One-Hit Wonder: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

An artist primarily known for one hit song. If they're lucky, their next single may chart as well, but despite the ubiquitous fame of their number one hit, they never really take off.

 

 

 

Has ''nothing'' to do with [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]].

 

 

* Until 2008, [[Radiohead]] only had one Top 40 hit in the US -- [[Black Sheep Hit|1993's "Creep"]], a song which caused the band to be initially ''labelled'' as a one hit wonder. Despite shedding this tag and going on to becoming one of the most critically acclaimed and influential bands in their genre, it took a complicated online marketing gimmick for the band to get their second US Top 40 hit, 2008's "Nude" on those sales alone (as pop radio had long given up on them).

* Even though [[Weezer]]'s early hit "Buddy Holly" got extensive MTV play in 1994 and was included on the Windows 95 CD (mainly because their video was a parody of ''[[Happy Days]]''), it never cracked the Billboard Hot 100. It wouldn't be until "Beverly Hills" in 2005 that Weezer got a top 10 Hot 100 hit. This despite several top 20 forays in the Modern Rock chart.

** But Weezer had many airplay hits, including the aforementioned "Buddy Holly"; they just didn't appear on the Hot 100 because they weren't released as singles.

** The band even went as far as to [[Lampshade]] the commercial success of "Tubthumping" when the lead singer wore a T-Shirt reading "ONE HIT WONDER" when the band were musical guests on ''[[The Tonight Show]] with Jay Leno''.

* For Squirrels was one of the few examples of this trope brought about by [[Author Existence Failure]]. Around the time they released their album and the single "Mighty K.C.", the band was involved in a traffic accident that killed their lead singer, bass player, and manager.

 

 

* "Sugar, Sugar" was a massive hit in the UK in 1969; it spent eight weeks at number one and a further 23 weeks in the Top 40, going on to be the biggest selling single of that year. The [[Archie Comics|Archies]] never troubled the British charts again. In the US, however, they had a few other hits, but even there "Sugar, Sugar" is pretty much the only thing they're remembered for.

 

 

* NewSong, "The Christmas Shoes". Huge crossover hit (#1 AC, #42 pop, #31 Country) and they've been pretty silent since.

* Christian alt-folk band Jars of Clay had a massive crossover hit with "Flood" in 1996, reaching #37 on the pop charts and #12 on the Modern Rock chart, with their appearance on the latter chart being the first time the Modern Rock and Christian charts ever housed the same song at the same time (the effect of [[Not Christian Rock]] has made such crossovers much more common in later years). It's also been the only song of theirs to ever gain any sort of mainstream support.

 

 

* Mason Williams was a talented comedy writer who worked with the Smothers Brothers and ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''. He was also a talented classical guitarist, and he showcased those skills on his lone hit in 1968, "Classical Gas".

* 18th-century Italian composer Tomaso Albinoni has the dubious honour of being considered a one-hit wonder for a piece he didn't even write - the Adagio in G minor, frequently used as the background music for [[Tear Jerker]] scenes in films and television, is often ascribed to Albinoni but was in fact written by Italian composer Remo Giazotto, who claimed to have based the work on a manuscript fragment recovered in 1945, but could offer no proof of this claim. The Adagio therefore probably qualifies Giazotto as a one-hit wonder rather than Albinoni (whose works are mostly known only by Baroque music enthusiasts).

* Pietro Mascagni is really only well-known for his one-act opera ''Cavalleria Rusticana'' (''Rustic Chivalry''), which was also one of his first major works.

* Though Orff is perhaps the most striking example of a composer who is most well known not even for an entire work, but for a single movement from the work often performed on its own, classical music is full of many composers similarly afflicted.

** The French composer Jules Massenet is mostly known for "Meditation", a passage for solo violin and orchestra from his opera ''Thais'', often used in film and television scores for emotional scenes.

** The 18th-century Italian composer Luigi Boccherini is mostly remembered solely for the Minuet in A major from his String Quintet in E major, Op. 11 No. 5, used prominently in such films as ''[[The Lady Killers]]'' among others.

** Although the works of French composer Charles-Marie Widor are popular with organists, most listeners probably only know the concluding Toccata from his Organ Symphony No.5 in F minor, Op. 42 No. 1, a popular recessional.

* Composer Julius Fucik is remembered only for one work: his [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B0CyOAO8y0 Entry of the Gladiators], the [[Standard Snippet|standard]] circus music.

 

 

** Weird Al himself is a one-hit wonder in the UK (for "Eat It"), but not in the US where he is much more popular ("Eat It", "Smells Like Nirvana", and "White and Nerdy" all cracked the Top 40, with the last of these actually hitting the Top 10; "Like A Surgeon" and "Amish Paradise" just barely fell short).

*** Or as Al himself once put it (quoted from poor memory), "When I released my first album, everyone said, great Al, that's wonderful, but everyone will forget you in a few years. I just released my eighth album and was again told, great Al, that's wonderful, but everyone will forget you in a few years."

