I'm not one hundred percent sure what you mean by this (is it the best "hits" by one hit wonders or the one hit wonders who actually have other good stuff people should know), but I'm going to go with the second cuz eh.
So wikipedia has lists of these things based on chart positions and according to them, everyone from Bon Iver to Daft Punk to Disclosure to Blink 182 to White Stripes to ESPN to Neil Patrick Harris to Raekwon to Frank Zappa to Talk Talk to Eric B and Rakim to Janis Joplin to T Rex to Kraftwerk to Elton John to Nick Lowe to The Temptations to Vince Guaraldi to James Otto is a one hit wonder, so I don't think I can trust their list, and Vh1's lists are fairly random (XTC is by what definition? By what definition is "Dear God" (99 in the UK and no charts anywhere else) their hit above "Life Begins at the Hop", "Making Plans For Nigel", "Generals and Majors", "Towers of London", "Sgt Rock (Is Going To Help Me)", "Sense Working Overtime", "Ball and Chain", "Love on a Farmboy's Wages", "All You Pretty Girls", "This World Over", "Wake Up", "The Mayor of Simpleton", "King for a Day", "The Disappointed", and "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" all charted as well or better in the UK, not to include the fact that they had 2 singles chart in the US, neither of which were "Dear God"). As a result, I guess I'll just go with some on their list that I actually think of as one hit wonders in the US (I know some of these bands were big elsewhere but maybe just didn't make it here) and that I've actually seen a decent number of people accuse of being one hit wonders outside of just myself and wikipedia..
The band: Ben Folds Five
The hit: "Brick" (#19 in the US - only song to make the pop chart)
The others: So people on this site seem familiar enough with them for the most part, but people I've actually met really don't know them at all except for "Brick", and in fact probably more people know Folds' solo work ("You Don't Know Me" and "The Luckiest", especially") and don't realize that this was ever a band, but they put out a number of great songs, and the whole of "Whatever and Ever Amen" is a great album that, while covering a variety of styles, still flows well and gets its message across.
The band: The Verve
The hit: "Bittersweet Symphony" (#12 in the US - only song to chart)
The others: If you're British, or really from anywhere in the world that isn't the U.S., "The Drugs Don't Work" was a decently big hit as well, and "Love Is Noise" even charted pretty well, but this never really translated to success out here (for some reason). In 2012 they were voted the 5th best one-hit wonders of the 90s by Rolling Stone and all sorts of other sites have them on similar top lists.
The band: Gotye
The hit: "Somebody that I Used To Know" (#1 in every major world chart, only top 40 song in the US, UK, or their home of Australia)
The others: Gotye's rise to fame is sort of a sad story - if your read the guy's interviews about how many people were leaving concerts in the middle if he played "Somebody that I Used To Know", you can almost hear the pain of "huh, I wrote a lot of complicated stuff and people will remember me for re-doing Ba Ba Black Sheep and that sort of sucks". The album it's off is actually pretty decent, and "Heart's a Mess" and "Learnalilgivinanlovin", while being slightly polar opposites, are both fairly good off the album before it.
The band: Snow Patrol
The hit: "Chasing Cars" (#5 in the US, only top 50 song in the US)
The others: The Brits especially will know that these guys had a lot more success out there than in the US, but my friends have been surprised at the quality and success of some of Snow Patrol's other work. They're a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, but "Run", "Chocolate", "Shut Your Eyes", "Open Your Eyes", "The Lightning Strike", "You Could Be Happy", and "This Isn't Everything You Are" are all songs I really, really enjoy and revisit often.
The other thing I discovered via doing this is that both OMD and Psychadelic Furs had a considerable amount more US chart success than I thought, so you go guys. _________________
The band: Gotye
The hit: "Somebody that I Used To Know" (#1 in every major world chart, only top 40 song in the US, UK, or their home of Australia)
The others: Gotye's rise to fame is sort of a sad story - if your read the guy's interviews about how many people were leaving concerts in the middle if he played "Somebody that I Used To Know", you can almost hear the pain of "huh, I wrote a lot of complicated stuff and people will remember me for re-doing Ba Ba Black Sheep and that sort of sucks". The album it's off is actually pretty decent, and "Heart's a Mess" and "Learnalilgivinanlovin", while being slightly polar opposites, are both fairly good off the album before it.
whoa. didn't realize that was going on with him. he's actually a pretty good artist outside that single. all three of his albums are pretty good, really. he does dip a little bit into the weird side of music on his first couple albums, but making mirrors is a pretty steady peter-gabriel-esque pop album. _________________ follow me on the bandcamp.
In every alternate universe, Spacehog is not a one hit wonder. Their hit In The Meantime was—and still is—incredible, but their entire discography is fantastic and not enough people have bothered to check it out.
Here's a compilation I made showcasing the rest of their work: Link
whoa. didn't realize that was going on with him. he's actually a pretty good artist outside that single. all three of his albums are pretty good, really. he does dip a little bit into the weird side of music on his first couple albums, but making mirrors is a pretty steady peter-gabriel-esque pop album.
He's always rather gracious about the fame but he has talked about how it's weird to just be known for that song. And yeah all of his albums frankly go a bit all over, Making Mirrors is pretty gabriel-y but there's some other moments that are pretty different from that. Will be interesting to see what comes of his new album - 5 years later and he's about "half way done", and he's said he's been travelling the world to find new and experimental instruments to use for it. Combine that with his recent collaborations with Djalu Gurruwiwi, basically the didgeridoo king, it could be something rather interesting.
Totally agree with this. Third Eye Blind's self-titled album is fantastic, the best one-hit wonder album imo. Blue has a few good songs but totally pales in comparison. Although some may not consider this a one-hit wonder cause Blue still went Platinum.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
