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Sentimental yet sardonic [userpic]

The Top Ten Greatest One Hit Wonders

May 9th, 2007 (11:13 am)
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As voted upon in some online survey somewhere that I cannot currently locate.

1 : Chesney Hawkes - The One and Only
2 : The Weather Girls - It's Raining Men
3 : The Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star
4 : Nena - 99 Red Balloons
5 : Europe - The Final Countdown
6 : Lou Bega - Mambo No. 5
7 : Millie - My Boy Lollipop
8 : Richard Harris - Macarthur Park
9 : The Rembrandts - I'll Be There For You
10 : Cornershop - Brimful of Asha

My ipod only has six of those on it thankfully. Of course, they're the first six, so I think my Geek Score is still reasonably high. :(

What about you?

Comments

Posted by: Daveosaurus (southerndave)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 10:40 am (UTC)
 music

wonders if he should admit to remembering the other Buggles single

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Posted by: Sentimental yet sardonic (booster17)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 10:49 am (UTC)
 Wes Insanity

*does NOT have a cassette copy of Europe's album anywhere*

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Posted by: CamperX (camperx)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 11:00 am (UTC)

I'm not so keen on the list, honestly. There are few other tunes I would put up there instead. In no particular order:

In A Big Country - Big Country
Come Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners
Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye - Steam
Rock On - David Essex (granted, he had some minor succss in the UK, but still)
Funkytown - Lipps, Inc.
Turning Japanese - The Vapors
Rapper's Delight - Sugar Hill Gang
Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia) - US3
Puttin' on the Ritz - Taco
Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood

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Posted by: CamperX (camperx)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 11:02 am (UTC)

Eep! Just had a mental flashback of "I Ran" by Flock of Seagulls, and "Word Up" by Cameo.

*Shivers*

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Posted by: Daveosaurus (southerndave)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 07:53 pm (UTC)

I thought "Wishing" was a bigger hit than "I Ran". This was a quarter of a century ago so my memory may be slipping a bit. It was certainly a more interesting song, anyway.

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Posted by: Sentimental yet sardonic (booster17)
Posted at: May 10th, 2007 01:52 am (UTC)

Wishing was definitely bigger over here, and I suspect I may have missed I Ran completely until the late 90's when I went looking for Wishing. I certainly don't remember hearing it much before then.

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Posted by: Daveosaurus (southerndave)
Posted at: May 10th, 2007 05:17 am (UTC)

Both "I Ran" and "Wishing" were minor hits over here. There was at least one other single in between them - "Space Age Love Song" - which I didn't think much of.

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Posted by: Sentimental yet sardonic (booster17)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 11:07 am (UTC)

Frankie Goes to Hollywood had several hits, so I wouldn't put them up there, but definitely agree on Funkytown and Turning Japanese.

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Posted by: CamperX (camperx)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 11:18 am (UTC)

I'm thinking more about the US charts. "Two Tribes", "The Power of Love", and "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" were pretty much UK-only hits.

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Posted by: Daveosaurus (southerndave)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 07:46 pm (UTC)
 music

The first two were also #1 hits in New Zealand.

is not actually happy about that because he didn't actually like their music that much...

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Posted by: Speaker-to-Customers (speakr2customrs)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 11:48 am (UTC)
 Big Country

In A Big Country - Big Country

No way! Certainly it is the best by far of all the singles mentioned here but they were not even close to being one hit wonders. Big Country had at least eleven UK Top 40 hits and 'In A Big Country' wasn't even their biggest hit - that was 'Look Away' in 1986.

Dexy's Midnight Runners had too many UK Top 10 singles for me to count, and Frankie Goes To Hollywood had 3 consecutive UK number ones, a number two, and a number four.

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Posted by: CamperX (camperx)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 12:22 pm (UTC)

Again, I was thinking more of the US charts. It's kinda like Anastasia - really big in Europe, but "I'm Outta Love" was the only single that did reasonably well in the US.

Sorry if I seem a bit provincial, but the US charts are the ones I'm most familiar with.

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Posted by: Sentimental yet sardonic (booster17)
Posted at: May 10th, 2007 01:51 am (UTC)

I think the original list was highly UK biased to be fair. But it's always fascinating to see just which artists you assume are famous in other countries just... well, aren't.

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Posted by: Daveosaurus (southerndave)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 07:51 pm (UTC)

Re: Dexy's, I've actually been finding "Geno" on compilations more often than "Come On Eileen" lately.

Like the icon a lot.

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Posted by: Sentimental yet sardonic (booster17)
Posted at: May 10th, 2007 01:54 am (UTC)

Frankie on that list was a big surprise to me, but I'm more shocked that Strawberry Switchblade never made it onto the original (obviously British biased) list.

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Posted by: Jen (tthjinni)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 04:05 pm (UTC)

I think I like your list better. I have 6 of those, compared to only 4 of the other. LoL.

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Posted by: uninvitedCat (uninvitedcat)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 12:33 pm (UTC)
 MephS

I don't think I've got any of those on my ipod. Of course, it's a shuffle, and therefore only ever has a subset of my total music collection, but under your defined rules I'm fine. w00t!

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Posted by: Sentimental yet sardonic (booster17)
Posted at: May 10th, 2007 01:48 am (UTC)
 BSG Starbuck Frak! [brendanm720]

Soooo... I should ask again in a couple of months then?

....or just rephrase the question to include your home computer's files?

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Posted by: uninvitedCat (uninvitedcat)
Posted at: May 10th, 2007 09:19 pm (UTC)

I think to reach the point of me owning two or three of those you'd have to include the files on Randall, my CD collection that hasn't yet been ripped and all music on my DVD collection!

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Posted by: Spectacularly Adequate Empress (empressvesica)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 01:34 pm (UTC)

Only the first six? Seriously?

9 : The Rembrandts - I'll Be There For You??

I'm coming over to revoke your DVDs right this minute. :P

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Posted by: Sentimental yet sardonic (booster17)
Posted at: May 10th, 2007 01:47 am (UTC)
 Bouncy Ball

It's not on my ipod because I've heard it way too many times already.

Way, way too many.

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Posted by: Jen (tthjinni)
Posted at: May 9th, 2007 04:04 pm (UTC)

I've only got 4 of those. Most of the others I don't know if I've ever even *heard* before.

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Posted by: Sentimental yet sardonic (booster17)
Posted at: May 10th, 2007 01:47 am (UTC)
 What the Bork? [jennymalfoy]

*pokes* Which 4?

*is all curious*

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Posted by: Jen (tthjinni)
Posted at: May 10th, 2007 01:50 am (UTC)

3, 4, 6 & 9

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