Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - One Hit Wonders

Breeze · 07-02-2019, 09:27 AM

40. Edie Brickell & New Bohemians – What I Am (1988)

Total Points – 467
Charts – 5
Top 40 – 1
Top 20 – 0
Top 10 – 0
Highest Ranking – 29

This is the first tong in the countdown to be ranked in 5 of the 6 lists. Originally, Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians were independent artists, but in 1985, she was invited to sing one night with her high school friends. She would later join the band as the full time lead singer. This song is a lead single off of the debut album, and it climbed to #7 on the Hot 100. It didn’t do nearly as well in the UK where it topped out at #31. The follow up album was deliberately different from the more poppy first release in an effort to highlight the band’s eclectic personality, while it definitely accomplished its goal, it also didn’t perform nearly as well. Brickell went on to sing Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” in Born on the Fourth of July, as well as Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” in the ’90 film Flashback. Brickell, who married Paul Simon in 1992, first saw him while performing on Saturday Night Live. She was performing this song, like she had hundreds of times before, but when she saw him standing by the cameraman, she completely forgot how the song went. I looked for a copy of that video but was unable to locate it.

39. Meredith Brooks - Bitch (1997)

Total Points – 459
Charts – 4
Top 40 – 1
Top 20 – 0
Top 10 – 0
Highest Ranking – 35

This song is often misattributed to Alanis Morissette, a misconception that has existed since the song’s release. The similarities exists both musically and lyrically, and it's been commented on by publications including: Allmusic, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, and the LA Times. Critic Stephen Erlewine even stated Brooks sounded like a Morissette clone. That similarity was intentional, the producer, Geza X was looking for a song with that sound. The plan worked as this song climbed to #2 on the Hot 100 where it stayed for 4 weeks, kept out of the top spot by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans “I’ll Be Missing You”. It also got to #2 in Canada, and was kept out of the top spot there by Hanson’s MMMBob. This song was rated the 79th best song of the 90s by VH1, and Brooks was nominated for the Best Female Rock Vocal Grammy.

38. Blind Melon – No Rain (1993)

Total Points – 458
Charts – 4
Top 40 – 2
Top 20 – 0
Top 10 – 0
Highest Ranking – 24

Blind Melon is a band formed in LA consisting of 3 Mississippi transplants, a singer from Lafayette, Indiana, and a Guitarists from Pennsylvania. The band’s name is a reference to Mississippi hippies, and it comes from the Cheech & Chong character Blind Melon Chitlin. Originally, the band signed with Capitol Records and started recording with David Briggs, but the results were abandoned because the band didn’t like the sound quality saying the songs sounded slick and doctored. About this time the band was receiving additional attention due to lead singer Shannon Hoon’s friendship with Axl Rose. Hoon sang backup on several of the Guns N’Roses songs. Eventually the debut album was produced by Rick Parashar, known for doing Pearl Jam’s Ten, and the finished product was mostly recorded live with minimal overdubs. The initial release was the single “Tones of Home” and it performed poorly, but this song was the second release and it did much better. This song's popularity was bolstered by the video being in high rotation on MTV. The album, despite only generating this single hit, achieved quadruple platinum status. This single peaked at #20 on the Hot 100, and #4 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, it was also #1 on the Album Rock Track, and Modern Rock Tracks charts.

37. Sugarhill Gang – Rapper's Delight (1979)

Total Points – 454
Charts – 3
Top 40 – 0
Top 20 – 1
Top 10 – 1
Highest Ranking – 2

The Sugarhill Gang consisted of Michael "Wonder Mike" Wright, Henry "Big Bank Hank" Jackson, and Guy "Master Gee" O'Brien. The three were assembled into a group by producer Sylvia Robinson, who founded Sugar Hill Records with her husband, record producer Joe Robinson. The group and the record company were named after the Sugar Hill, Harlem, neighborhood. Rapper’s Delight, while not the first single to including rapping, is credited with introducing hip hop music to a wide audience. The song is ranked at #251 in Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It’s also #2 on VH1’s Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of all time. NPR included this song in their list of the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century, and the Library of Congress preserved the song in the National Recording Registry. The song interpolates Chic’s “Good Times”, which resulted in a lawsuit for copywrite infringement. The song peaked at #36 on the Hot 100, and #4 on the Soul Singles chart. The band never had another US hit, but they did have multiple hits in Europe.

