ONE-derful One Hit Wonders. Pick or post your fave.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

[HuskerDU]

1. I voted for Brandy. I guess that a couple of the guys from Looking

Glass formed the 70s glam band Starz. Starz was a pretty good band IMO.

[mitchum]

4. I didn't know that some of those guys ened up in Starz...

believe it or not, I was thinking about Starz a couple of days ago. Singer Michael Lee Smith and his brother Rex Smith went to my high school a few years before I did

[HuskerDU]

8. I just rediscovered Starz a while back. Our library in HS was

always about 10 years behind, so when I was there the records I checked out were Starz, Sweet, Thin Lizzy etc. I hadn't heard Starz in 20 years, but I've been grooving to 'em lately.

Per Wiki it was other guys in Starz, not Smith who was in Looking Glass. (a pretty drastic change going from Looking Glass to Starz)

[hellbound-liberal]

37. I saw Starz with Blue Oyster Cult back in the 70s. They said they were going to blow Buck Dharma off

the stage. That didn't happem but they were pretty damn good as I recall.

[TZ]

2. Iron Butterfly rocks!

My mom had their album and played it quite a bit when I was growing up..So definitely Inna Godda Da Vita....

[mitchum]

3. This one by Walter Egan...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7DAHi_Cks8

[Amerigo Vespucci]

5. Yep...that was definitely a prime earworm in its day...

...the mixed blessing of having Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks toss you a favor and then finding out that you have nothing comparable for a second act...

:toast:

[mitchum]

7. Exactly...I think this John Stewart know that same feeling...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_ohRBgmOTs

Not a bad one-hitter either

[HuskerDU]

11. Ha, I hadn't heard that one in forever!

That guy reminds me a bit of Richard Hell.

[mitchum]

13. Yes...like a cross between Hell and Zevon

[Redstone]

15. He was a hell of a musician...died not long ago, at a relatively young age.

Redstone

[Pale Blue Dot]

22. I also liked this one - it barely missed the Top 40 in '83.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP7AFXFFKwI

[LostInAnomie]

6. I've been saying for a long time that Iron Butterfly are the luckiest bastards ever.

They came up with one good and extremely simple riff and turned it into a career that has lasted decades.

[HuskerDU]

19. You may be right about that. I always think of Bachman Turner

Overdrive as being set for life. I doubt their children's children will ever have to work as long as 'Takin' Care of Business' and 'You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet' are popular with advertisers.

[HughBeaumont]

24. More wealthy for infinite generations thanks to songs:

"Walking on Sunshine"
"What I like about You"
"One Way or Another"

[MedleyMisty]

9. I love the music for Spirit in the Sky

Plus I personally interpret it as making fun of smug holier-than-thou people.

[mitchum]

12. I think the music for "Spirit In The Sky" served as a template for a lot of early 70s British glam..

with the chant-like structure and heavy fuzztone guitar
David Essex, Slade, Gary Glitter, Sweet, Suzi Quatro, Mud, T Rex, etc...

[Redstone]

16. I think you're absolutely correct about that.

Redstone

[mitchum]

17. You are a man of great insight, Redstone

:)

[Redstone]

20. Thank you, but YOU were the one with the insight. I hadn't gotten that connection until

you posted it. And "tracing the roots" of musical styles was a hobby of mine, back when I was a musician.

For example, if you study hard enough, you can find that modern Irish / Scots / "Otherwise known as Celtic" musical styles really seem to have their roots in the court music of Louis XIV in France?

That's probably not exciting news for you (or anyone else), but it seems to be true. (Yes, I had a lot of time on my hands back then.)

Redstone

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

57. That's Definitely A Great One!

[Quantess]

10. Since we're doing this era: Sugarloaf "Green Eyed Lady"

Y'all older than me can tell me whether Sugarloaf had any other hits.

I LoVE Green Eyed Lady!

[bunkerbuster1]

27. Dang, thanks for the earworm...

[DaDooRonRon]

42. Yes, they followed "Green-Eyed Lady" with a song entitled

"Don't Call Us, We'll Call You"

[Redstone]

14. #1 and #2. I liked those a lot. And I'm old enough to remember when they first came out.

Redstone

[hippywife]

18. I voted for #2

but could have just as easily have voted for any of 5-8.

[Forkboy]

21. Chumbawamba

Their one hit sucked, but their early stuff in the 80's, especially Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records and Never Mind The Ballots, are fantastic examples of Crass influenced agit prop punk music. The lyrics are outstanding, and will make you both sad and pissed at the same time.






