Are "one-hit wonders" a thing of the past?

there should be three classes really (true one-hit / big hit + forgotten followup / absolutely not one-hit despite what Americans think)

Yeah, this one of those perennial normie podcast type discussions* - like the definition of "novelty song," and who belongs in the RRHOF.

(*which I enjoy!)

wikipedia sez "A one-hit wonder is a musical artist who is successful with one hit song, but without a comparable subsequent hit.[1] The term may also be applied to an artist who is remembered for only one hit despite other successes"

ah-ha get the distinction of inspiring that second sentence

I absolutely misinterpreted one-hit wonder as "novelty song" at the beginning of this thread.

I feel like YouTube makes it weird, like Lil Nas X's new video is getting so much hype but at the end of the day, 10 years from now no one is going to give a shit about that song, Old Town Road is going to be what people think of

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, April 1, 2021 4:15 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

don't necessarily disagree about the overall gist, but "montero" is also the #1 song on spotify with 2.35 million streams per day (700k more than justin bieber's new monstrosity, which is in turn 700k more than the #3, cardi b's "up")

Eh I dunno if that song has legs ok but I doubt it

It's way easy to rack up curiosity streams or on a big pop or rap playlist, way different than someone going to a store

Also a lot of people go to the US charts playlist so it's sort of a self fulfilling prophecy

yeah I haven't watched the video yet but probably will at some point despite not caring for OTR

yeah idk if the song will stand the test of time or whatever (if lil nas keeps up his popularity, it will probably live on as an important moment in his career), but i think it's likely a multi-week number one, and it's not just youtube

xp

ah-ha get the distinction of inspiring that second sentence

^ classic "absolutely not one-hit despite what Americans think." A-Ha had at least a dozen international hit singles in their first few years, and occasional top tens for two decades afterward

I think it has to be a territory-specific consideration. Right Said Fred were also true one-hit wonders in the US, but not the UK (etc.)

chart positions seem like kind of a bad way to classify this, a follow-up single that hits #4 then falls off the next week is something no one's gonna remember the next year. and a lot of well-known stuff never really charted well at all, for example I learned the other day that ELP's highest charting hit here was "From the Beginning" which hit #39

indeed "Old Town Road" was the song that got me thinking about this since it's the closest thing to the 90's-style great crossover novelty hit I can think of. obv he's super good at social media and I think that factors into it a lot. like "Old Town Road" obviously is great but the way he kept dropping new remixes and teasing a big budget video (which came out after it already spent a couple months at #1 iirc) felt like a new paradigm for how things are gonna work now. his strategy now seems to be dropping short clips of upcoming songs to build up hype making it an event when the full song/video actually does come out. kinda feels like how everyone went bonkers over 15 seconds of "Get Lucky" playing during an SNL commercial...maybe that's the way to do it in 2021

sic, to be fair, this was the article I was quoting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_one-hit_wonders_in_the_United_States

sic, to be fair,

^new board description ;)

chart positions seem like kind of a bad way to classify this, a follow-up single that hits #4 then falls off the next week is something no one's gonna remember the next year.

sure, but lil nas x looks like he's gonna have another multi-week #1 less than two years after spending 18 straight weeks at #1.

Eh I dunno if that song has legs ok but I doubt it

It's way easy to rack up curiosity streams or on a big pop or rap playlist, way different than someone going to a store

Also a lot of people go to the US charts playlist so it's sort of a self fulfilling prophecy

i mean all this one hit wonder talk aside, comparing pre- and post-streaming charts just doesn't work

xp
hm that post is suspiciously similar to your previous hit post

Let's wait until we say RIP to Olivia Rodrigo.

yeah M@tt just dropped a radio edit and expects it to count as a second hit

I think it has to be a territory-specific consideration. Right Said Fred were also true one-hit wonders in the US, but not the UK (etc.)

only as long as the US is excluded from being one of the territories considered

chart positions seem like kind of a bad way to classify this, a follow-up single that hits #4 then falls off the next week is something no one's gonna remember the next year.

yeah, that's a prime example of why you need the subdivisions. Morrissey-style placing on the follow-up single doesn't even count as a run-off hit.

on the other hand, it's hegemoniacal American radio playlisting that consigns many genuine follow-up hits to the memory hole

haha sorry my phone is weird

I did think of a genuine recent one hit wonder!

Desiigner - Panda

even desiigner had a slight follow-up hit (timmy timmy timmy turner)

silento (watch me whip!), now that dude was a one-hit wonder.

omi - cheerleader, another genuine one-hit wonder

This was certainly a one hit wonder, only in Japan though I guess. Wikipedia lists no less than 6 follow-up singles, none of which charted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct6BUPvE2sM

did ilovemakkonen ever do anything else?

i don't sell molly no more is a stone cold classic

Well, I’ll be very surprised if that “Wellerman” fella has another hit, so

TBH Tones and I is a one hit wonder outside of Australia by any meaningful definition of the word. Though it's still early for her.

Also, Dram/Shelley is totally a one hit wonder. Yes, "Cash Machine" has 27 million Youtube views but that compares to 417M for "Broccoli" and he has never had any other song chart, not even on the rap charts.