36. Kajagoogoo – Too Shy (1983)

Total Points – 445
Charts – 4
Top 40 – 1
Top 20 – 0
Top 10 – 0
Highest Ranking – 25

The band got its big break when Christopher Hamill, aka Limahl (which is an anagram of his surname), was working as a waiter and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran sat at his table. Somehow Rhodes agreed to co-produce the band’s first single with EMI producer Colin Thurston (who did the first 2 Duran Duran albums). The first single was this song, which went on to the top of the UK Singles Chart, something Rhodes and Duran Duran hadn’t yet achieved in 1983. The band didn’t handle success very well, by the middle of 1983 Limahl had been fired by the rest of the band, who said he was an egomaniac. While Limahl felt the rest of the band was jealous of him. Kajagoogoo never really had any other success in the US, but in the UK they had 2 additional top 10 singles, and a few other songs that made the top 40. Before Limahl decided to try music he was…an actor. He started on stage as part of the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat tour. He followed that up with a role on a police series, and he has a spot in Adam and the Ants’ video “Stand and Deliver”. After the breakup of the band Limahl’s solo career included the hit “Never Ending Story”, the theme from the movie. He had one other single that charted at #51, which also arguably makes him a OHW twice over.

35. Cheryl Lynn – Got to Be Real (1978)

Total Points – 441
Charts – 3
Top 40 – 2
Top 20 – 0
Top 10 – 0
Highest Ranking – 28

Lynn got her professional start as a backup singer for the stage performance of The Wiz. She would later inherit the roll of the Wicked Witch. Following the completion of the tour, she appeared on The Gong Show, and scored a perfect 30 points for her rendition of Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful”. Unfortunately, she lost to a juggler in the audience applause tie breaker. However, it didn’t matter, at that point numerous record labels were attempting to sign her. She ultimately signed with Columbia Records, and composed this song with David Paich from Toto and music legend David Foster. The song peaked at #12 on the Hot 100, her only single to make it into the top 40. However, she had numerous hits on the R&B Chart. The song was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Interestingly, in 1978, when Lynn was working with Paich, Toto was also cutting an album, and Lynn sang on the song “Georgy Porgy”.

34. Deee-Lite – Groove Is in the Heart (1990)

Total Points – 440
Charts – 4
Top 40 – 0
Top 20 – 1
Top 10 – 0
Highest Ranking – 14

Really more of a Dance Club band than a popular music focused group, Deee-Lite found themselves with a crossover hit in 1991 with this song. The song, which was eventually released on the bands own Sampladelic label, was used by the band in night clubs for a couple of years prior to being recorded and released as a single. The single features Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, the base guitar loop from Herbie Hancock’s “Bring Down The Birds”, and additional vocals from Bootsy Collins, who was a big fan of the band. The hit climbed to #4 on the Hot 100, but like so many other OHWs, Deee-Light was much more successful on other charts, in this case the Dance Club Chart, where they had six #1 hits. In fact, the band was ranked by Billboard as the 55th most successful dance artist of all time, and this song ended up #2 in Slant Magazine’s ranking of the 100 Greatest Dance Songs. The song also was voted by several critics the best song of 1990.