* Comedian [[Jeff Foxworthy]] released several "songs" that included snippets of his comedy set to music, usually with a chorus from a country music singer. The only one that sniffed the country music top 40 was "Redneck 12 Days of Christmas", a half-song, half-recitation that he performed as a [[Solo Duet]].

* [[Napoleon XIV]], "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!"

* The Joe Dolce Music Theatre and "Shaddup You Face."

* UK comedy group Morris Minor and the Majors had their big hit with the [[Beastie Boys]] parody "Stutter Rap (No Sleep Til Bedtime)". The followup, a [[Stock Aitken Waterman]] parody called "[[Trope Name|This Is The Chorus]]", did less well. In his book ''One Hit Wonderland'', former member Tony Hawks explains that the first record sold to kids who wanted to wind up older siblings who listened to the [[Beastie Boys]]. The second record made fun of the music that said kids actually listened to, so it flopped.

 

 

* Leon Ashley, "Laura (What's He Got That I Ain't Got)". Most impressive in that he promoted and distributed the single by himself and managed to get it all the way to #1 after failing to even chart on three different major labels beforehand.

** Even stranger: "Lost in You" was not even released to country radio at all.

* Bob Carlisle and the Raybon Brothers were both one-hit wonders with the ''same song'', in the ''same year'', released at the ''same time''. "Butterfly Kisses", to be specific. (Marty Raybon, one of said Raybon brothers, had several hits in the country music band Shenandoah first. Incidentally, there was a third version of the song by Jeff Carson at the same time, although he wasn't a one-hit wonder.)

* Anita Cochran's 1998 hit "What If I Said", a duet with Steve Wariner. Wariner had several other hits dating to the winter of 1981, but hadn't touched the charts in nearly three years when this was released; Cochran wasn't so lucky.

* "Don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart..." this Billy Ray Cyrus song is basically the only thing he's known for (That and [[Hannah Montana|being Miley's dad]]).

** Interestingly, this song was reprised in French (as "Achy Breaky Dance") by Quebecer Stef Carse, and he was also a one hit wonder with that song. Oddly enough, he now sings... Opera.

* The Davis Sisters (not the gospel group), who had the Number One "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know" and absolutely no other chart action. One of them died in a car crash after the single's release, and the other (Skeeter Davis, who [[Non-Indicative Name|wasn't actually the other member's sister]]) went on to have several solo hits.

* "I Loved Her First" by Heartland. Shot to #1, fell like a rock, nothing else afterward. Amazingly, this song was the first top 40 hit for their entire label, and it made them only the second country music band ever to send a debut single to #1.

** Technically, McCall barely isn't a one-hit wonder on pop radio, as the now-obscure "Wolf Creek Pass" nudged into the chart at number 40 a year before "Convoy" became a hit.

* Also taking advantage of the C.B. radio craze of the mid-1970s was another advertising executive, Jay Hughley. Asked one day to incorporate C.B. jargon into a jingle, he purchased a citizen's band radio, listened for awhile and took notes ... and after writing his jingle came up with a tune called "The White Knight." Recording as Cledus Maggard and the Citizen's Band, he took the comic tale about a truck driver suckered into a corrupt highway patrolman's speed trap (full of mid-70s C.B. jargon) to #1 on the country charts and top 20 of the pop charts. Nothing else he put out afterward made top 40 in either chart.

* Tommy Shane Steiner is another example of a one-hit wonder whose only hit was a country/pop crossover. The song was "What If She's an Angel", which hit #2 country and #39 pop in 2001.

* Vince Vance & the Valiants get special mention here, since their only chart entry was "All I Want for Christmas Is You" (not to be confused with the [[Mariah Carey]] song). This is the most-played Christmas song in the entire genre, and it was popular enough to make the country chart six times (although its peak of #31 was not achieved until the sixth time around; furthermore, due to so many Christmas songs clogging the charts, ''Billboard'' changed the rules in 2000 so that Christmas songs could not re-enter).

 

* B.W. Stevenson, "My Maria". What's more, the [[Brooks and Dunn]] version is far more well-known (although Stevenson died two years before Brooks & Dunn was even founded). Stevenson also recorded a similar-sounding song called "Shambayla," but so did another, better-known act known as [[Three Dog Night]]. And it was Three Dog Night that first released the song and took it into the top 10; Stevenson never had a shot with that record.

 

 

** Back home, meanwhile, their ''Welcome to the Pleasuredome'' became the fastest selling debut album in British chart history (and remained such from 1984-1993), and they become only the second act in British music history to have their first three singles - "Relax", "Two Tribes" and "The Power of Love" - reach number one (for five, nine and one week(s), respectively).

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aElEcg9Z_S0 "All I Really Want"] by Kim Lukas.

* "Starlight" by The Supermen Lovers, best remembered for the [[All CGI Cartoon|music video]] featuring a rat and those [[Uncanny Valley|creepy]] potato-men.

