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Wednesdays, so he decided to spice things up and have a one-hit wonder theme. Now every Wednesday, the phones won't stop ringing. Smith says songs like "Puttin' on the Ritz" by Taco and "Roll to Me" by Del Amitri are local favorites. "The response when you say 'one hit wonder' is overwhelming," he says.
This is also true at wedding receptions and dances. When DJ James Lee takes requests, "Cotton Eye Joe" by Rednex is usually the most popular one-hit wonder song. Lee says it's hard to imagine being a DJ at receptions and dances without one-hit wonders.
Since beginning the one-hit-wonder theme, Kevin Smith has noticed misconceptions of what one-hit wonders actually are. Smith says a listener once requested Staind's "It's Been Awhile." He says Staind does not qualify as a one-hit wonder because the band is still together. Smith says people think bands like Survivor, best known for its song "Eye of the Tiger," are one-hit wonders despite other hits like "American Heartbeat" and "Burning Heart." They only remember "Eye of the Tiger." Smith had to explain to his listeners that, according to him, a one-hit wonder is any artist who has had one song on the Top 40 pop charts.
Dan Thompson, creator of onehitwondercentral.com, might even go further than that. "Sometimes a hit is only truly memorable if it breaks into the Top 10,"
Thompson says. Thompson, Kansas City, Mo., resident, says it's important to remember that many artists are from countries other than the United States. "People from Australia get mad at me when I say Midnight Oil is a one-hit wonder," Thompson says. "But while they are huge in Australia, the band only had one hit on the Top 40 chart in the U.S."
Most of the music Thompson enjoys happens to be from one-hit wonders. One night, while surfing the Internet for music, he quickly realized there was a need for a centralized Web site dedicated to one-hit wonders.
"A lot of songs get lost over time," Thompson says. "They become kind of a footnote in history." Since its creation in 2000, the site now averages 370,000 hits a month. People constantly thank Thompson for creating the site. "I know someone who found a song on the site they'd been trying to find for 10 years," Thompson says. In decade-by-decade breakdowns, the site offers charts and biographical data going back to 1954, the year the Billboard Top 40 charts were standardized.
"They're a real part of pop culture." says Brent Mann, writer, former disc jockey and huge fan of one-hit wonders. "They bring people back to a very specific time."
Mann compiled a list of 600 one-hit wonders for his book 99 Red Balloons...and 100 Other All-Time Best One-Hit Wonders. In the book, Mann focuses on the current lives of one-hit wonders. Mann says few people know that
many one-hit wonders are still around. For example, Jesus Jones, an English band who hit it big in 1991 with "Right Here, Right Now," is still together making money and on tour. "There's this misconception that it's negative to be considered a one-hit wonder," Mann says, "But think it's an amazing thing to have a hit record."
There are a number of factors when looking at the cause of one-hit wonders. Most of them have to do with what the listening public wants to hear. Musical tastes change quickly, and this is evident with Anita Ward, whose 1979 hit "Ring My Bell" hit the Top 10. If disco hadn't died, she wouldn't have been a one-hit wonder. "Perhaps moreso than any other genre in the history of popular music, the '70s disco
scene was littered with countless one-hit wonders," music critic Greg Prato writes on allmusic.com. Artists also struggle to duplicate the same catchy sound of their hits, or they try for so long to get that one big hit that when they do, the money and fame tears them apart. "Sometimes one-hit wonders change the way music is going," Thompson says. "For the most part, they're just diversions."
But they are usually welcome diversions, even if eight years later we deny ever listening to the "Macarena." Love them or hate them, one-hit wonders are here to stay, and radio and pop culture wouldn't be the same without them. And VH1 wouldn't have anything to broadcast.
Matt Beat's Top 10 one-hit wonders:
(Criteria- had to reach U.S. Top 40 pop chart only once)
10. The Divinyls- "I Touch Myself"
9. Bruce Channel- "Hey! Baby"
8. 4 Non Blondes- "What's Up"
7. Thin Lizzy- "The Boys Are Back in Town"
6. T'Pau- "Heart and Soul"
5. The Vapors- "Turning Japanese'
4. Paperboy- "Ditty"
3. Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians- "What I Am"
2. Modern English- "I Melt With You"
1. Skee-Lo- "I Wish"