Trivia: Artists only known for one song

[Cambus731]

Disagree with Kylie Minogue. She has had tons of hits in the UK.

 

[yorksrob]

Argh, don't throw that earworm at me at this time of night!

Classic Rock !

 

[Ashley Hill]

Can - I Want More. An unusual disco type record from the purveyors of Krautrock. Hit the charts in 1976.
Men Without Hats are mentioned here several times but were big in Canada and other countries.
The Human League Mk1 got to no.6 in 1982 with the re-issue of Being Boiled. Try getting that played on a request show!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Kylie Minogue - I Should Be So Lucky

This absolutely does not qualify, it's pretty obscure compared to her later work.

Also the reason I hold Pete Waterman in such low regard despite his rail enthusiast credentials!

 

[AY1975]

Argh, don't throw that earworm at me at this time of night!

I've just thought of another Christmas hit from the early '80s by a group not especially well known for any other songs: The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I've just thought of another Christmas hit from the early '80s by a group not especially well known for any other songs: The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping

As a bit of trivia, The Waitresses are unique in being a "One Hit Wonder" on both sides of the Atlantic.. but with different hits. In their homeland of the USA they're best known for "I Know What Boys Like".

If anyone hasn't already done so, check out the YouTuber Todd In The Shadows and his series "One Hit Wonderland" which covers many of the artists featured in the thread.

 

[Stan63]

There were lots of novelty records that could be on the list. 2 I had were:-

Napoleon XIV - They're coming to take me away
Mr Murray - Down came the rain.

The B side of the Napoleon XIV record was the same as the A side but completely backwards. Even the label was backwards.

Stan

 

[Acey]

Yes, according to Wikipedia they had three other UK top ten hits: Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend), FLM, and That's The Way It Is. Of those, I'd say Showing Out was their best known one.

Again "You're the Voice" was probably his best known song but he did have others such as Going Going Gone.

Here are a few more from the '80s:

Jona Lewie - Stop the Cavalry

Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Want to Have Fun

Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas?

Shakin' Stevens - Merry Christmas Everyone

Sinitta - He's Gotta Be So Macho

Kylie Minogue - I Should Be So Lucky

Cyndi Lauper also had a number 3 chart with" Time after Time" also " I drove all night and True Colours which were lesser hits !

 

[trebor79]

Slight variation on the theme, but these days Slade are almost universally known for that rubbish Christmas song that gets overplayed year after year. They have a really decent back catalogue and "My Oh My" is one of my favourite songs of all time.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Shakin' Stevens - Merry Christmas Everyone

I think Shakin' Stevens would be generally known for more than one song (at least amongst people old enough to have even heard of him ), and I'm not even sure I'd even put Merry Christmas Everyone as his best known hit - that surely has to be his cover of This Ole' House.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned these yet, but some others that come to my mind that I can't recall seeing in my skimming of this thread are:

Manhattan Transfer - known for Chanson d'Amour
Baccara - known for Yes Sir, I Can Boogie
The duet of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin - do I even need to name that song?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Feb 2023 ==

I also wonder about Bucks Fizz and the Human League. Both of those bands had quite a few hits during the 1980s, but I imagine quite a few people will just think of Making Your Mind Up (Bucks Fizz) and Don't You Want Me Baby (Human League) and not be that much aware of their other hits.

 

[Cdd89]

Maybe another interesting category is artists who were one hit wonders for more than 10 years, but who had a late second hit which ended their designation.

Back on topic, I am offering Fool’s Garden - Lemon Tree. Nobody seems to have heard of it, even though I swear it was never off the radio in 1995.

Other 90s ones from scrolling my playlist…
4 Non Blondes - What’s Up
Babybird - You’re Gorgeous
Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag
Eternal - I Wanna Be The Only One
Hanson - Mmmbop

 

[Big Tim]

I'd say some of the suggestions in the thread are starting to stray into the territory of "What hit single were bands / artists best known for" rather than the original topic of being "known only for one song".

For example, Eternal had over 20 UK Chart hits, including 11 which made the top 10! Similarly the earlier discussion on Kylie Minogue.

 

[adrock1976]

I think Shakin' Stevens would be generally known for more than one song (at least amongst people old enough to have even heard of him ), and I'm not even sure I'd even put Merry Christmas Everyone as his best known hit - that surely has to be his cover of This Ole' House.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned these yet, but some others that come to my mind that I can't recall seeing in my skimming of this thread are:

Manhattan Transfer - known for Chanson d'Amour
Baccara - known for Yes Sir, I Can Boogie
The duet of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin - do I even need to name that song?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Feb 2023 ==

I also wonder about Bucks Fizz and the Human League. Both of those bands had quite a few hits during the 1980s, but I imagine quite a few people will just think of Making Your Mind Up (Bucks Fizz) and Don't You Want Me Baby (Human League) and not be that much aware of their other hits.

Serge Gainsbourg is also famous for the interview he did live on TV in 1986 with Whitney Houston while he was totally drunk.

Gainsbourg was speaking in his native French with someone translating. As the interview progressed, he switched to a direct question in plain English with it being "I want to ___k you". After some gasps of shock, the translator said to Houston "He says you're great!".

 

[66701GBRF]

Scooter has had a few hits, though as they're all utter garbage and all sound pretty much the same I'll give you that one. 2-Unlimited likewise.
Robyn also had "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker" which was massive for a while.
For the B-52s I'd argue that Rock Lobster is just as well-known as Love Shack.
Space (assuming you're referring to the 90s Liverpool group) had a few hits from their debut album. I'd say "The Female of the Species" is their most well-known but they also had "Me & You Versus the World" which was pretty big at the time.

On the Subject of Robyn she also had Dancing On My Own and Handle Me.