* Qkumba Zoo - "The Child (Inside)"

* Reina - "Find Another Woman". She later had the minor hits "If I Close My Eyes" and "Forgive", but those failed to reach the heights of her first hit, and are less well remembered.

* The Tamperer feat. Maya - "Feel It", heavily sampled from the Jackson 5's "Can You Feel It".

 

 

* Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music" is the only thing anyone remembers them for. That, and having a white singer who sounded incredibly black. Although they also hit the top 40 with a "Play That Funky Music" rewrite called "Baby Don'cha Know," right down to the subject matter (the refrain went, "Baby, don'cha know that the honky's got soul?").

* Can you name a single song made by Carl Douglas? Other than "Kung Fu Fighting"?

 

 

* The Roc Project - "Never (Past Tense)". They had a second single, "Deja Vu", and a full-length album, but never achieved a second hit.

* "Dream" by Forest For The Trees, the solo project for [[Beck]] producer Carl Stephenson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Although Fairport Convention's ''Liege and Lief'' has been described as the most influential folk album of all time, their only single to chart was "Si Tu Dois Partir." This French-language cover of "If You Gotta Go (Go Now)" by [[Bob Dylan]] spent nine weeks in the UK singles chart in 1969, peaking at #21.

 

 

* Technically, the Ides of March are a one-hit wonder with their 1970 hit "Vehicle" (#2), but in Chicago, they had other hits on local radio ("You Wouldn't Listen", "Superman", "L.A. Goodbye").

 

 

* [[The Geto Boys]] are also victims of the top 40 chart structure.

 

 

* The Kingsmen, and their famous [[Covered Up|cover version]] of Richard Berry's "Louie Louie".

** The Kingsmen actually had three top-40 follow-ups: 1964's "Money" and "Death of An Angel," and 1965's "The Jolly Green Giant." Oldies radio has forgotten all about these, though, so the group is widely considered to be a one-hit wonder.

 

 

* T. Rex, despite being ranked up with David Bowie for creating glam rock, only had "Get It On (Bang A Gong) as anything close to a hit in the US. Even then, it ended up charting higher fourteen years later when it was covered by the [[Duran Duran]] spin-off group Power Station. T. Rex did better in their UK home though, where four of their songs peaked at number one.

* Like T. Rex, Slade were teen idols in their native UK during the early 1970s, but they only had one significant hit in America, 1984's "Run Runaway", almost a decade after their most successful period at home. Arguably their best known song ("Cum On Feel the Noize") has been [[Covered Up]] in the states by Quiet Riot. In fact, Quiet Riot is probably the reason why it's their best known song.

 

 

* "Easy Livin'" was the only [[Uriah Heep]] song that became a Top 40 hit in America, and even then it only reached #39, although "Stealin'" also received quite a bit of album-rock airplay.

 

 

* Think about any song in this genre that tried to introduce a new dance. Eight times out of ten the artists who made those songs are One Hit Wonders.

* [[Rap Metal]] band Crazy Town had a number one hit in the US with "Butterfly". It was also their only single ever to reach the Billboard Top 100.

* Despite being extremely influential on the entire hip-hop genre, [[Public Enemy]]'s only Top 40 hit in the United States was 1994's "Give It Up" (it made #33), despite it being far less known than other songs of theirs that ''didn't'' make the Top 40.

 

* Most people who know of April March are only familiar with the song "Chick Habit," aka "The High-Pitched End Credits Song From ''Death Proof''". She's actually released a number of albums, and is quite popular in France.

* [[Modest Mouse]] had a left-field hit in 2004 with "Float On," and they've had a long career both before and after that, but nothing else even approached the charts.

 

 

* "Heaven" by Los Lonely Boys. Say what you want about the song; the record was one of the very few aversions of the [[Loudness War]] to come out in the 2000s.

 

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chH7wMoFm9s "Under the Double Eagle/Unter dem Doppeladler"] by Joseph Franz Wagner. Even martial music buffs would be hard pressed to name another piece by him. The encyclopedic ''Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' can, but just the one.

 

 

* [[Dexys Midnight Runners]] are only remembered for the song "Come On Eileen" in the United States.

* And to [[The Knack]] and their debut single from 1979, "My Sharona".

** Actually, the follow-up single "Good Girls Don't" just missed the top 10, and "Baby Talks Dirty" also reached the top 40. Still, who remembers the other two songs?

* The Boomtown Rats had a number of hits in the UK but are only known in the US for "I Don't Like Mondays".

** Technically a NO hit wonder in the US, as “I Don’t Like Mondays” didn’t even crack the top 40.

* The Vapours had an international hit with "Turning Japanese" but no fanbase back home to build on. Never heard from again.

* "Maniac" by Michael Sembello, from the ''[[Flashdance]]'' soundtrack.

** It's notable that its cover version/remix by Mark McCabe was also a one hit wonder.

* Paul Hardcastle's "19", although he also had the sleeper hit "Rain Forest".

