Check this link out, from Salon.com, featuring 80 great ’80’s “one-hit” wonders:
After seeing the list, I know what some of you may be thinking as it certainly entered my mind: Some of the mentioned bands/artists were hardly “one-hit” wonders. While it is true some of them charted perhaps one “big” hit within the US, they may have had great success outside our country. So, bear in mind this list is rather US-centric.
Having said that, its an interesting list and features some really good (and some I’d rather forget! 😉 )1980’s tunes.
Naturally, it makes me want to add a few of my own.
I won’t adhere to the “one-hit” wonder notion, rather mention bands/artists that to me were mostly about one really great song, even if they charted with others.
Let’s begin with Red Rider’s Lunatic Fringe. The band had other songs that charted both in the US and outside and singer Tom Cochrane had a big solo hit with Life is a Highway, but this song, to me, was their best, most famous work:
Next up, Aldo Nova’s Fantasy. Cheesy, cheesy, CHEESY video, but I always liked the song. Once again, Aldo Nova had a few other songs that charted, but it is Fantasy that I remember him best for.
I lived in Canada briefly in the mid-1980’s and I really enjoyed Parachute Club’s Feet of the Moon. Parachute Club’s success was almost entirely limited to their home country and they charted a little higher there with the song Rise Up, but to me, this was their most memorable song:
Golden Earring has been around forever (they first formed in 1961!!!!) and are best known in the US for the excellent 1973 mega-hit Radar Love, but nearly a decade later in 1982 they had a second memorably big US hit with the moody, thrilling Twilight Zone…
Man, I could go on, but the hour is getting late and I’ve got work to do. Perhaps I’ll revisit this list and provide a few more (not quite) one-hit wonders of the 1980’s!