I know international Dopers might hate this, but when most Americans talk about a group being a one hit wonder they just mean in the United States. Most of us are blissfully unaware of foreign acts that only had one hit over here.
I just remember her often being confused with Nina Hagen. Without Googling, I can’t remember what either of them looked like, let alone their shaving habits.
That is more or less the circumstance the OP was asking about, though. Johnny was asking about English speaking countries, not the USA, as opposed to Germany, so pointing out Nena wasn’t a one hit wonder in Germany doesn’t address his question.
The remarkable thing isn’t that Nena only had one hit in the Anglosphere. It’s that they (Nena is a band, not the one woman) had one as opposed to none. How many foreign language hits ARE there in the English-speaking world?
One hit wonders often get the “they should have been more popular” thing, but having one huge hit is one huge hit more than most artists. It an industry that tends to reward the same acts over and over and ride them like a horse, it’s amazing to break through and hit the top of the charts at all.
Actually, it’s both. I just had to look it up, because I didn’t believe Nena was actually the name of her band. She’s still fairly popular in Germany (she tours and was a judge on The Voice of Germany a while back), and I would say 99% of Germans would say when asked that Nena is a woman, not a band. She’s been in the news a lot lately for associating with Covid deniers, anti-vaxxers and the German version of sovereign citizens.
Yeah, here in the U.S. I don’t remember noticing or hearing anything about her pit hair.
My understanding is that “Nena” is something like “Alice Cooper”: both the name of the band, and the name of its lead singer who went on to become a solo artist under that name.
The US isn’t unique in this regard. We would say the same in Britain.
I think we might be forgetting that unshaven arm pits was less uncommon in the 70s and 80s than it seems to be now. My first wife, born the same year as Ms. Kerner (but in Chicago) never shaved her legs or arm pits. At my hippy college, I’d guess less than 10% of the women shaved their arm pits. My girlfriend did, and sometimes felt funny about it. Generally, shaving was still the norm, but it was far from universal.
My point being, I doubt it would derail anyone’s career.
I lived in Germany just a little after that song came out. German radio was bizarre to my American ears. I found it basically unlistenable. It’s more surprising that anyone coming out of that scene had one American hit rather than she didn’t have more. At the time it felt like it was more of a novelty song than anything. Weird accent, two versions, blaring synth… and yes pit hair.
Maybe she thinks pit hair protects her from Covid and pesky laws? 
Why are so many so stupid? Never thought of her or her band for years, now when I do I’ll picture her in a Make Germany Great Again hat.
Decision street? I had always thought that was 99 decisions treed:
Nope. ‘Decision Street’. Here’s one source (in addition to my personal recollection).
British Pop Music journalism of the 80s was dominated either by serious edgy stuff like the NME or Melody Maker, or comedy level teenybopper criticism from the likes of Smash Hits or No1. It’s the latter who may have fixated on silly superficial things like armpit hair, not as a serious criticism, but just as some dumb thing to inspire call-back jokes.
In the 1980s, blaring synths was pretty typical of Top 40 songs. 99 Luftballoons was a very standard 80s hit.
This is my first hearing about her hairy armpits–Ignorance fought, thanks Straight Dope!–but a lot of her contemporaries were kind of famous in America for pit foliage, including Patti Smith and Madonna (whose first big success was maybe a year after Nena’s). I don’t specifically recall Debbie Harry, Cyndi Lauper or Chrissie Hynde’s grooming habits (although Hynde did shave her legs), but they all tried to distance themselves from pop princesses of the Debbie Boone variety, so my bet is on some short-n-curlies!
If the Brits were skeeved out, their loss, but is that really something they ever made a big deal about?
I would venture way more now (last decades) than at any time in the past (assuming “hit” means in the Hot 100, not Number 1).
Well, depending on where you stand on Spanish being a “foreign” language in the USA (it’s not).
Also, Korean is picking up this decade, but that’s largely driven by BTS and BLΛƆKPIИK.
BTS’s biggest hits in the English speaking world have mostly been in English. It sure helps.
I thoguht 99 Luftballons hit #1 in the USA Billboard charts but to my disappointment it only hit #2, which makes it harder to draw comparisons because it’s very easy to see a list of #1s, but not so much songs that made any other position. (A #2 hit is still a huge achievement.) That said, not a lot of non-English #1s in the USA - just one by BTS, and their first #1 was in English, and “Despacito” in the last ten years. It’s a big hurdle.
Perhaps a likelier explanation, though, is just that it’s hard to have a big hit.
I’m the exact age to know very well what 80s hits were. I’m talking more about the video with the keyboard player with the giant fish mouth banging in out during the musical break. It was a hit because it was a little different and weird. It was a novelty. That doesn’t work for follow up songs.
It also captured the zeitgeist of the 80s. At least that’s what I remember as a kid. I was almost ten when the English version of the song came out, but the song pervaded my 80s childhood. It was the perfect mix of peppy 80s middle class optimism combined with the omnipresent fear of complete nuclear annihilation. A mix of John Hughes and The Day After. It was just the right song at the right time.
I get your point, especially with their collaborations, but 3 of their 5 No. 1 appearances have them singing in Korean, though. I’d say those definitely count.