33. New Radicals – You Get What You Give (1999)

Total Points – 440
Charts – 4
Top 40 – 0
Top 20 – 1
Top 10 – 0
Highest Ranking – 16

This “band” was really just a vehicle for Gregg Alexander, who wrote and produced all the songs. The only other permanent member was keyboard and percussionist Danielle Brisebois (Brisebois is the former child actress from All in the Family and Archie Bunker’s Place). The song and in fact the entire album is filled with social commentary, but it’s the last lines of this single that drew the most attention…"Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson / Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson / You're all fakes run to your mansions / Come around we'll kick your ass in." Alexander stated it was a test to see if the media would focus on the political issues or the name dropping, and not surprisingly it was the name dropping. The funniest response to the name dropping was Marilyn Manson who stated, “[I’m] not mad he said he'd kick my ass, I just don't want to be used in the same sentence with Courtney Love.... I'll crack his skull open if I see him." This song has received significantly mixed reviews. Billboard called it a Wham-style pop song with cheesy lyrics, but at the same time The Edge from U2 said this was the song he was “most jealous of”, wishing he had written it. Joni Mitchell praised it for rising above the swamp of McMusic, and Ice-T stated in 2006 that this song was the (non-rap) song that most grabbed his attention in the last few years. The band is a OHW mostly because they had already broken up prior to the release of their second single.

32. 4 Non Blondes – What's Up? (1993)

Total Points – 436
Charts – 6
Top 40 – 0
Top 20 – 0
Top 10 – 0
Highest Ranking – 41

You may recall from the preview of the countdown that only 2 songs in this entire countdown were ranked by all 6 of the seeding lists…well…this is the first one. It is very possible that this band was ranked in all 6 because they are a strict definition OHW, so there is really no question about the OHW status. It’s also very interesting to see that a song that was ranked in all 6 lists failed to even make it into the top 30…The 6 lists had the song ranked – 41, 58, 71, 78, 94, and 94. This band was signed to a record contract after opening for Primus at the Gavin (a music trade magazine) Convention in 1991. In 1992, when recording their first album, 2 of the 4 members of the original band were fired and replaced. Also after recording the single with David Tickle, the lead singer, Linda Perry, hated the way it sounded and went to a label executive to allow her to redo the song in a more raw sound like the demo. The executive agreed, and the song was re-recorded like the demo in less than a day. The single was the second off their debut album after “Dear Mr. President” did nothing. What’s up got to #14 on the Hot 100, made it to #2 in Australia and the UK, and made it to #1 in several European countries. Despite the simple phase that is the songs title, it is never uttered in the song. Rather What's Going On is stated numerous times in the chorus. Using What's Up as the title was an effort to avoid confusion with Marvin Gaye's song "What's Going On".

31. Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me with Science (1982)

Total Points – 433
Charts – 4
Top 40 – 1
Top 20 – 1
Top 10 – 0
Highest Ranking – 20

Thomas Dolby’s real name is Thomas Morgan Robertson, but he created the stage name Dolby from a nickname he was given as a youth playing around with recording music. His friends referred to him as Dolby in reference to the audio noise-reduction process created by Dolby Laboratories. Thomas was looking for a stage name to avoid confusion with Tom Robinson who was a popular artist at that time in the UK. After the release of this single Dolby Labs wanted him to change his name, but the label refused and after a lawsuit Dolby Labs was told they had no exclusivity rights to the name Dolby. A point of interest, Ray Dolby, the inventor and founder of Dolby Labs, has a novelist and filmmaker son named…Tom. This song was not part of the initial EP released by Dolby, but it was part of the second release and the catchy tune was a smash hit. Because of the success of the song, the initial album was re-released with this single included. Interestingly, this song was actually created to support the idea of the video, not the other way around. Dolby always viewed music videos as short silent movies with a soundtrack, so he story-boarded “She Blinded Me with Science” then wrote the song to fit the video. The mad scientist voice in the song is Magnus Pyke a famous British TV scientist (think Bill Nye). Dolby founded a sound technology company called Beatnik, which was instrumental in the creation of Nokia tune. He’s currently on faculty at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University where he leads the music for new media program.