 

[Lloyds siding]

Ah, but Jona Lewie had the classic "In the Kitchen at parties" as well !

He was also part of Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs, and wrote their hit 'Seaside Shuffle', which reached no. 2.

 

[AY1975]

Back on topic, I am offering Fool’s Garden - Lemon Tree. Nobody seems to have heard of it, even though I swear it was never off the radio in 1995.

Fool's Garden were a German group. I actually lived in Germany at that time and remember hearing it a lot there. Maybe they were better known in Germany than in the UK.

Another one, this time from the late '70s: Brian & Michael - Matchstalk Men & Matchstalk Cats & Dogs (a.k.a. Lowry's Song)

 

[Lloyds siding]

Barry Cryer: The Purple People Eater, apparently a number 1 in Finland!

It is perhaps unsurprising that the personnel of ' I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue' includes people famous for only one song.
Besides Barry Cryer, there's Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor and sometime panellist Bill Oddie, who as The Goodies had a hit with 'Funky Gibbon'.
Chairman Humphrey Lyttelton and his band had a hit with his own composition 'Bad Penny Blues'.
Colin Sell at the piano is notable for not having a hit...but his predecessor, Dave Lee wrote two hit singles 'Goodness Gracious Me' and 'Kinky Boots', but was not the artist that performed them.

 

[Gloster]

It is perhaps unsurprising that the personnel of ' I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue' includes people famous for only one song.
Besides Barry Cryer, there's Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor and sometime panellist Bill Oddie, who as The Goodies had a hit with 'Funky Gibbon'.
Chairman Humphrey Lyttelton and his band had a hit with his own composition 'Bad Penny Blues'.
Colin Sell at the piano is notable for not having a hit...but his predecessor, Dave Lee wrote two hit singles 'Goodness Gracious Me' and 'Kinky Boots', but was not the artist that performed them.

Colin Sell has had a hit…from Mrs Sell with a frying-pan when he came home with lipstick on his collar.

 

[Lloyds siding]

Colin Sell has had a hit…from Mrs Sell with a frying-pan when he came home with lipstick on his collar.

Indeed! I believe some of his performances have been disappointing: Samantha was uncomfortable with his 'Hair on a G-string'....

 

[MotCO]

We've had a letter flooding in from Mrs Trellis of North Wales. She asks if Juan Hit Wonder is any relation to Stevie Wonder....

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Babybird - You’re Gorgeous

If it were possible to surgically remove all memory of that song from my brain, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Something about the jangly instrumental always rubbed me up the wrong way.

They also had a hit with the much less annoying (but also less catchy) "The F Word" which was later used on one of Gordon Ramsay's TV shows, so probably rules them out of One Hit Wonder territory.

 

[yorksrob]

If it were possible to surgically remove all memory of that song from my brain, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Something about the jangly instrumental always rubbed me up the wrong way.

They also had a hit with the much less annoying (but also less catchy) "The F Word" which was later used on one of Gordon Ramsay's TV shows, so probably rules them out of One Hit Wonder territory.

I've always preferred "You're gormless" by The Shirehorses.

 

[gg1]

Alice Cooper - School's Out

Poison is the first song which springs to mind when I think of Alice Cooper.

 

[trebor79]

Poison is the first song which springs to mind when I think of Alice Cooper.

Same here. Awesome song too!

 

[Essan]

Poison is the first song which springs to mind when I think of Alice Cooper.

I'd forgotten about that one!

 

[317 forever]

I can see how when we only hear a limited number of songs we will in the case of several artists only know 1 song of theirs. As the title of this thread is about artists only known for 1 songs I am not correcting any entries that are not 1-hit wonders.

In a few cases I do know (and occasionally prefer) other songs by the artists than those mentioned.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Fool's Garden were a German group. I actually lived in Germany at that time and remember hearing it a lot there. Maybe they were better known in Germany than in the UK.

Talking of Germans and one-hit wonders - this goes back a long time, probably when @Taunton could still see Kings going past his mum's kitchen window - but I think Heinz and "Just like Eddie" would fit well in this thread. OR did he have any other hits?

 

[Gloster]

Talking of Germans and one-hit wonders - this goes back a long time, probably when @Taunton could still see Kings going past his mum's kitchen window - but I think Heinz and "Just like Eddie" would fit well in this thread. OR did he have any other hits?

He didn’t have any other solo hits, but he was part of the The Tornadoes when they did Telstar. He was born in Detmold, but brought up in Eastleigh.

 

[70014IronDuke]

He didn’t have any other solo hits, but he was part of the The Tornadoes when they did Telstar. He was born in Detmold, but brought up in Eastleigh.

Ha ha! Love the Eastleigh bit! I didn't know he was part of the Tornadoes - or perhaps I did at the time, but forgot. I thought he was echte Deutsch.

 

[Taunton]

Talking of Germans and one-hit wonders - this goes back a long time, probably when @Taunton could still see Kings going past his mum's kitchen window - but I think Heinz and "Just like Eddie" would fit well in this thread. OR did he have any other hits?

Apart from the trivia that the line was a 10-minute walk from the house ( ), you are spot on with the date, as he and the Tornados were at their peak in 1962, the Kings' last year. Heinz Burt, and to an extent the entire Tornados setup, were the creation of producer Joe Meek, and appear on most of his material recorded in the infamous upper flat on Holloway Road in London, which I still look out for when passing and have pointed out to a couple of music aficionados. So not a one-hit-wonder at all. Regarding Eastleigh, I believe he was born in Germany in WW2, his father was killed, and his family took up with a British occupation soldier and moved to Britain when he was very young. If from Eastleigh his step-father might have even been railway staff, doing National Service.

Telstar LP is up in my attic! Alas, no turntable for many years.