* Toni Basil's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4CyNvEfWoE "Mickey"].

* The landscape of Canadian music is littered with the corpses of barely-remembered new wave acts from the 80's:

** Blue Peter's one and only hit, "Don't Walk Past" (released on their second and final full album), was played on [[MTV]] in its heyday, garnered a few Canadian music awards and resulted in the group touring as an opening act for [[The Police]]. More than twenty years later, the group only gets together a few times a year to play local gigs in Toronto, where "Don't Walk Past" is the opening number.

* Another band to be a one hit wonder on both sides of the Atlantic with different songs: Icicle Works. “Love Is a Wonderful Colour” was their UK hit, while “Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)” was the song that charted in the US.

* New York based band Industry only had one album and were known for their only hit, "State of the Nation", which was successful in Italy and Sweden but only made #80 in the US. Once the band disbanded, its keyboardist Jon Carin became a member of the post-1987 version of [[Pink Floyd]]

 

 

* [[Nikki Webster]] was most successful with her hit "Strawberry Kisses". She only had three albums "Follow Your Heart", "Bliss" and "Let's Dance With Nikki Webster". No CD factory makes her albums anymore.

* O-Zone had one very, very successful song: "Dragostea Din Tei" (aka [[Refrain From Assuming|the numa-numa song]]). The band would dissolve soon after this song topped the lists.

* Hedgehoppers Anonymous, a band mostly consisting of RAF members, hit #5 in the U.K. with "It's Good News Week" in 1965; the song also charted in some local U.S. markets.

* "Run With Us" by Lisa Lougheed, the theme from ''[[The Raccoons]]''. [[Keep Circulating the Tapes|Good luck finding the album]] (''Evergreen Nights''), as it has never been reprinted or legally released on CD.

* Evan and Jaron with "Crazy for This Girl". Jaron Lowenstein, one-half of the duo, became a one-hit wonder in his own right in 2010 with the country-pop crossover "Pray for You" (credited to Jaron and the Long Road to Love).

* Singer Tony Burrows had more than one hit, thanks to singing lead with a multitude of studio-only groups that each had just one top 40 hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. His biggest hits were "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" (Edison Lighthouse, 1970), "My Baby Loves Lovin'" (White Plains, 1970), "Gimmie Dat Ding" (The Pipkins, 1970) and "Beach Baby" (First Class, 1974). (He sang lead vocals on another song, "United We Stand" by the Brotherhood of Man in 1970, but that act had another top 40 hit in the U.S. six years later, but that was without Burrows). That means that Burrows was a one hit wonder ''[[Serial Escalation|four (or five) times]]''!

** McMaster and James' self-titled album had one single, "Thank You", which received several awards and cracked the Canadian Top 10 singles chart, but the bankruptcy of BMG in 2001 and fading exposure led to the duo parting ways.

** Identically Different, whose album charted at the top of the Canadian charts with the single "Busted". Disappeared from the face of the earth soon after.

* The Casinos, a doo-wop group, had a big hit in 1967 with "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye" (well after the doo-wop era, no less) but managed only one other low-charting hit before disbanding. It was [[Covered Up]] by Eddy Arnold only a year later, who had a #1 country and #6 AC hit with it. Also, Glen Campbell topped the AC charts in 1976 with a medley of it and Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds' "Don't Pull Your Love".

* Jennifer Paige, who had a hit song with "Crush."

* Ké, who topped the charts in the UK, Germany and Italy with his "Strange World" (1996), never had another successful song. He's most remembered for the video where [[Mr. Fanservice|he strips]] [[Walking Shirtless Scene|in a toilet]].

 

** Another version is that Gregg Alexander was getting frustrated by the fact that no one would play any other singles chosen by the band, and broke it up to avoid becoming a one hit wonder. Which then solidified the band's reputation as a one hit wonder for delicious irony.

** Their second single, "Someday We'll Know", had minor success, but they're usually considered a "one hit" instead of "two hit".

* Many people mistakenly believe the 1960s band The Turtles were a one-hit wonder, with "Happy Together", but in fact they charted in the top 10 five times during their career.

** Same thing with Survivor. "Eye of the Tiger" is the one everyone remembers, but the band actually hit the US top 10 a total of five times in their career.

* The infamous "Who Let the Dogs Out" by Baha Men.

* Despite a long, critically acclaimed but otherwise commercially unsuccessful career, [[Power Pop]] group Fountains of Wayne have to yet to match the success of their 2003 hit single, "Stacy's Mom" (which provides [[Stacy's Mom|the trope of the same name]]).

 

 

* "Part of the Union" by the Strawbs was one of the biggest UK singles in 1973, and their only UK no. 1. It is also a definite [[Black Sheep Hit]], and caused a crisis and two departures at the time. However, they weathered the storm, and are still gigging and recording 35 years and 30 albums later.