07-02-2019, 09:27 AM	#141
Breeze Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL	40. Edie Brickell & New Bohemians – What I Am (1988) Total Points – 467 Charts – 5 Top 40 – 1 Top 20 – 0 Top 10 – 0 Highest Ranking – 29 This is the first tong in the countdown to be ranked in 5 of the 6 lists. Originally, Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians were independent artists, but in 1985, she was invited to sing one night with her high school friends. She would later join the band as the full time lead singer. This song is a lead single off of the debut album, and it climbed to #7 on the Hot 100. It didn’t do nearly as well in the UK where it topped out at #31. The follow up album was deliberately different from the more poppy first release in an effort to highlight the band’s eclectic personality, while it definitely accomplished its goal, it also didn’t perform nearly as well. Brickell went on to sing Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” in Born on the Fourth of July, as well as Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” in the ’90 film Flashback. Brickell, who married Paul Simon in 1992, first saw him while performing on Saturday Night Live. She was performing this song, like she had hundreds of times before, but when she saw him standing by the cameraman, she completely forgot how the song went. I looked for a copy of that video but was unable to locate it. 39. Meredith Brooks - Bitch (1997) Total Points – 459 Charts – 4 Top 40 – 1 Top 20 – 0 Top 10 – 0 Highest Ranking – 35 This song is often misattributed to Alanis Morissette, a misconception that has existed since the song’s release. The similarities exists both musically and lyrically, and it's been commented on by publications including: Allmusic, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, and the LA Times. Critic Stephen Erlewine even stated Brooks sounded like a Morissette clone. That similarity was intentional, the producer, Geza X was looking for a song with that sound. The plan worked as this song climbed to #2 on the Hot 100 where it stayed for 4 weeks, kept out of the top spot by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans “I’ll Be Missing You”. It also got to #2 in Canada, and was kept out of the top spot there by Hanson’s MMMBob. This song was rated the 79th best song of the 90s by VH1, and Brooks was nominated for the Best Female Rock Vocal Grammy. 38. Blind Melon – No Rain (1993) Total Points – 458 Charts – 4 Top 40 – 2 Top 20 – 0 Top 10 – 0 Highest Ranking – 24 Blind Melon is a band formed in LA consisting of 3 Mississippi transplants, a singer from Lafayette, Indiana, and a Guitarists from Pennsylvania. The band’s name is a reference to Mississippi hippies, and it comes from the Cheech & Chong character Blind Melon Chitlin. Originally, the band signed with Capitol Records and started recording with David Briggs, but the results were abandoned because the band didn’t like the sound quality saying the songs sounded slick and doctored. About this time the band was receiving additional attention due to lead singer Shannon Hoon’s friendship with Axl Rose. Hoon sang backup on several of the Guns N’Roses songs. Eventually the debut album was produced by Rick Parashar, known for doing Pearl Jam’s Ten, and the finished product was mostly recorded live with minimal overdubs. The initial release was the single “Tones of Home” and it performed poorly, but this song was the second release and it did much better. This song's popularity was bolstered by the video being in high rotation on MTV. The album, despite only generating this single hit, achieved quadruple platinum status. This single peaked at #20 on the Hot 100, and #4 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, it was also #1 on the Album Rock Track, and Modern Rock Tracks charts. 37. Sugarhill Gang – Rapper's Delight (1979) Total Points – 454 Charts – 3 Top 40 – 0 Top 20 – 1 Top 10 – 1 Highest Ranking – 2 The Sugarhill Gang consisted of Michael "Wonder Mike" Wright, Henry "Big Bank Hank" Jackson, and Guy "Master Gee" O'Brien. The three were assembled into a group by producer Sylvia Robinson, who founded Sugar Hill Records with her husband, record producer Joe Robinson. The group and the record company were named after the Sugar Hill, Harlem, neighborhood. Rapper’s Delight, while not the first single to including rapping, is credited with introducing hip hop music to a wide audience. The song is ranked at #251 in Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It’s also #2 on VH1’s Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of all time. NPR included this song in their list of the 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century, and the Library of Congress preserved the song in the National Recording Registry. The song interpolates Chic’s “Good Times”, which resulted in a lawsuit for copywrite infringement. The song peaked at #36 on the Hot 100, and #4 on the Soul Singles chart. The band never had another US hit, but they did have multiple hits in Europe. 