Here's To The Rest Of Your Life

Why settle for what we're shown
When there is so much more
Sometimes the book of law
Is only half the story
Means and ends
Deciding where to draw the line
Loss of work in Sellafield homes
Or the threat of cancers yet to come
The choice seems obvious
There is no choice
Only the option of looking outside
This narrow definition of what you see is all there will ever be
There comes a time--that time is now
When every second, every day
When every action, every thought
Will tell the world how you cast your vote

They break our legs
And we say thank you when they offer us crutches

Tired of mild reform
Sick of hand-me-downs
We topple all the theories to the ground
All real change
Must come from below
Our bosses must live in fear
Of the factory floor
And when they smile
And they ask for my support
I'll give them these words
And a bloody nose
You don't help your enemy
When you're at war
There are moments in all of our lives
Tiny sparks still deep inside
When a new-born baby cries
When you're watching clouds in a summer sky
The first time you walked out on strike
Love and sex and holding tight
Things that can't be bought
By promises and votes

I hate the things I love being criminalized
I hate the straight-jacket schools I grew up in
I hate MPs, judges, and magistrates
I hate being taught to base my life on TV stars
I hate being kept waiting by bureaucrats
I hate wars, and all the people who love them
I hate the idea of living on other people's backs
I hate being filed and registered and classified
I hate being watched and monitored
I hate police
I hate the way you talk down at me
I hate being told what to do
I hate you when you don't listen
I hate the way you distort my sexuality with pornography
I hate the pain we inflict on each other, on animals, and on the earth
And I hate how love songs have become cliches
Through endless, shallow repetition

Each angry word
Every cynical put-down
Every song is carefully born
From a hope of something better to come
All jumbled-up
Love and hate and love
Each prompted by the other
For the cause of peace we have to go to war
Refusing to sleep
Whilst there's a world to win
Yet happy to dream
Dreams make the plans to change this world
Not just some future heaven
But today and every day
In our place of work
In the queue for the metro bus

Organize!
Here's the rest of our lives!
A tiny spark still deep inside

We can and will run the factories and mills
We can and will educate ourselves
We can and will work the fields
We can and will police ourselves
We can and will run the factories and mills
We can and will educate ourselves
We can and will work the fields
We can and will police ourselves
We can and will create and build

[underpants]

36. Kathie Lee: I understand that you all were (looks at card) anarchists

:rofl:

Yes they were on Regis & Kathie Lee


Tubthumping

Swear to God I thought the lyrics were

I get knocked down
but I get up again
'cause it happens on the lead guitar

I am notoriously lyrically deaf.

[Forkboy]

47. LMAO

That must have been quite the episode. Talk about a mismatch in target audiences. :D

[appal_jack]

38. word-up forkboy

I had a tape of 'Pictures of Starving Children...' back in the eighties. I still have much of the album's incredibly insightful lyrics committed to memory, despite the tape having been eaten by an car's tape deck years and years ago.

I was shocked when Chumbawamba made the charts. Yes, their one-hit was far from their best work, but I had heard that they did some good stuff with the money and attention it brought (including, I believe, dumping a bucket of ice on some British minister who had been a dolt, and then happened to be at an awards show where Chumbawamba was on the roster). And heck, since their brilliant stuff stayed so obscure, it's good karmic justice for them to bank on a fluffy popsong.

In a perfect world of course, the charts would be filled with only insightful and aware songs, but we certainly have quite a ways to go before getting there...

cheers to good music!
:toast:
-app

[Forkboy]

46. Doing "The Day The Nazi Died" live on German tv has to be a highlight.

Not the most popular of subjects to tackle for that audience, I'm sure. I have a ton of respect for them, even though they're recent stuff is fairly weak musically. Lyric wise they're one of the best, and even my fave, Jello Biafra, would struggle to match their insight at times.

[NC_Nurse]

58. My son and his little friends used to sing it:

My pants fall down
but they come up again

[Oeditpus Rex]

23. I hate the term 'one-hit wonder'

It excludes or diminishes a whole lot of very talented musicians because of the definition of "hit."

Frank Zappa, for example, had a total of three songs on the Billboard Hot 100 in 27 years of recording.

[Redstone]

28. Hey, some of us would have been only too happy to have even the one.

Redstone

[Oeditpus Rex]

29. Well, y'got me there

Ah, yes — coming up with album names while stapling egg cartons to the garage walls. :)

What is it about two guitars, a bass, a drum kit, two mikes and a couple of amps that makes teenagers think they're gonna rock the world?

:headbang:

[Amerigo Vespucci]

30. I hear ya, but here's where I see the difference...

...I own every note Zappa played (excluding bootlegs, but I do own the two "Beat The Boots" box sets he released)...