** “Lay Down” also hit the top 20.

 

 

 

 

* [[Emerson Lake and Palmer]] have had many famous songs that were hits on FM radio but their only single to chart in the USA was “From the Beginning” (at #40). In the UK they had one top 10 hit with a single edit of their rendition of Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man.”

 

 

* [[Procol Harum]] began their career in 1967 with the smash-hit single "A Whiter Shade of Pale". Even today it's almost the only one of their songs that gets airplay, though to be fair they did have two or three other hits (including an orchestrated rendition of "Conquistador"). But despite ''ten'' subsequent albums, it's annoying that only that one song tends to get remembered nowadays.

* "In the Year 2525" by Zager and Evans holds the dubious honor of having been number one on both the US and UK charts, with neither of those charts ever seeing another song by them. The song itself is also often mocked, but that's neither here nor there.

* "Incense and Peppermints" By Strawberry Alarm Clock, a B-side (not even sung by a member of the band), that went all the way to #1. Nothing else by the band ever made even a dent, and they aren't even known for their live shows. The band managed another Top 40 hit soon after, "Tomorrow", but it is now largely forgotten. Came outta nowhere, hit the top and utterly vanished.

 

* Sisqo of "Thong Song" fame is an interesting example. He was in the fairly-successful R&B group Dru Hill for years before going solo, had 2 successful singles before and after "Thong Song," (with "Incomplete" reaching #1 before it even had a video), and yet 99% of listeners only know him for "That thong-th-thong thong-thong."

** What's even more interesting is that Sisqo was basically strong-armed by his producers to do "Incomplete" - he thought it was too much of a reminder of his Dru Hill days and was thus needed to be persuaded to do it.

 

 

* Stealers Wheel ("Stuck In The Middle With You") broke up after their one hit, freeing lead singer Gerry Rafferty to become a moderately successful solo act in the middle to late 1970s ("Baker Street", "Right Down The Line", "City to City" and others).

** Stealers Wheel actually did have another hit, "Star," but it was from the same album as the first hit.

** "Baker Street" is an example on its own, but Gerry Rafferty certainly didn't intend it that way, and the song's distinctive sax break was improvised by session saxophonist Raphael Ravenscroft. Ravenscroft, for his part, has said that there are better works to remember him for, especially as he recorded the entire sax part ''in the wrong key''.

* [[Oasis]] would not have been a one-hit wonder in the US ([[Black Sheep Hit|"Wonderwall"]], #8) if it wasn't for the aforementioned rigging. You see, before 1999, only songs physically released as singles could appear on the Billboard Hot 100. Sometime in the mid-90's, the record labels decided to not release popular songs as physical singles, for fear of single sales outpacing album sales. This of course caused wildly popular songs like [[No Doubt]]'s "Don't Speak", [[Sugar Ray]]'s "Fly", Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" and [[Green Day]]'s "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" to be ineligible for the Billboard Hot 100 before the "must be released as a physical single" rule was revoked in late 1998. Such a fate fell "Don't Look Back In Anger", "Champagne Supernova" and "Don't Go Away", three Oasis songs which were very popular on pop radio but were denied appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 because no official single was released. These three songs were all Top 10 smashes on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks (read: alternative rock radio airplay) chart, which did not have this rule (and was based on radio airplay only anyway).

** Don't forget, "Hey Baby" actually charted a bit higher than "Wish I Had A Girl."

* Many artists well-known for being in successful groups and bands were one-hit wonders solo, like Roger Daltrey of the Who, John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful, and Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers (even though the latter had several country hits).

* "What's Up?" (mistakenly believed to be titled "What's Going On?") by 4 Non Blondes.

* Stories hit #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart with their cover of Hot Chocolate's "Brother Louie." A follow-up, "Mammy Blue," only managed to chart in the mid-40s. The group split soon after. End of Stories.

* "Don't Ever Wanna Lose Ya" by New England.

* [[Twisted Sister]] is sometimes called this due to only one Top 40 hit ("We're Not Gonna Take It"), but they have "I Wanna Rock" (#68 peak), which is just as famous, making them a Two-Hit Wonder. (and like Don McLean, they charted more songs in the UK)

* Scandal had two shots to avoid this fate. They made it to #7 with "The Warrior" in 1984. However, their next two singles, "Hands Tied" and "Beat Of a Heart", both peaked at #''41''.

 

* "Sea of Love," by Phil Philips. One of the most recognizable songs of the late 1950s, Phil Philips received little in the way of royalties from it and never had another hit song.

* Huey "Piano Smith" is remebered pretty much exclusively for "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu".

 

 

* Madness are often considered a one hit wonder in the USA, with "Our House" as their best known hit. In their native UK however, they were absolutely massive: with the lone exception of UB40, they were the most successful singles act of the 80's and their first 20 singles all managed the Top 20.

** "It Must Be Love" was also a top 40 hit in the US, but it was a cover version. "Our House" was Madness's only hit that the band wrote.