36. Kajagoogoo – Too Shy (1983) Total Points – 445 Charts – 4 Top 40 – 1 Top 20 – 0 Top 10 – 0 Highest Ranking – 25 The band got its big break when Christopher Hamill, aka Limahl (which is an anagram of his surname), was working as a waiter and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran sat at his table. Somehow Rhodes agreed to co-produce the band’s first single with EMI producer Colin Thurston (who did the first 2 Duran Duran albums). The first single was this song, which went on to the top of the UK Singles Chart, something Rhodes and Duran Duran hadn’t yet achieved in 1983. The band didn’t handle success very well, by the middle of 1983 Limahl had been fired by the rest of the band, who said he was an egomaniac. While Limahl felt the rest of the band was jealous of him. Kajagoogoo never really had any other success in the US, but in the UK they had 2 additional top 10 singles, and a few other songs that made the top 40. Before Limahl decided to try music he was…an actor. He started on stage as part of the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat tour. He followed that up with a role on a police series, and he has a spot in Adam and the Ants’ video “Stand and Deliver”. After the breakup of the band Limahl’s solo career included the hit “Never Ending Story”, the theme from the movie. He had one other single that charted at #51, which also arguably makes him a OHW twice over. 35. Cheryl Lynn – Got to Be Real (1978) Total Points – 441 Charts – 3 Top 40 – 2 Top 20 – 0 Top 10 – 0 Highest Ranking – 28 Lynn got her professional start as a backup singer for the stage performance of The Wiz. She would later inherit the roll of the Wicked Witch. Following the completion of the tour, she appeared on The Gong Show, and scored a perfect 30 points for her rendition of Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful”. Unfortunately, she lost to a juggler in the audience applause tie breaker. However, it didn’t matter, at that point numerous record labels were attempting to sign her. She ultimately signed with Columbia Records, and composed this song with David Paich from Toto and music legend David Foster. The song peaked at #12 on the Hot 100, her only single to make it into the top 40. However, she had numerous hits on the R&B Chart. The song was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Interestingly, in 1978, when Lynn was working with Paich, Toto was also cutting an album, and Lynn sang on the song “Georgy Porgy”. 34. Deee-Lite – Groove Is in the Heart (1990) Total Points – 440 Charts – 4 Top 40 – 0 Top 20 – 1 Top 10 – 0 Highest Ranking – 14 Really more of a Dance Club band than a popular music focused group, Deee-Lite found themselves with a crossover hit in 1991 with this song. The song, which was eventually released on the bands own Sampladelic label, was used by the band in night clubs for a couple of years prior to being recorded and released as a single. The single features Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, the base guitar loop from Herbie Hancock’s “Bring Down The Birds”, and additional vocals from Bootsy Collins, who was a big fan of the band. The hit climbed to #4 on the Hot 100, but like so many other OHWs, Deee-Light was much more successful on other charts, in this case the Dance Club Chart, where they had six #1 hits. In fact, the band was ranked by Billboard as the 55th most successful dance artist of all time, and this song ended up #2 in Slant Magazine’s ranking of the 100 Greatest Dance Songs. The song also was voted by several critics the best song of 1990. 