One Hit Wonders

Listening to my music collection yesterday at work, I came up on "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba, one of my favorite feel-good songs. This got me to thinking about one of my favorite music topics, "One-Hit Wonders". I had many a philosophical discussion on this topic in college - besides trying to come up with a list of the best ones, we also debated what the "rules" are for qualifying - how big a hit you had to have vs. how small the rest of your releases (if any) were.

There was even a whole movie made about the "life" of a one-hit wonder band - "That Thing You Do" with Tom Hanks, was about the fictional band "The Wonders" and how one-hit wonders can happen - a great movie and soundtrack.

The best one-hit wonders, in my opinion, are those where some group comes along, releases a song that hits some part of the music spectrum that hasn't been hit before, has a huge hit, and then you never hear from them again. Somehow that adds to the mystique and greatness of the song. So my challenge for the day is for you to post your favorite(s). Some from my list are:

• "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba
• "Do You Love Me?" by The Countours, who, amazingly were one-hit wonders twice with the same song (it was re-released on Dirty Dancing)
• "Life in a Northern Town" by Dream Academy and , "Sunchyme" - Dario G (which is a dance mix of "Life in a Northern Town" :)
• "Let's Hear It For The Boy" by Denice Williams (from "Footloose" - Denice Williams was a very successful gospel singer but only did this one pop song)
• "Electric Avenue" by Eddie Grant
• "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco
• "Ooh Aah Just a Little Bit" by Gina G
• "Shake You Down" by Gregory Abbott (his "regular" job was a stock broker)
• "What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy)" by Information Society
• "Tic Tac Toe" by Kyper
• "Macarena" by Los Del Rio
• "Mambo #5" by Lou Bega
• "Pump Up the Volume" by M/A/R/R/S
• "In the House of Stone and Light" by Martin Page
• "Can't Live Without Your Love and Affection" by Nelson (remember Matthew and Gunner with their hair??)
  
• "Kiss Him Goodbye" by The Nylons
• "She Hates Me" by Puddle of Mudd
• "I Wanna Be Your Man" by Roger
• "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes
• "Mickey" by Toni Basil (and the video!)
• "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice (talk about crash-and-burn)
• "Whoomp! There It Is" by Tag Team
• "Bust a Move" by Young MC