That was going to be my nomination. Goddamn thing makes zero sense, even to the guy who wrote it.
Surfin’ Bird would be my next choice.
Ctrl + F “I Touch Myself”. No hits.
How many songs on the radio are about female masturbation?
Cyndi Lauper’s She Bop is another one.
And Sheila E’s Toy Box.
MacArthur Park? Oh come now, Chefguy. These are <echo effect>Timeless Lyrics</echo effect>!
For the rare triple crown of odd song, odd title, and odd group name, I give you:
“Zabadak” by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.
This hit #3 on the British charts!
And this “song” just misses the criteria, but “We Love You, Call Collect” by Art and Diane Linkletter hit #42 on the US charts, and also won a Grammy!
Finally, this Shatner-esque cover of “If”, by Telly Savalas, actually made it to #12 on the Adult Contemporary charts.
Do you mean “I Touch Myself” by Divinyls?
It gets even weirder when you consider the existence of this mashup.
As one commenter said; “I hope this video is the last thing that survives from our civilization, so that future humans will pull their fucking hair out trying to figure out what kind of people we were.”
I should have assumed the song was a hit because the only time I’ve heard it was on a show that usually only plays songs that are not indie or Americana if they are huge hits. But I guessed it was DP before the DJ told me, and thought that while it was probably a newish release, they would probably not get number ones these days. Even though the techno sound has resurfaced in pop music in the past couple years (after having disappeared for over a decade.)
The first reggae song to crack the top 40, Double Barrel:
ETA: Oops, just noticed this is 3 pages long, sorry if this is a re-post.
Its seems like there are these unsettled transition periods when odd things tend to slip into the charts, such as all the novelty songs of the period right before the Beatles (Sukiyaki, Singing Nun, etc. were huge at the end of 1963) andthe period when Disco, New Wave, Punk, and Easy Listening were jostling for airplay around 1979-1980 (The Pina Colada Song, Christopher Cross, Devo, etc. were briefly the biggest things in music).
When I was in high school around 1992-1993 I recall a run of really silly or odd songs being hits on MTV right at that time like Snow “Informer” back to back with Green Jelly (written with an umlaut) having “Three Little Pigs” (#17 on the chart!), along with The Proclaimers “500 Miles” song, actually from 1988, which also hit the U.S. chart during that weird time. I think at that moment…
- Pop metal had completely collapsed
- There was a backlash against the promotion of grunge on MTV/pop radio.
- Gangsta Rap was selling like crazy, but encountered strong resistance on pop radio
- 80’s Dance Pop (Madonna, Paula Abdul, WHitney Houston) was really wearing thin
“Gloria” by Laura Brannigan
" I Could Never Be Your Woman" by White Town
Is this a whoosh?
I’ve seen a lot of pretty questionable songs called “weird” on this list, but I’d have a REALLY tough time finding anything weird about “Gloria”. It’s about as average a song as you can find.
The absolute highest strangeness-times-popularity score has to belong to Bohemian Rhapsody.
mmm
In 2010 John Cage’s 4’33" reached number 21.
“Hold Tight” was their Top 10 song in America. They were referenced in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof and I nearly whooped out loud. I had that single!
I don’t know if Imogen Heap’s song “Hide and Seek” was a hit as such, but it got a lot of attention for awhile there.
Most Americans would have never heard of this song, but Kate Bush’s deeply weird and (to me) deeply wonderful “Wuthering Heights” was #1 in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Italy, Ireland and New Zealand. It was Top 10 in The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland. It was Top 20 in Austria and Germany.
“Pac Man Fever” by Buckner and Garcia
Can’t believe this one wasn’t mentioned (I must have missed it when skimming the thread) but “Convoy” by C. W. McCall.
That’s a great song. Wasn’t she the youngest person to have a #1 song in the UK at that point? It’s too bad she’s never been as popular here in the US.
Joe Dolce - Shaddap You Face was #1 in several countries.