 

 

** Another two-hit wonder, as "Him" hit #6 on the Billboard Hot 100, and is probably the more-played song of the two on commercial radio, since "Escape" was largely considered a "novelty" song.

*** Today, though, "Escape" is definitely more played than "Him."

 

 

* "Lovin' You" by Minnie Riperton, due to [[Author Existence Failure]].

* Miquel Brown - "So Many Men (So Little Time)"

 

 

* "Spaceman" - Babylon Zoo's first single. It was chosen to accompany a Levi's jeans advert shortly after it was released, which arguably promoted the single more than the jeans: it went to the top of the charts in 23 countries, and their album release, ''The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes'', charted all round the world on the strength of it. By the time their next album was finished, three years later, EMI were no longer prepared to spend significant sums promoting it, and the Zoo's frontman was not prepared to make up the difference on the promo circuit. In the end, the album didn't chart and the band sank without trace.

** It didn't help that the Levi's advert only contained the remixed first 30 seconds of the song, which led to some electronica and dance music fans unknowingly buying a space rock song. If anyone on the street remembers the song, it's generally that part they'll remember.

 

 

* "Wipe Out" by the Surfaris.

 

 

** This song is an interesting example because first and foremost, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies were a ''ska'' band. They did occasionally [[Genre Roulette|wander into swing and hot jazz]] on their albums here and there, but "Zoot Suit Riot" is probably among their most swing influenced songs. It originally appeared as a new song on ''Zoot Suit Riot'', a compilation of all the swing-oriented songs that had appeared on their other albums. When the song became a hit, so did the album, and now [[Black Sheep Hit|they're identified as apart of the Swing Revival fad forevermore]].

* The Squirrel Nut Zippers were a similar case. Their musical style was more diverse than just "swing revival", but their one hit ("Hell") ended up associating them with the genre.

 

 

* Rockwell's 1984 song "Somebody's Watching Me" is only remembered because the chorus is sung by his friends [[Michael Jackson|Michael]] and Jermaine Jackson.

** And because it is a Halloween staple. Rockwell had another top 40 hit, "Obscene Phone Caller," which did not reach the heights of "Somebody's Watching Me."

* Know any Real Life songs besides "Send Me An Angel"?

** The superior follow-up “Catch Me I’m Falling”?

* [[Thomas Dolby]] scored a Top 10 hit with "She Blinded Me With Science" in 1983 in the US ([[Word of God]] says it's a [[Stealth Parody]] of his "musical mad scientist" image), also something of a [[Black Sheep Hit]] for him as much of his other work is more artsy, more [[Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly|techno-prog-pop with experimental touches]]. He has something of a [[Cult Classic|cult following]] and some minor hits ("Airhead", "Hyperactive!", "Windpower", "One Of Our Submarines"), but nothing on the level of "Science".

** Dolby is also a one-hit wonder in his native UK, but with "Hyperactive!" instead of "Science."

 

 

* Silvertear - "So Deep"; a one-shot wonder co-produced by Cristophe and Erik of Ian Van Dahl, and remixed by them under the name Perfect Sphere. Famous for being [[That One Boss|That One Song]] in ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]] Max/Max2/Extreme AC'' and ''Max2 US''.

* Rollergirl - "Love You More" (cover of Sunscreem). Also a [[Black Sheep Hit]], as it was a different style from her other songs, which were generally Nu-Italo rather than trance.

* "Sandstorm" by Darude. Nothing else he's done comes close.

** Except for "Feel The Beat".

* Binary Finary's "1998" is their only notable song. They had a number of b-sides on the remix EP's and the single "Niterider" in 2002, but due to disputes between members, they were mostly silent until 2006, when they released a download-only compilation of previously-unreleased tunes, ''The Lost Tracks''. The remaining members have collaborated with various other trance musicians in recent years.

* "Shattered" by Dejin, an indie musician from Snohomish County, WA, who was also a [[One-Book Author|one-album wonder]] with ''As You Dream''.

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* Maria Falconetti was a stage actress with only two very minor film roles before starring in ''[[The Passion of Joan of Arc]]''. The film, and her performance, are ranked among the best in history, but her experience working on the film was so terrible that she returned to the stage and never took another film role again.

* Most of the main cast of the [[Nickelodeon]] show ''[[Hey Dude]]'' had never acted ''anywhere'' prior to the show, and never did again after it ended. Only three of the main actors (one of them being [[Ben Stiller]]'s wife Christine Taylor) went on to have acting careers beyond the ranch.

* Carrie Henn, who played Newt in ''[[Aliens]]'', has never had another acting role.

* As voice actors go, Thurl Ravenscroft has done a fair number of roles (including the song "You're a mean one, mister Grinch"), but he will always and only be known for bellowing "They're ''gr-r-r-reat!''" on cereal commercials.

* Mary Badham's debut role was Scout Finch in the film adaptation of ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]'', for which she was nominated for an [[Academy Award|Oscar]]. She appeared in a few other roles before retiring from acting at 14. She went on to become an art restorer and a college testing coordinator, though she had a small role in an independent film in 2005.

