Rather hard to argue that Sembello is not a OHW.
Are They A One-Hit Wonder?
- Thread starter sadchild
- Start date
Aaron
Moderator
Agreed....
Jon
Well-Known Member
Where did "Youth Gone Wild" chart, because I remember that being HUGE for a while!
Channel98
Don't yell or hit.
Youth Gone Wild debuted at #99 on the Hot 100 chart for the week ending June 10, 1989. The following week it stayed at #99. Then it dropped off. Wooh! To be fair, though, the song reached #27 on the mainstream rock chart two months earlier. It was released as a single in January.
IdRatherBeSkiing
Sherbert is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
A lot of these low charting hits could have been regional. Sometimes a song does well in one area but bombs elsewhere.
Aaron
Moderator
On the subject of regional hits and one hit wonders, although not exactly fitting the theme of this thread....
80's band LeRoux had one top 40 song, Nobody Said It Was Easy. But no one here really thinks of that song. The major hit from them that is played all the time here is New Orleans Ladies.
en.wikipedia.org
80's band LeRoux had one top 40 song, Nobody Said It Was Easy. But no one here really thinks of that song. The major hit from them that is played all the time here is New Orleans Ladies.
LeRoux - Wikipedia
Channel98
Don't yell or hit.
.....such as the first single by the Doors, a band that formed in Los Angeles, Break On Through reached #21 on the KHJ Boss 30 and #30 on the KFWB Fabulous Forty in March 1967. Nationally, it was on Billboard's Bubbling Under chart for only one week – at #126! Several singles by Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, the Seeds, the Merry-Go-Round and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band also did much better here in Los Angeles than nationally.
sadchild
Dude
Aerosmith "Dream On" was a regional hit first.
From Rolling Stone:
Tyler began writing this power ballad in his late teens. He was still at it in Aerosmith's early days, pounding a piano in the basement of the group's living quarters. "Dream On" was a huge regional hit in Boston when it was first released in 1973 but never made the national Top 40. An edited version finally reached the Top 10 in 1976, giving the band its breakthrough hit.
From Rolling Stone:
Tyler began writing this power ballad in his late teens. He was still at it in Aerosmith's early days, pounding a piano in the basement of the group's living quarters. "Dream On" was a huge regional hit in Boston when it was first released in 1973 but never made the national Top 40. An edited version finally reached the Top 10 in 1976, giving the band its breakthrough hit.
Speaking of Louisiana-based artists that might be OHWs, has anyone seen Better than Ezra on OHW lists?
sadchild
Dude
Yep
BTW they ARE technically one-hit wonders (going by the 'number of top 40s on the Hot 100' definition).
BTW they ARE technically one-hit wonders (going by the 'number of top 40s on the Hot 100' definition).
IdRatherBeSkiing
Sherbert is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
If it doesn't break the 40, I think you can say it's not a hit. Some could even argue if it's not top 20 it's not a hit.Yep
BTW they ARE technically one-hit wonders (going by the 'number of top 40s on the Hot 100' definition).
So you would say that none of the following are hits:
"Highway to Hell," AC/DC
"Changes," David Bowie
"Should I Stay or Should I Go," The Clash
"Don't Stop Me Now," Queen
"Tiny Dancer," Elton John
"All My Loving," The Beatles
"It's Raining Men," The Weather Girls (so The Weather Girls are no-hit wonders?)
"You Can't Always Get What You Want," The Rolling Stones
"Comfortably Numb," Pink Floyd
"Rebel Yell," Billy Idol
"Jeremy," Pearl Jam
"It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," R.E.M.
Not to mention every big country, soul, and rock hit that wasn't also a top 40 pop hit.
C'mon, man.
"Highway to Hell," AC/DC
"Changes," David Bowie
"Should I Stay or Should I Go," The Clash
"Don't Stop Me Now," Queen
"Tiny Dancer," Elton John
"All My Loving," The Beatles
"It's Raining Men," The Weather Girls (so The Weather Girls are no-hit wonders?)
"You Can't Always Get What You Want," The Rolling Stones
"Comfortably Numb," Pink Floyd
"Rebel Yell," Billy Idol
"Jeremy," Pearl Jam
"It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," R.E.M.
Not to mention every big country, soul, and rock hit that wasn't also a top 40 pop hit.
C'mon, man.
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IdRatherBeSkiing
Sherbert is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Yes. Ideally a negative for them.
IdRatherBeSkiing
Sherbert is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
I would not count other charts or other countries. The classification one-hit would be for a specific country on the billboard top 40 chart. If you start adding other countries and charts, you may as well just forget about the term.
I can agree to that.
IdRatherBeSkiing
Sherbert is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
There are lots of hits today than never even broke the top 40. They are played regularly today and most people assume they were huge hits at the time. Same can be said for top 20.
There is no absolute way to answer this. Most of those would be recognizable hits from today. But counting Michael Sembelos second hit which NOBODY remembers unless it is played on an AT40 does not make him a 2 hit wonder even though it cracked the top 40. In my book anyways. And I don't go by numbers but if you care going to use 40 it would be better to use 30 or 20. Less false positives.
Agree on no absolute way. The best "absolute" way I can think of is plays on Spotify. If someone's top 5 or 10 are all or mostly versions of the same song, then they are definitely a OHW. Some artists have classic hits that make people's playlists but not those of corporate radio. Some of those don't deserve the OHW label. Even this rule is highly subjective.
Back on topic: Here's another one for debate: Murray Head. Hint: He had a big hit with a song from a musical--from the 1970s.
scotchandcigar
All I wanted was some steak
There's a simple reality at play here. Pop songs are more appropriate for the billboard top 40. Rock songs aren't. If a pop song never did better than say 35, it probably wasn't ever a "hit". But I'm sure that many of the greatest rock songs ever, never did better than 35, if that.
That's why this thread exists. There's no absolute rule governing OHWs. You can make rules, and then include or exclude songs, but it will yield many stupid results. That's why we debate it. We were there when these songs hit the radio, so we can say something about how popular a song was, in it's time.
sadchild
Dude
@jbnv A while back I wrote a post which begins with "There's an article at Village Voice from 2012 discussing this at great length."
Your response was
If it is, and you didn't read it, I think you should. Because you've pretty much posted about everything covered in that article since.
You expressed frustration on trying to nail down how a OHW is defined (this in the article).
You argued that strictly using the top 40 of the Hot 100 is unacceptable because forgotten 2nd-hits make it so the act isn't a OHW even though they certainly fee like one (this is also in the article, and is the whole point of this thread).
You argued that some of the classic rock songs of all time aren't being called hits (this is also in the article, which asks if Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead are OHWs simply because they technically have only 1 top 40 pop hit).
So if you didn't read the article, you might enjoy it. It gets into detail about everything you're talking about.
Your response was
I took this as you didn't read my post or the article I quoted from. Is that the case?
If it is, and you didn't read it, I think you should. Because you've pretty much posted about everything covered in that article since.
You expressed frustration on trying to nail down how a OHW is defined (this in the article).
You argued that strictly using the top 40 of the Hot 100 is unacceptable because forgotten 2nd-hits make it so the act isn't a OHW even though they certainly fee like one (this is also in the article, and is the whole point of this thread).
You argued that some of the classic rock songs of all time aren't being called hits (this is also in the article, which asks if Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead are OHWs simply because they technically have only 1 top 40 pop hit).
So if you didn't read the article, you might enjoy it. It gets into detail about everything you're talking about.