no way you can count them as one hit wonders in the UK. Blur have been a constant chart presence since 91 up to recently, Madness were massive in the early 80s:
From here
Specials not as big, but still a fair few hits- link
Back to the OP, Chumbawumba are the WORST live band I have ever seen. I had to endure their piss poor musical stylings for 45 minutes until Iggy Pop came on at the Leeds festival a few years back. Agit Pop’s all well and good if you at least have some musical talent to back it up.
And I like A-Ha. So do U2 by the sound of the ‘Beautiful Day’, which blatantly rips off ‘Sun always shines on TV’.
Big word to the Blur mentions. “There’s no other way” got some airplay back in the olde days, and of course “Song 2” was everywhere, but most people in the states still don’t know 'em by name.
I’ll add my traditional offering to this type of thread: The Cardigans. Their next-to-last album, Gran Turismo was great, but their latest, Long Gone Before Daylight is just mind blowing. Of course, if I can find someone who has even heard of them, it’s only for “Lovefool,” a song that isn’t representative of their current sound in the least (even Nina’s voice is a lot different now).
Also, why the heck isn’t Aimee Mann a household name? She got some decent recognition for the Magnolia soundtrack, particularly for “Save Me,” but it seems like still no one knows anything else from her. And she’s got some awesome stuff (like all of Lost in Space).
Who else? Switchfoot became a smash with what I think is one of their poorer songs. Well, two really (“Meant To Live” and “Dare You To Move”). Still - they have four albums worth of material that’s far superior.
I apologise for not explaining my reasoning well enough in either of my above two posts on the matter. The OP’s location is the US, and so I went only by that. If we’re going to cross countries with this, I’m out, because it varies too greatly. A one hit wonder over here will not be the same as in Japan, necessarily, or a one hit wonder in Japan might be huge in Germany, etc, etc, etc. There will always be someone, somewhere, who has to pop up and say “Oh, no they’re not, because in my country, this is the way it is.” I could get into a big argument over whether or not the Crash Test Dummies were a one hit wonder, since in Canada, they had a good dozen “hits” or so, whereas in the US, they only had one. Or that Barenaked Ladies existed before “One Week”.
As I said before: I know they’re popular in other countries, but I was speaking strictly of the USA. Sorry for not making that clear enough.
While I don’t believe anything King Missile did could be considered a hit, the song Detachable Penis was a sort of underground cult sort of hit.
Thing is, that’s a most outstanding album, as are many of King Missile’s other albums. Great musicianship, funny quirky and smart lyrics… great band all around.
Crowded House and Men At Work also came to mind as great band whose talent was overshadowed by one or two mega-hits.
You beat me to it. I bought The Icicle Works on LP back when I was in high school. Found it in the bargain bin, of course. Loved just about every song on that album. Took me years to pick up a CD copy.
I’ve heard some of their later stuff, and it just didn’t measure up.
Blur also did pretty well in the US with “Girls and Boys”. I really don’t think they qualify here.
“Coffee and TV” had it’s moment in the sun as well.
sigh
Aight, due to popular demand, I retract Blur.
As a huge Blur fan, I ask nearly everyone I meet about them or what they think of them, so I’m only speaking from personal experience. I never see them on MTV/MTV2 unless it’s Song 2, and I have never heard any other Blur song on the radio besides Song 2. Since I don’t get all the same stations as everyone else, I must have been missing it, which is sad, since I would have been thrilled.
This I found on MTV, and this final paragraph sums up what I had thought about their US success, so I mistakenly thought it somewhat supported my theory - I could easily be wrong, though:
The entire article goes into more detail about their past.
I apologise for submitting them, because I do love them, they are my most favouritest band in the whole entire world. I guess I just had the wrong idea about what a “hit” was. (not bitter, I’m still learning lots of new things every day )