Drake disappears a lot of rappers after stealing their life essence for hits of his own, it's true.

This was certainly a one hit wonder, only in Japan though I guess. Wikipedia lists no less than 6 follow-up singles, none of which charted.

^^ Pikotaro - PPAP (Pen Pineapple Apple Pen)

just listened to this for the first time, it rules

show it to a 6-year old and you'll get to hear it every single day of the year

another 2013 one - Magic!

another 2013 one - Magic!

I wish it were true: two platinum and one gold followup singles.

2015: Rachel Platten & "Fight Song"...the follow-up went #1 Adult Contemporary but only #37 Pop, and subsequent follow-ups only got to #21 & #17 A/C.

there's a decent number of acts that have one huge crossover pop hit then only impact alternative or adult contemporary radio from there on out. besides rachel platten there's also, like, lukas graham or walk the moon.

a few who were truly never heard from again after their big hit (at least in the states/to my knowledge):

Nico & Vinz - Am I Wrong
Kent Jones - Don't Mind
Arizona Zervas - Roxanne

these are recent enough that it's not a sure thing, but...

SAINt JHN - Roses
Lil Mosey - Blueberry Faygo
24kGoldn ft. Iann Dior - Mood <--- i know, i know, this was a huge song but the two artists are struggling to make anything else connect whatsoever despite both being basically an a&r's wet dream

(technically arizona zervas is quite recent too but i feel fairly confident in saying no one will ever care about anything he releases again)

artists that some would hesitate to label one hit wonders b/c 'real music':

Hozier - Take Me To Church
Portugal. The Man - Feel It Still

artists who probably wouldn't have even gotten the first hit w/o the assist from the non-one-hit-wonder featured act:

Natalie La Rose ft. Jeremih - Somebody
R. City ft. Adam Levine - Locked Away

dyl takes this thread home!

btw it's stagnation primarily at radio, not streaming, that has made it so difficult to break new artists in the states these days. i would argue that if radio had not decided to basically ignore the streaming charts around 2015 or whenever, they would probably have had a healthier turnover of hits in the past several years -- and gosh, maybe the top 40 format wouldn't be hemorrhaging younger listeners and declining in ratings every year for the past half-decade.

as it is now, as a new artist you have to break out with something as massive as like "mood" or "drivers license" in order for radio to get on-board in a remotely timely fashion -- hits big enough that a semi-successful followup is nearly assured. (btw, olivia rodrigo's new song is out today. i haven't heard it yet, but even if it sucks it'll probably do something.)

the ones screwed over by this arrangement are ppl like, idk, trevor daniel, who gain some mid-tier but respectable momentum arising from their social media (tiktok) + streaming virality but only reach medium rotation at radio like 5 months later after the pd bozos' audience research finally comes back and informs them that shocker, the hit song is indeed a hit song, and meanwhile the streaming kids have already moved on. followup single comes out and, oops, no one cares anymore. tate mcrae's "you broke me first" is at peak exposure on the radio right now when it should have been like three months ago if not even earlier. does she even have a chance at a semi-successful followup?

Was sceptical about this premise, but after looking at this list there may be a good point here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_one-hit_wonders_on_the_UK_Singles_Chart

This is quite a run of one-hit wonders in just two years, and nothing since then

Storm Queen 16 November 2013 "Look Right Through"
Sam Bailey 28 December 2013 "Skyscraper"
Route 94 15 March 2014 "My Love"
Borgeous 22 March 2014 "Tsunami (Jump)"
Magic! 9 August 2014 "Rude"
Nico & Vinz 16 August 2014 "Am I Wrong"
Lilly Wood 6 September 2014 "Prayer in C"
David Zowie 16 July 2015 "House Every Weekend"
Rachel Platten 3 September 2015 "Fight Song"

I think this might just be a side effect of less artists being in the charts, 2015 is (iirc) the time when streaming started to be significantly included in the figures and we went from having 45-or-so number ones per year to 15-or-so.

iHeart needs to die before airplay charts will feel adventurous again.

Which will probably take a while since the three labels seem pretty content with their current system of "career artist investment only."

There were a handful of one-album-wonders in the 2010s -- Fetty Wap comes to mind. But this is mostly a dead concept as well.

I've gotten the impression that Makonnen has been pretty prolific as a behind-the-scenes writer for others. And he did a record with Lil Peep.

And I feel like DRAM has a crossover fan base regardless of huge hits (between the Badu collab, Tiny Desk, etc).

I hate the assumption that having one giant hit confers a responsibility to continue having giant hits, and that it's somehow shameful if lightning doesn't strike twice.

Also I feel like streaming + algorithms has made it *more* likely to have one unrepeatable hit, since something can blow up on TikTok or whatever and listeners may have no interest in following an artist, or even know who the artist is. Everything's just a song on a playlist.

Also there are huge streaming hits with millions of plays that will never make radio.

The landscape just feels more adventurous and exciting when a handful of breakthrough artists can emerge every couple months in a way that hints at a broadly shared experience. Whether or not they can repeat their success shouldn't matter; if people like the music they'll continue listening.