* Danny Lloyd first appeared in [[Stanley Kubrick]]'s ''[[The Shining]]'' as Danny Torrance. He played only one other small role in a TV film before quitting acting and becoming a teacher.

** Also, the actresses who played the naked girl in the bathtub and the old hag she turns into never did anything else before or after.

* Several non-professional actors have been cast in a film that remains either their [[One-Book Author|only role]], or their only role of note:

** Harold Russell won an Oscar in his film debut for ''[[The Best Years of Our Lives]]'' in 1946. It would be 34 years before he had another film credit (his two remaining credits were very minor roles in since-forgotten movies).

** Dr. Haing S. Ngor, a Cambodian gynecologist, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his only major film role, ''[[The Killing Fields]]''. Along with the aforementioned Harold Russell, he is one of only two non-professional actors to win an Academy Award.

** Wrestler Stanislaus Zbyszko was cast in the 1950 noir ''Night and the City'' because the director, Jules Dassin, wanted to teach a wrestler to act rather than teach an actor to wrestle. He had actually seen Zbyszko when he was young and wanted someone like him, without knowing Zbyszko was still alive. It turned out Zbyszko even lamented the transformation of wrestling into showmanship the same way his character in the movie, Gregorius, did.

* Dustin Lance Black was an obscure indie screenwriter who struck gold when he won an Oscar for ''[[Milk]]''. Since then, he's mostly written critically-panned films such as the unreleased ''What's Wrong With Virginia?'' (which he also directed) and ''[[J Edgar]]''.

 

 

* Yasumi Yoshizawa debuted as a professional manga cartoonist with ''[[Dokonjo Gaeru]]'' in 1970. To date that's his only successful series, spawning two anime series and a ton of merchandising in Japan. Since ending it he created dozens of other mangas but none of them are well-known.

 

 

* See [[One-Book Author]] for other examples.

* G.V. Desani and ''All About H. Hatter''.

* Dow Mossman and ''The Stones of Summer''.

* Menander wrote dozens of [[Ancient Greek]] plays, but the only one that survives in its entirety is ''Dyskolos'' ("The Grouch").

 

* The baseball player Bill Mazeroski is only known for being the only player ever to end a seventh game of the World Series with a walk-off home run (he did this in 1960).

** Perhaps as an offensive player. However, Mazeroski was also considered to be the best defensive second baseman of his era. And unlike Roger Maris below, Mazeroski is actually in the Baseball Hall of Fame (although admittedly, his worthiness is strongly debated).

* Jimmy Glass, the English football player responsible for keeping Carlisle United F.C. in the Football League by scoring a goal in the last seconds of the final match of the 1998-99 season against Plymouth Argyle F.C. Made all the more remarkable by the fact that he was Carlisle's goalkeeper, and thus would ordinarily have been at the opposite end of the pitch, and at the time he was on loan from Swindon Town F.C. Carlisle were unable to negotiate a long-term contract for Glass, and he returned to Swindon and retired at the end of the following season. His subsequent biography was titled ''One-Hit Wonder''.

* Roger Maris, forever known as the man who hit 61* , isn't even in the Hall of Fame because other than his MVP years of 1960 and '61 (the year which he hit 61* ), he was an above-average but hardly spectacular baseball player.

* Washington Redskins rookie running back Timmy Smith was only in the starting lineup for [[Super Bowl]] XXII due to injuries to the Redskins' other running backs. Smith made the most of that opportunity, rushing for a Super Bowl record 204 yards with two touchdowns in the Skins' 42-10 victory over the Denver Broncos. Smith's career lasted only 15 more games before he was out of the NFL in 1990.

** To young non-Yankee/Red Sox fans he may best known for being in a [[Seinfeld|Steinbrenner rant]].

** Likewise, Carlton Fisk may be a hall of fame Red Sox player, but his entire career has been defined by his home-run off the foul pole in the 1975 World Series.

** Jack Morris's 10-inning shutout for the Twins in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series completely overshadowed the rest of his excellent career; this one game was so epic that hardly anyone remembers that Morris was also the ace of ''the following year's champion'', the Toronto Blue Jays. Oh yeah, and he was also the ace of the Detroit Tigers earlier in his career.

** The ultimate baseball one-moment wonder might be Francisco Cabrera of the 1992 Atlanta Braves. The Braves were one out away from being eliminated in the NLCS when they sent Cabrera, the last position player left on the bench, up to bat. Cabrera could barely even be considered a part-time player; he only had ten at-bats during the regular season, and only one prior at-bat in the playoffs. He stroked a two-run single to put the Braves in the World Series, then immediately faded back to obscurity. He was out of the majors the following year.

* Jacques Villeneuve took the Formula One World Championship in only his second year in the sport in 1997, then proceeded never to win another race. He has found success in other forms of racing, though.

