{"id":571989,"date":"2026-05-07T23:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/571989\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T23:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:55:17","slug":"the-10-biggest-one-hit-wonders-in-pop-music-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/571989\/","title":{"rendered":"The 10 biggest one-hit wonders in pop music history"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Radicals \u2013 \u2018You Get What You Give\u2019\"New<\/p>\n

The New Radicals may be in luck yet, as indie revivers Geese<\/a> recently covered this song and thrust it back into the modern zeitgeist. Suddenly, Cameron Winter\u2019s adoring fans are playing their version on repeat, ruminating over what a genius cover choice it was and how the original is one of the truly great alternative tracks of the 1990s.<\/p>\n

But before the indie saviours got their hands on it and made it a cult classic, the band were solely in the business of making a one-hit wonder to secure their future. The band\u2019s writer Gregg Alexander conceded, \u201cI enjoy watching it climb up the chart\u2026 I\u2019m ready to be carted around like a piece of meat. You have to cut a deal with the machine and be thrown to the wolves\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Natalie Imbruglia \u2013 \u2018Torn\u2019\"Natalie<\/p>\n

After releasing \u2018Torn\u2019 in 1997, Imbruglia\u2019s finest artistic moment came six years later, when she starred opposite Rowan Atkinson<\/a> in Johnny English. OK, maybe that is a little harsh, considering she had something of a music career in between that, but really, it never got as notable as it did on that 1997 track.<\/p>\n

Maybe it was because of how long the song waited until it became a public hit. The song\u2019s writer, Phil Thornalley, actually wrote it in the back end of the \u201880s and went through rounds and rounds of rejections before it landed in Imbruglia\u2019s lap. She performed it and made it her own, but was ultimately cursed by its long-awaited exposure and never made a musical dent quite like it thereafter.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Wheatus \u2013 \u2018Teenage Dirtbag\u2019\"Brendan<\/p>\n

Wheatus\u2019 soppy teenage indie hit taps into that feeling we all want to be true. That somewhere within us lies an underdog who, at the opportune moment, can overcome any of the societal hurdles placed in front of us and become the hero. The sing-along moment this song provided captured that atmosphere and became the soundtrack to any modern David vs Goliath storylines<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But in the three-minute runtime of \u2018Teenage Dirtbag\u2019, Wheatus were no longer the Davids they hoped to portray. A cover of Erasure\u2019s \u2018A Little Respect\u2019 got them to the number three spot, but their third single, a double A-side of \u2018Leroy\u2019 and \u2018Wannabe Gangstar\u2019, started their steady decline and saw them become a band remembered for just one song only.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Vanessa Carlton \u2013 \u2018A Thousand Miles\u2019\"Vanessa<\/p>\n

Sometimes, all the musical world is one artist alone with their instrument, pouring their heart out and making a stadium gig feel like an intimate small room performance. Vanessa Carlton managed to tap into this desire by positioning herself as a heart-wrenched songwriter, pouring it all into the piano upon which she wrote the melody. <\/p>\n

Its one-hit wonder status requires a lot less head scratching than most of the others. It\u2019s a simple song of longing, laid on top of a relatively inoffensive piano melody; perhaps the only confusion comes from why this song, as opposed to the countless others like it? Well, its use in the cult film White Chicks<\/a> certainly helped it along the way, with the hyper-masculine Terry Crews singing along to it and thus proving it really is a song for everyone.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Gotye \u2013 \u2018Somebody That I Used to Know\u2019\"Gotye<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was to become a one-hit-wonder, I\u2019d be in some good company,\u201d Gotye once said, in response to the bemusing and overwhelming success of his 2011 hit. So clearly he anticipated being bundled onto a list like this when his folk-tinged pop hit stormed to the top of the charts and soundtracked a rather bizarre period in mainstream music.<\/p>\n

In the 2010s<\/a>, music didn\u2019t know if it was coming or going, staying with the authenticity of live instrumentation or diving headfirst into the artifice of EDM. There was no real identity to pop music in that year, and so \u2018Somebody That I Used to Know\u2019 served as a perfect soundtrack to a musical world in limbo, slipping through the cracks and becoming an unlikely hit. So unlikely, in fact, Gotye simply didn\u2019t know how to follow it up.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Dexys Midnight Runners \u2013 \u2018Come On Eileen\u2019\"The<\/p>\n