33. New Radicals – You Get What You Give (1999) Total Points – 440 Charts – 4 Top 40 – 0 Top 20 – 1 Top 10 – 0 Highest Ranking – 16 This “band” was really just a vehicle for Gregg Alexander, who wrote and produced all the songs. The only other permanent member was keyboard and percussionist Danielle Brisebois (Brisebois is the former child actress from All in the Family and Archie Bunker’s Place). The song and in fact the entire album is filled with social commentary, but it’s the last lines of this single that drew the most attention…"Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson / Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson / You're all fakes run to your mansions / Come around we'll kick your ass in." Alexander stated it was a test to see if the media would focus on the political issues or the name dropping, and not surprisingly it was the name dropping. The funniest response to the name dropping was Marilyn Manson who stated, “[I’m] not mad he said he'd kick my ass, I just don't want to be used in the same sentence with Courtney Love.... I'll crack his skull open if I see him." This song has received significantly mixed reviews. Billboard called it a Wham-style pop song with cheesy lyrics, but at the same time The Edge from U2 said this was the song he was “most jealous of”, wishing he had written it. Joni Mitchell praised it for rising above the swamp of McMusic, and Ice-T stated in 2006 that this song was the (non-rap) song that most grabbed his attention in the last few years. The band is a OHW mostly because they had already broken up prior to the release of their second single. 32. 4 Non Blondes – What's Up? (1993) Total Points – 436 Charts – 6 Top 40 – 0 Top 20 – 0 Top 10 – 0 Highest Ranking – 41 You may recall from the preview of the countdown that only 2 songs in this entire countdown were ranked by all 6 of the seeding lists…well…this is the first one. It is very possible that this band was ranked in all 6 because they are a strict definition OHW, so there is really no question about the OHW status. It’s also very interesting to see that a song that was ranked in all 6 lists failed to even make it into the top 30…The 6 lists had the song ranked – 41, 58, 71, 78, 94, and 94. This band was signed to a record contract after opening for Primus at the Gavin (a music trade magazine) Convention in 1991. In 1992, when recording their first album, 2 of the 4 members of the original band were fired and replaced. Also after recording the single with David Tickle, the lead singer, Linda Perry, hated the way it sounded and went to a label executive to allow her to redo the song in a more raw sound like the demo. The executive agreed, and the song was re-recorded like the demo in less than a day. The single was the second off their debut album after “Dear Mr. President” did nothing. What’s up got to #14 on the Hot 100, made it to #2 in Australia and the UK, and made it to #1 in several European countries. Despite the simple phase that is the songs title, it is never uttered in the song. Rather What's Going On is stated numerous times in the chorus. Using What's Up as the title was an effort to avoid confusion with Marvin Gaye's song "What's Going On". 31. Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me with Science (1982) Total Points – 433 Charts – 4 Top 40 – 1 Top 20 – 1 Top 10 – 0 Highest Ranking – 20 Thomas Dolby’s real name is Thomas Morgan Robertson, but he created the stage name Dolby from a nickname he was given as a youth playing around with recording music. His friends referred to him as Dolby in reference to the audio noise-reduction process created by Dolby Laboratories. Thomas was looking for a stage name to avoid confusion with Tom Robinson who was a popular artist at that time in the UK. After the release of this single Dolby Labs wanted him to change his name, but the label refused and after a lawsuit Dolby Labs was told they had no exclusivity rights to the name Dolby. A point of interest, Ray Dolby, the inventor and founder of Dolby Labs, has a novelist and filmmaker son named…Tom. This song was not part of the initial EP released by Dolby, but it was part of the second release and the catchy tune was a smash hit. Because of the success of the song, the initial album was re-released with this single included. Interestingly, this song was actually created to support the idea of the video, not the other way around. Dolby always viewed music videos as short silent movies with a soundtrack, so he story-boarded “She Blinded Me with Science” then wrote the song to fit the video. The mad scientist voice in the song is Magnus Pyke a famous British TV scientist (think Bill Nye). Dolby founded a sound technology company called Beatnik, which was instrumental in the creation of Nokia tune. He’s currently on faculty at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University where he leads the music for new media program.