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PaperclipPerfector
2d ago
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Notes -
As I work the repertoire for the band where I'm subbing, I'm noticing something interesting. They do a lot of covers of one hit wonders, but it's not covers of the One Hit.
For example: anybody who was alive in the 90s probably knows Del Amitri, but they're covering a totally different song. It's been fun seeing how a lot of one hit wonders were pretty good musicians who had the (mis)fortune of writing something outside their usual niche.
Do any of you have good examples of that? I'd love to give them a listen.
AI suggests "Tubthumping" and "Don't Worry, Be Happy", but I'm not familiar enough with Chumbawumba or Bobby McFarren to confirm.
I've got to go with "David Duchovney", though it's subtle. Bree Sharp's debut album was all heartfelt cynicism about social atomization, and a story about a spiraling delusional woman falling for a fictional TV character seems to fit that niche perfectly ... except that the delusion is presented in such a funny way that, when shorn of context, it sounds like pure comedy. And IIRC that was her only song that got any radio time, so yeah: zero context.
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It depends on your definition of one hit wonder. Technically speaking, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, and Thin Lizzy only had one hit, and I can recommend a lot from them, but that's probably not what you had in mind. Technically speaking, Del Amitri had two hits, and I was expecting you to post this song, which I heard quite a bit in stores when I was working an inventory job in college. I'm also assuming you aren't referring to someone like Bruce Cockburn, whose career lasted from 1970 to, as of this writing, 2023, the "main part" of which extends from the mid-70s to the late '90s. By "main part" I mean the part that shows up in Best Of compilations and that fans yell him to play at concerts. Cockburn is a personal favorite of mine but he happened to have one minor US hit in 1979 called "Wondering Where the Lions Are", which nobody remembers and that fans don't have any special affinity for. I mean, it's a great song, but it's not like his concerts are full of people unfamiliar with anything else from his catalog demanding to hear that one song.
ANYWAY, without further ado, here are my selections taken from the nebulous group of bands that everyone agrees are one hit wonders regardless of whether they adhere to any formal definition of the term:
Blind Melon: "No Rain" was their hit, and their debut album was very good, even if it seemed to be ripping off Jane's Addiction a bit. Their second album, Soup, is an unheralded near-masterpiece. Check out Galaxie.
Talk Talk: Best known for the Synth Pop song "It's My Life" (which became better-known after No Doubt covered it), from 1984. By the time of their next album in 1986 they had abandoned Synth Pop for an artier, more adult sound that was accessible but not exactly chart material. By 1988 they had completely abandoned commercial pretensions and were charting new territory, which in a few years would develop into post-rock but would never reach quite the same heights. They had another album in 1991 that wasn't as good but is still recommendable, and then the band broke up. Mark Hollis evidently felt that there was still more work to be done, and put out a solo album in 1998 which is very good but also beyond the comprehension of most listeners (though not inaccessible by any means). At this point he felt there was no more work to be done, as the album ends with several minutes of silence and he hasn't put out anything since. If you listen to the discography in order this makes perfect sense.
Rickie Lee Jones: Best known for the hit Chuck E's in Love, she's also in the Talk Talk boat in that most of her career is a lot artier than most people would guess. Then again, she dated Tom Waits for a while. Pirates is probably her best album.
The Looking Glass: "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" is the only thing anyone knows them for, and, like true one hit wonders, their career was rather brief. That being said, I was in a bar in their hometown in New Jersey years ago when Pitt still played Rutgers and one of the locals told me that everyone there knew that "From Stanton Station" was the better song, and it got a lot of play on the jukebox there.
Sixpence None the Richer: You probably know "Kiss Me", and you may know a couple covers that got decent airplay, but they had another minor hit with "Breathe Your Name", that expanded on Kiss Me's borrowing of dominant seventh chords from the parallel mixolydian to give it its distinctive sound. You won't hear that in a pop hit these days.
The Verve: "Bitter Sweet Symphony" was everywhere, but "The Drugs Don't Work" and "Lucky Man" were better songs for the waning days of Britpop.
The Cardigans: Continuing the theme of bands that had more success in their home countries than in the States, The Cardigans only broke through here with "Lovefool", but they had an entire career's worth of hits in Sweden. "Carnival" is representative of the sound, which is essentially a more pop-friendly version of Stereolab. The video is complete with conspicuous shots of Enoch Light and Free Design albums, which were very much an iykyk thing at the time.
This post is a goldmine. Thanks!
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Jamiroquai is another one. In the states people probably remember only Virtual Insanity which was fairly popular for their trippy music video. Meanwhile in Europe and UK they were much more popular and released album after album of great music. This one might not exactly be a one hit wonder, people might also recognize Canned Heat from the famous dance scene in Napoleon Dynamite. I would say most of their music sounds more like that than Virtual Insanity. They had enough songs to release a greatest hits album High Times: Singles and I think literally every song on that album is great.
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