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Your favorite one hit wonder

VABuckeye

By VABuckeye
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Paul Wesley

Paul Wesley 3278

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, hullabelew said:

Ha.  Yep....plus, it is actually based on a true story.  I have an embarrassing amount of knowledge on Canadian bands from the 80/90s.   Blue Rodeo, Skydiggers/L'Etreanger/Andrew Cash/Cash Brothers, Tom Cochrane, Grapes of Wrath, Tragically Hip.    

Wait, are we doing Canadian one-hitters?  I have two of those.  First one may not meet the criteria for the thread, but I can name only one song of his, and it has one of the best closing lines ever.  "If I had a rocket launcher, some son of a bitch would die."

 

 

And one more from the glory days of MTV.  It's 80's cheese, but I love it anyway.

 

 

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hullabelew

hullabelew 3724

Posted
Posted
12 minutes ago, Paul Wesley said:

Wait, are we doing Canadian one-hitters?  I have two of those.  First one may not meet the criteria for the thread, but I can name only one song of his, and it has one of the best closing lines ever.  "If I had a rocket launcher, some son of a bitch would die."

 

 

 

Good lord, his "Stealing Fire" album is so good.  I bought it the moment I heard this:   This was before "Rocket Launcher" took off.  I saw T-Bone Burnett one night and followed a group from there and ended up at some house in Atlanta where Cockburn and Shawn Colvin were hanging out after one of their shows the same night, sitting on a porch with guitars.  

 

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Deej

Deej 76828

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Fastball had multiple charting hits.  Depending on what source you use, "Out of My Head" hit somewhere between #10-#20 on the US Top 40, giving Tony a pair of hits.  I believe Miles received a golden bagel for "Fire Escape".  Tony prepared the bagel.

Who can name them, though, other than a small handful of people.

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 45972

Posted
Posted
13 minutes ago, Deej said:

Who can name them, though, other than a small handful of people.

Why the hell does this keep getting asked?  A hit is a hit, and is widely thought of as making the Top 40 US singles chart.

I doubt I could sing 3 words of even 10% of the top 40 hits in US history.  It doesn't mean they weren't hits.

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cactusflinthead

cactusflinthead 27601

Posted
Posted
12 minutes ago, Deej said:

Top 40. Qualifies for jimmyjazz.

It's kinda fuzzy. Top 10 or 40 or 100?

From Wiki.

For the purpose of his book The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, music journalist Wayne Jancik defines a one-hit wonder as "an act that has won a position on Billboard's national, pop, Top 40 just once." In his definition of an "act", Jancik distinguishes between a solo performer and a group performance (thus, for example, Roger Daltrey's "Without Your Love" is counted despite Daltrey's numerous hits as frontman for the Who), and a number of musicians appear multiple times, either with multiple bands or as a member of a band and as a solo artist. (Eponymous bands are generally not separated; thus Charlie Daniels is not counted as a one-hit wonder for "Uneasy Rider" and the hits of the Charlie Daniels Band are credited to him.)[original research?]

Fred Bronson, a journalist and former writer for Billboard magazine, in his book Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits, uses the criterion that an artist is ineligible to be categorized as a "one-hit wonder" if they have a second song listed on the Billboard Hot 100.[7]

Disc jockey and music writer Brent Mann points out how some artists have been called a "one-hit wonder" despite having other charting singles; in these cases, one signature song so overshadows the rest of the artist's discography that only that song remains familiar to later audiences. As an example, English-born singer Albert Hammond enjoyed success with "It Never Rains in Southern California" (1972) rising to number 5 in the US, but his follow-up single, "I'm a Train" was dismissed by Mann as "totally forgotten" even though it charted at number 31 in 1974.[5] In another case, Scottish rockers Simple Minds followed their big hit "Don't You (Forget About Me)" (appearing in the opening and closing scenes of the film The Breakfast Club) with "Alive and Kicking" which peaked at number 3 in the US, "Sanctify Yourself" which peaked at number 14 in the US, and "All the Things She Said" which peaked at number 28 in the US, yet the band is remembered primarily for the first song.[8]

On the other hand, some artists with long, successful careers have been identified as one-hit wonders by virtue of having reached the Top 40 of the Hot 100 only once. Consequence of Sound editor Matt Melis lists Beck ("Loser") and the Grateful Dead ("Touch of Grey") as "technically" being one-hit wonders despite their large bodies of work.[6] Entertainment Weekly mentions prolific artist Frank Zappa as a one-hit wonder because his only Top 40 hit was "Valley Girl" in 1982.[9]

Chris Molanphy says that an artist can only be seen as a "one hit wonder" if they have never had a second Billboard top 10 hit, if any subsequent top 40 singles were released within six months of their first big hit, and if the artist has not had three or more top 10 or Platinum albums.[10][11]

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ocugolf

ocugolf 1214

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Fastball had multiple charting hits.  Depending on what source you use, "Out of My Head" hit somewhere between #10-#20 on the US Top 40, giving Tony a pair of hits.  I believe Miles received a golden bagel for "Fire Escape".  Tony prepared the bagel.

 Not to mention their best song “Are you Ready for the Fallout?”

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Goredho

Goredho 17408

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Posted (edited)

 “Hard Sun” by Indio/Gordon Peterson.  He made his one album and released this one single with Joni Mitchell singing backup, said fuck it and quit the business.  The song went on to be a top 10 hit overall in Canada and top 10 on Billboard’s alternative list in 1989.

Eddie Vedder then covered it for the “Into the Wild” soundtrack and it peaked at #13 in 2007 after environmental concerns had gained more widespread acceptance.  Gordon Peterson then sued Eddie Vedder and his old record label for not getting his permission for the cover, but I think it was tossed.  Great song, and the lyrics are very meaningful to me.

 

Edited by Goredho
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Napoleon

Napoleon 8687

Posted
Posted
On 10/26/2021 at 8:14 PM, cactusflinthead said:

Though the writer had plenty of hits. 


This song doesn’t have a chorus. The last line is a repeat of the 2nd to last line, but I wouldn’t say that that makes it a chorus. It was written by Tom T. Hall and it was a #1 song  

Lisa Loeb’s “Stay” doesn’t have a chorus and was a #1 song. 

I was first introduced to Tom T. Hall in elementary school, because he had an album of songs for kids. “Sneaky Snake” is the first song that comes to mind without looking it up. Lisa Loeb also writes songs for kids and won a Grammy in 2017 or 2018 (?) for her kids album. (“The Disappointing pancake” is probably her most famous kids song.)
 

Coincidence?

 

Abso-fucking-lutely!

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