While the band had several other hits in the UK, this served as their major breakout in the US, hitting the Billboard number-one spot, and even though they garnered some domestic popularity, there are many Dexys Midnight Runners gigs where large portions of the crowd go to sing along to the chorus of the one song they know. In fact, a large portion of those fans probably only know the three words, for the catchiness of the song comes less from the lyrics, but from the melody and rhythm, which rang through the global music consciousness like a football terrace anthem<\/a>. <\/p>\n

And the band knew it, as Kevin Rowland explained, \u201cLots of records we liked had that \u2018Bomp ba bomp, bomp ba bomp\u2019. We felt it was a good rhythm. We came up with the chord sequence ourselves and just started singing melodies over it. I remember thinking, \u2018We\u2019re really onto something here\u2019. I came up with that, \u2018Too ra loo ra\u2019, and I remember thinking, \u2018Wow, this is sounding really good\u2019. You get a feeling when you\u2019re writing a song. Something happens. And in the end, it kind of finished itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Proclaimers \u2013 \u2018I\u2019m Gonna Be (500 Miles)\u2019\"The<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an ease to listening to a one-hit wonder, a familiarity that doesn\u2019t challenge the mind but instead infects it<\/a>, and has you singing the melody within seconds of hearing it. Most of those have been conjured up with similar efficiency, almost like they fell out of the sky and onto the lap of a musician, whose sole job was to deliver it to the public. <\/p>\n

That was the case for The Proclaimers, whose endearing yet wildly simple hit was written out of simplicity also, as Craig Reid explained, \u201cI can remember sitting at the piano, and the chords just came to me. I reckon I just wrote the whole thing in 45 minutes. I knew that it was a good song, maybe even a single, but I had no idea how popular it would become.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Vanilla Ice \u2013 \u2018Ice Ice Baby\u2019\"Vanilla<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not groundbreaking to claim that the success of a one-hit wonder is firmly rooted in the catchiness of its hooks. A small note sequence, often delivered through the vocals, worms its way so far into your ear that it becomes a part of your vocabulary. I\u2019m sure there are children on this earth who managed to conjure up the melody of Vanilla Ice\u2019s famous chorus before they could even utter their first word.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s also because of its rather overt sample use. Despite never getting permission to do so, Vanilla Ice sampled the 1980 song<\/a> \u2018Under Pressure\u2019 by Queen and David Bowie and ultimately tapped into the musical subconscious of a rock-loving world and dragged them over to his world of pop crossed with rap.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A-ha \u2013 \u2018Take On Me\u2019\"A-ha<\/p>\n

This was a track that saw the emerging worlds of music video<\/a> converge with a chart-topping success. This dramatic piece, in which the protagonist, A-ha\u2019s lead singer Morten Harket, is beckoned by a cartoon figure who wants him to join them inside the comic, is a suitably ambitious video attempt for a decade obsessed with the new technology at their disposal. <\/p>\n

Then, of course, there was the high note. The vocal crescendo that simply infected the ear of every listener and had them desperately trying to replicate it as a symptom. Its one-hit wonder status is largely rooted in its enduring popularity at karaoke bars, and despite carefully trying to replicate that, A-ha simply never could.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Chumbawamba \u2013 \u2018Tubthumping\u2019\"Chumbawamba<\/p>\n

When I say a one-hit wonder plagues the primary school disco like no other song, I have Chumbawamba\u2019s \u2018Tubthumping\u2019 solely in mind. The halcyon days of my life were spent dancing to this song in a flame-printed shirt, before stomping over to the tuck shop to raid them of their fizzy laces. In many ways, it\u2019s the soundtrack of \u201890s pop bliss. <\/p>\n

But maybe the reason why it catapulted the band to the top of the charts, after years of toiling away, was its movement in them finally \u2018selling out\u2019. After building up a pretty solid revolutionary reputation<\/a> for songs that contributed to a compilation named Fuck EMI, the band then signed with EMI to release this and ultimately saw them giving in to the glossy opportunity of chart success.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Radicals \u2013 \u2018You Get What You Give\u2019 The New Radicals may be in luck yet, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[195717,96,128,122855,195718,76710,56,135,54,55,120481,143407,195719],"class_list":["post-571989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-dexys-midnight-runners","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-natalie-imbruglia","tag-the-new-radicals","tag-the-proclaimers","tag-uk","tag-uk-charts","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-charts","tag-vanilla-ice","tag-wheatus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}