...and I think the collected works, the big picture, the whole enchilada, kicks the ever-loving SNOUT of most bands that have "Greatest Hits" packages of songs that were played to death on the radio and shot their wad 2, 3, 4 decades ago.

So for "some" bands that had one hit, I agree...it may very well have been a group of very talented musicians.

But there's also a whole lotta hacks who got lucky.

I think "one hit wonders" diminishes some musicians...as you say...but it also hits the nail on the head for the rest.

:toast:

[Oeditpus Rex]

31. Yeah, like it disses Iron Butterfly

Starland Vocal Band... not so much. :)

[Amerigo Vespucci]

32. Exactly.

I think Iron Butterfly carved a unique niche in the overall landscape of rock & roll.

The members of Starland Vocal Band had a nooner and wrote a crap song about it.

:rofl:

:toast:

[Oeditpus Rex]

33. And look at what crap gets you

Their debut album was the self-titled Starland Vocal Band, which included "Afternoon Delight". The song was a hit, reaching #1 and the album also charted. They were nominated for five Grammy Awards and won two — Best arrangement (voices) and Best New Act.

The band hosted a self-titled variety show that ran on CBS for six weeks in the summer of 1977. David Letterman, then unknown, also participated in the show, as did Mark Russell, Jeff Altman, and Proctor and Bergman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starland_Vocal_Band



Mer'ka LOVES crap. :patriot:

[hippywife]

25. Too funny!

As little as I ever hear it these days, I just heard #2 on the radio. :rofl:

[bunkerbuster1]

26. Count Five's Psychotic Reaction--nothing else really like it came before

At least nothing that hit the Top 40 that I can think of combined its utter weirdness, noise and raw energy.

But all the rest on the poll are great tunes as well. Except for MacArthur Park, of course, which always sucked and will always suck.

[opiate69]

34. Thunderclap Newman - "Something in the Air"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pGht71KFkY

[Amerigo Vespucci]

35. Another classic.

Tom Petty valiantly attempted a cover version on his "Greatest Hits" CD a few years ago, but the Thunderclap Newman original is the definitive take.

:toast:

[Canuckistanian]

39. Gotta go with Steam

Not because it's become some sort of sports anthem, but because I love the song itself.

[Darth_Kitten]

40. Tainted Love, Come on Eileen......

flashback to the 80's!!!

[Forkboy]

48. Tainted Love was the worst song on the whole album.

I like it, but the song "Frustration" is the real highlight of that album. They did some weird stuff before weird was cool. :)

[DaDooRonRon]

41. Hate to be the wet blanket, but

The Electric Prunes followed up "Dream" with an absolutely great song entitled "Get Me To The World On Time" which hit Billboard #27 in May of '67.

"Dream" got as high as #11 I think (I'm pretty sure it never made Top Ten) sometime in the winter of '67 (Jsn/Feb???)

Let me know if you want to get serious with one-hit wonders from the 60's/early 70's - I could be here for hours. :)

[abq e streeter]

44. Dream was top 5 in Chicago, but in those days there was more regional variation

on the charts, even in cities close to each other. I still remember Carrie Ann getting to about number 10 in Chicago, but it was number one on WOKY Milwaukee, ( I'm depending on a rapidly decaying memory here though). P.S. ---good trivia question; I'm pretty good at this stuff, but you got me--although I'll probably kick myself for not having known when I see the answer.

[DaDooRonRon]

43. One-hit wonder trivia

(sort of)

In th 60's (hint) one artist hit the Top 20 twice under two different names - it was their/his/her only Top 20 hit under each name.

Who was it, what were the songs, and when did they chart?

[Forkboy]

49. Well?

Inquiring minds want to know! :P

[SocratesInSpirit]

45. Take on Me...

The Family Guy version...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF9xk_GJWfY

:evilgrin:

[Forkboy]

51. Bahahahahaha

That's too funny. I actually hate the song but think the vid is one of the best ever. Go figure. :shrug:

[Dumak]

50. Whip It - by Devo

[Forkboy]

52. Oh man, they had so many great tunes.

Whip It was on the album Freedom Of Choice. "Gates Of Steel" and "Girl U Want" are great tunes!

Mark Mothersbaugh still does a lot of weird shit, and even cartoon theme songs (Rugrats for one). Devo has a new CD coming out, if I'm correct (always in question).

[Adams Wulff]

53. Katrina and the Waves!

"Walking on Sunshine"

[gbate]

54. How can I possibly choose among those great choices???

Seriously, I love all of those, even "MacArthur Park."

But..Brandy is one of my very favorite songs.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

55. I'd Say Europe: Final Countdown, Saga: On The Loose, And Spandau Ballet: True

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

56. And How Are Janis Joplin, The Dead, And Jimi Hendrix Not On That List???