Since the birth of the UK singles chart in November 1952, there have been hundreds of artists who have reached the heady heights of the Top 20 just once. From The Archies to Toni Basil to Cornershop, these one hit wonders have become an intrinsic part of the ever changing, ever spinning zeitgeist of UK pop history, so much so that here at Green Inc we felt like it was time to celebrate that history and let you know our own favourites. Not that it has been quite as easy as you might think, mainly because everyone has their own idea of what constitutes a one hit wonder in the first place. The truth is that most one hit wonders aren’t one hit wonders at all!
While there is no such thing as a definitive list, in a 2016 poll of this nations favourites, The Buggles ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’, The Proclaimers ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ and Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ all figured prominently, not to mention Terry Jacks ‘Seasons In The Sun’, Shakespears Sister’s ‘Stay’, EMF’s ‘Unbelievable’, Hanson’s ‘MMMBop’ and Musical Youth’s ‘Pass The Dutchie’. And yet, without exception, all of those artists had at least one or more other entries in the Top 20 to add to their more infamous hit. As we soon discovered, the problem was that whether by accident or a deliberate twisting of the facts, every one hit wonders list we came across used a different set of rules, and in a lot of cases, no rules at all.
By far the most obvious workable definition we came across appeared in journalist Wayne Jancik’s 1998 Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders in which he defined a one hit wonder as an artist who reached the Top 40 just once. As this methodology had also been used by the Official UK Charts Company we opted for the same definition, but with a few minor tweaks of our own:
Rule 1. To narrow down the field and focus on the very best of the best, we only considered artists who reached the UK Top 20 once as opposed to the Top 40. After all, a song that gets to #40 can hardly be considered a hit can it, unless……
Rule 2. Due to its continued radio presence and mainstream popularity we believed a song had been a huge hit only to find when we checked the facts that it had failed to make the Top 20, or in Sniff ‘n’ The Tears case, not even the Top 40.
Rule 3. Last but not least, we also included artists who had been members of a group with a Top 20 hit or had featured on collaborations that had done likewise.
Perhaps not surprisingly, given how we selected one song per year from 1970 to 2019 to give us our 50 favourites, our final selection covered a multitude of styles and genres ranging from meaningless pop fluff to the ultra-political and all points inbetween. Not that our focus was just on the songs that helped to shape the eras they charted in. Equally important was how memorable, ubiquitous and brilliant they still are. By enacting that balance, we believe we’ve created a comprehensive playlist of one hit wonders that paints its own idiosyncratic portrait of the last five decades of UK popular music culture!
NB: # denotes a songs highest UK chart position, the date its UK chart debut.
1. CLARENCE CARTER ‘Patches’ (#2 October 1970)
2. CURVED AIR ‘Backstreet Luv’ (#4 August 1971)
3. FREDERICK KNIGHT ‘I’ve Been Lonely For So Long’ (#22 June 1972)
4. TIMMY THOMAS ‘Why Can’t We Live Together’ (#12 February 1973)
5. RONNIE LANE ‘How Come’ (#11 January 1974)
6. JIM CAPALDI ‘Love Hurts’ (#4 October 1975)
7. YVONNE FAIR ‘It Should Have Been Me’ (#5 January 1976)
8. MR BIG ‘Romeo’ (#4 February 1977)
9. CLOUT ‘Substitute’ (#2 June 1978)
10. SNIFF ’N’ THE TEARS ‘Drivers Seat’ (#42 June 1979)
11. THE LOOK ‘I Am The Beat’ (#6 December 1980)
12. SUSAN FASSBENDER ‘Twilight Café’ (#21 January 1981)
13. ADRIAN GURVITZ ‘Classic’ (#8 January 1982)
14. THE ASSEMBLY ‘Never Never’ (#4 November 1983)
15. THOMAS DOLBY ‘Hyperactive!’ (#17 January 1984)
16. THE COLOURFIELD ‘Thinking Of You’ (#12 January 1985)
17. DOUBLE ‘The Captain Of Her Heart’ (#8 January 1986)
18. WAX ‘Bridge To Your Heart’ (#12 August 1987)
19. DESIRELESS ‘Voyage Voyage’ (#5 May 1988)
20. REDHEAD KINGPIN & THE FBI ‘Do The Right Thing’ (#13 July 1989)
21. SOHO ‘Hippychick’ (#8 May 1990)
22. DEFINITION OF SOUND ‘Wear Your Love Like Heaven’ (#17 March 1991)
23. URBAN HYPE ‘A Trip To Trumpton’ (#6 July 1992)
24. STAKKA BO ‘Here We Go’ (#13 September 1993)
25. MARCELLA DETROIT ‘I Believe’ (#11 March 1994)
26. ECHOBELLY ‘Great Things’ (#13 September 1995)
27. SPACEHOG ‘In The Meantime’ (#29 December 1996)
28. WHITE TOWN ‘Your Woman’ (#1 January 1997)
29. TOUCH & GO ‘Would You…?’ (#3 November 1998)
30. BRAN VAN 3000 ‘Drinking In L.A.’ (#3 August 1999)
31. BLACK LEGEND ‘You See The Trouble With Me’ (#1 June 2000)
32. GENIUS CRU ‘Boom Selection’ (#12 February 2001)
33. AQUALUNG ‘Strange And Beautiful’ (#7 September 2002)
34. CAESARS ‘Jerk It Out’ (#8 April 2003)
35. ANNIE ‘Chewing Gum’ (#25 September 2004)
36. BODYROCKERS ‘I Like The Way’ (#3 April 2005)
37. PARIS HILTON ‘Stars Are Blind’ (#5 August 2006)
38. FEIST ‘1234’ (#8 September 2007)
39. SAM SPARRO ‘Black & Gold’ (#2 March 2008)
40. THE TEMPER TRAP ‘Sweet Disposition’ (#6 August 2009)
41. OWL CITY ‘Fireflies’ (#1 January 2010)
42. FOSTER THE PEOPLE ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ (#18 July 2011)
43. OF MONSTERS AND MEN ‘Little Talks’ (#12 August 2012)
44. VANCE JOY ‘Riptide’ (#10 December 2013)
45. LILLY WOOD & THE PRICK ‘Prayer In C’ [Robin Schultz Remix] (#1 September 2014)
46. SAYGRACE FEAT. G-EAZY ‘You Don’t Own Me’ (#14 December 2015)
47. ELLE KING ‘Ex’s & Oh’s’ (#15 January 2016)
48. PORTUGAL.THE MAN ‘Feel It Still’ (#3 August 2017)
49. CHILDISH GAMBINO ‘This Is America’ (#6 May 2018)
50. DOMINIC FIKE ‘3 Nights’ (#3 May 2019)