** The same could be said about Fabio Grosso, the man who almost single-handedly brought Italy to victory in the 2006 World Cup. He scored all the important goals, including the one in the final match, but never did anything else of note in his home country.

* Oleg Salenko, who played for the Russian national team in the 1994 [[World Cup]]. During the 1994 World Cup, he scored 5 goals in a game against Cameroon (the most goals anyone has scored in a single World Cup match) and 6 goals overall, the joint top scorer of the tournament (and the only time where a top scorer played for a team that was knocked out in the group stages). The 6 goals turned out to be the only goals of his national team career.

* On February 11, 1990, 42-1 underdog James "Buster" Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson, who was an undefeated champion at the time. He retired just a few months later, after losing the heavyweight title to Evander Holyfield.

* In [[Australian Rules Football]], the St Kilda Saints and Western Bulldogs have each won only one premiership (in 1966 and 1954, respectively). The same goes for Port Adelaide Power (2004), but they are generally not considered to be this since they only joined in 1997, and their SANFL incarnation is the most successful club in that league.

* Several professional golfers who have risen from obscurity and win (or even just nearly win) a major championship have had difficulty sustaining that success in smaller-level tournaments afterward. Among the notable champions on this list are Steve Jones (1996 U.S. Open), Shaun Micheel (2003 PGA Championship) and Hilary Lunke (2003 U.S. Women's Open, her only ''top ten'' in an LPGA tournament).

 

 

* [[Jim Gaffigan]] still feels obligated to do his "Hot Pockets" bit for fans despite it being one of his earliest bits.

* Ruggerio Leoncavallo was a librettist hoping to become a full composer of operas. Seeing that ''verismo'' (realistic) opera was becoming popular, he wrote ''[[Pagliacci]]''. He wrote other operas after that, but ''Pagliacci'' is the only one that anyone remembers.

 

 

** He worked for Microsoft's games division for a while in the late 90's and early 2000's, creating critically acclaimed puzzle games like ''Pandora's Box'' and ''Hexic'' that met with commercial indifference, even when [[In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It|his semi-famous name was played up in advertising]].

* Despite a long, successful history as a pinball manufacturer, Gottlieb's only hit video game was 1982's ''Q*Bert'', despite many attempts at breaking into the market.

* Rock-Ola (''Nibbler'', 1981)

* Mythos Games (''[[X-COM]]: UFO Defense'', 1994).

* Neurostone (''Auto Destruct'', 1998, published by [[EA Games]])

* Vid Kidz, formed by lead Williams Electronics designer Eugene Jarvis, had only one hit to its name (''Robotron 2084'') before quickly folding in the wake of the 1983 crash.

* JAM Productions (''Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold'', 1993).

 

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* The Wonders in ''[[That Thing You Do]]!'', for whom the one hit is the title song.

* The protagonist of ''[[About a Boy]]'' is a 36-year-old bachelor who lives off the royalties of a hit Christmas song composed by his father.

** The book of the same name from which the film was adapted goes to great lengths to show just how absurd a situation this put the protagonist and his father in: the protagonist gets angry and depressed every time he hears the song being sung by buskers, and his father, absolutely desperate to be taken seriously as a musician, once writes an entire musical in the course of one day.

 

 

* Drive Shaft, Charlie's band in ''[[Lost]]'', who hit it big with "You All Everybody". In one deleted scene, Shannon remarks about having "their one song" [[Ear Worm|stuck in one's head.]]

* The Zit Remedy/The Zits-Joey, Snake and Wheels' band on ''[[Degrassi Junior High]]''/''[[Degrassi High]]''-was a one hit wonder not only in the fact that "Everybody Wants Something" was their only hit, but it was their only song - a fact that still gets them mercilessly teased even as adults.

* Marcus Little of ''[[The Suite Life On Deck]]'' turns up at Seven Seas High, having faded into obscurity after his career as [[Former Child Star|Lil' Little]] peaked with his sole hit "Retainer Baby".

 

 

* Chris Gaines, [[Breakup Breakout]] member of an '80s one-hit wonder band. Played by [[Real Life]] artist wonder Garth Brooks.

* The song "King of Rock 'n' Roll" by bookish new wave act Prefab Sprout was about a 50's rocker who is forced to sing his one stupid novelty hit over and over to crowds who only want to hear that one song. In a sad bit of irony, "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" became Prefab Sprout's biggest hit in the UK (they had six other Top 40 singles, but none of them troubled the Top 20), because people only [[Lyrical Dissonance|cared about the goofy chorus]] and nothing more.

 

 

* In ''[[Dead Island]]'', one of the player characters is Sam B, a rapper famous for his one hit, "Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch?"

 

 

** Also, their mother Linda apparently was a one-hit wonder in the 80's with "I'm Lindana and I Wanna Have Fun." Her explanation of this trope was used by the boys as a how-to checklist.

* Foxxy Love of ''[[Drawn Together]]'' was formerly a one hit wonder with her band The Foxxy 5, with the song "La La Labia".

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Music Tropes]]