What's So Bad About a One-Hit Wonder?

Since last week’s MTV entry went over so well, I thought I’d do another larger entry focusing on one aspect of ‘90s music. This week, I’m going to plunge headfirst into the magic behind your favorite (okay, mostly my favorite) one-hit wonders!

What Is a One-Hit Wonder?

This may seem like a question with an obvious answer, but sometimes one-hit wonders get a little complicated. What exactly counts as a one-hit wonder? The default answer is an artist with only one major hit song. But some artists categorized as one-hit wonders actually have more than one hit.

“This is blasphemy!” you shout to no one in particular. Well, it’s really not blasphemy—it’s just convenient to lump artists with a similar history into one big category. Plenty of ‘90s artists are one-hit wonders on a technicality.

So let’s broaden the definition a bit:

One-hit wonder (n.) – 1) an artist with only one Top 40 hit song; 2) an artist with one hit song that overshadows the rest of their work

Basically, some of the artists I’m going to mention technically have more than one successful song, but only one of those hits really defines them (i.e. Toadies had three hits, but most people only remember “Possum Kingdom,” so they’re a one-hit wonder).

Now that we’ve got that sorted out, let’s talk about some specific one-hit wonders!

The “Novelty” Hits

I’m using the term “novelty” here quite loosely, as the word implies a certain level of comedy. I tend to categorize songs that don’t seem 100% serious as novelty songs, and plenty of one-hit wonders fit quite comfortably into this category.

So the “novelty” hits of the ‘90s include Aqua’s “Barbie Girl,” Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” and Rednex’s “Cotton Eye Joe.” These are typically the one-hit wonders most people remember because most of them were beyond annoying. Oh, and that also includes Los Del Rio’s “The Macarena.” But we don’t talk about that. I am actually having war flashbacks to learning this dance in elementary school. Sweet Jesus, I fucking hate “The Macarena.”

Anyway, the appeal of these novelty songs lies in both their infectious hooks and silly subject matter. These are the tunes that get stuck in your head no matter how much you hate them. Do you remember the first time you heard “Barbie Girl?” Have you been able to get it out of your head since? (My guess is no, since the mere mention of it has resulted in you humming the chorus. COME ON BARBIE LET’S GO PARTY.)

VH1, in all their infinite wisdom, ranked the Top 40 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the ‘90s a few years ago and placed “Baby Got Back” at number one. Though VH1 lists tend to piss me off (see their incredibly disappointing Top 100 Greatest Songs of the 2000s list), I actually think they got this one right. Based on popularity and cultural relevance, I can agree that “Baby Got Back” is the best one-hit wonder of the decade. (I’m just really glad “The Macarena” wasn’t number one.)

“Baby Got Back” was the second best-selling song of 1992 (right behind Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”). That’s right—a song celebrating the female posterior was second only to one of the greatest love songs of all time. And in a way, “Baby Got Back” is also a love song…to an ass.

So yes, I can get behind “Baby Got Back” (pun completely intended). But not every one-hit wonder is as genuinely fun as Sir Mix-a-Lot’s masterpiece. “Cotton Eye Joe” by Rednex is perhaps the worst song of the ‘90s. There are few songs as annoying and pointless as this one. In fact, I’m pretty sure “Cotton Eye Joe” is on repeat in hell.

In case you were unaware, “Cotton Eye Joe” was written before the Civil War, though its exact origins are unclear. It started as an American folk song and ended up as a bizarre dance hit by a Swedish techno band. Amazing.

The Alternative and Pop Hits

Not all one-hit wonders are hilariously bad like “Cotton Eye Joe” and “Barbie Girl.” There are plenty of decent (and beyond decent) one-hit wonders out there. These include “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers, “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals and “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks.

These hits are also catchy as hell, but tend to find their way on to “Greatest Songs of the ‘90s” lists rather than “Worst Songs of the ‘90s” lists. Of course, their musical merit is based purely on subjective opinion, but let’s be honest—if you don’t like “Tubthumping,” you’re wrong. And if you don’t sing it when you’re drunk off your ass in a karaoke bar, I don’t want to know you.

Since I’ve already gone into the mass appeal of “Tubthumping” (see my Chumbawamba entry), let’s look at “You Get What You Give.”

“You Get What You Give” by New Radicals is a fairly straight-forward pop rock song with one of the best opening lines of any song: “Wake up, kids, we’ve got the dreamer’s disease.” It also features some petty celebrity-dissing, though singer Gregg Alexander claimed that section was a “test” to see if the media would focus on the dissing or the real issues addressed in the song. (Spoiler: they just focused on the dissing.)

Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch” is not nearly as pretentious. Though frequently misattributed to Alanis Morissette, “Bitch” is a solid tune for a one-hit wonder. Meredith has a lot of talent and it’s a shame so many people think she’s just an Alanis rip-off. She even got booed off the stage during a 1998 tour with The Rolling Stones (the booing ultimately became glass bottles being thrown on stage).

Meredith is currently writing and producing songs for other artists, along with recording children’s albums.

New Radicals broke up in 1999, but Gregg Alexander has gone on to write and produce songs for Enrique Iglesias, Geri Haliwell (a.k.a. Ginger Spice) and Rod Stewart.

One-Hit Wonders Who Should Have Had More Hits

Having one huge hit is great for some artists—you can live off the royalties from a song like “Unbelievable” by EMF (which was re-recorded for an embarrassing Kraft Cheese commercial). But some artists have the talent for an entire career’s worth of hits. They just don’t have the audience.

While there are tons of ‘90s one-hit wonders that could have been so much bigger, I’ll focus on three that really strike me: Toadies, Marcy Playground and Imani Coppola.

If you want the full backstory on Toadies and Marcy Playground, take a look at their artist profiles on this blog. To keep it short and sweet, those two bands are the most wonderful kind of bizarre.

Toadies have this weird, sludgy post-grunge sound with a Texas-sized ego. While “Possum Kingdom” is a great tune, the rest of the band’s catalogue is even better (and so much stranger).

Marcy Playground sounds like an art school kid’s band in the suburbs. “Sex and Candy” may have been one of the creepiest mainstream songs of the ‘90s, but it’s got nothing on some of the other songs on the band’s debut album.

Imani Coppola is a bit different. Known for the song “Legend of a Cowgirl,” Imani was always destined for bigger. She scored a spot on the 1998 Lilith Fair and teamed up with another one-hit wonder, Baha Men, for a song called “You All Dat.” By age 22, she was dropped from her major label and decided to start an independent career and ultimately joined a band called LittleJackie. The band’s most recent album, Made4TV, was released in 2011.

So is being a one-hit wonder a bad thing? Not at all! Like I said before, some artists make plenty of money off just one hit song. But others end up falling short of their potential, mostly because they’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. My advice to you is if you like a song that’s becoming a one-hit wonder, listen to the rest of the artist’s catalogue. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Unless that band is Baha Men.

-- Sam Boyer, reporting from the ‘90s.

Chumbawamba

Sound Familiar?

“Tubthumping”

Who Are They?

A group of anarchists from the UK who managed to churn out one of the most popular songs of the ‘90s.

Chumbawamba began as Skin Disease, a parody of the Oi! punk bands of the time. Once the band changed its name to Chumbawamba, it became one of the forerunners of the ‘80s anarcho-punk movement. (Just remember, these are the guys who brought you “Tubthumping.”)

Chumbawamba’s first few releases were politically-charged punk records. Their first LP, 1986’s Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records, was a critique of the Live Aid concert. How can you critique something like Live Aid, you ask? Well, Chumbawamba argued that the concert was primarily a “cosmetic spectacle” designed to draw attention away from the real political causes of world hunger. Makes sense, right?

If criticizing Live Aid wasn’t radical enough for you, let me direct your attention to the band’s second album, 1987’s Never Mind the Ballots…Here’s the Rest of Your Lives. That one questioned the validity of the British democratic system and mocked the charity campaign of popstar supergroup Ferry Aid.

So when did Chumbawamba start writing catchy pop songs about “pissing the night away?"

By the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, our anarchist heroes had begun to absorb influences from techno music and rave culture (because everyone had a rave phase in the ‘90s). They moved away from their anarcho-punk roots and displayed their pop sensibilites with 1990’s Slap! and 1992’s Shhh.

After signing to indie label One Little Indian in 1994, Chumbawamba revisited their anarchist roots with the appropriately titled Anarchy. The band parted with the label less than two years later and made the controversial decision to move to major label EMI. Like every other band that has opted for a major label (Green Day and Soundgarden, for example), Chumbawamba was met with animosity from fans. (And when your fans are also anarchists, things can get a little more intense.)

Fellow anarcho-punk band Oi Polloi took the so-called “selling out” thing to heart and released an “anti-Chumbawamba” EP called Bare Faced Hypocrisy Sells Records. But Chumbawamba stayed firm with their decision, claiming that the move brought with it the opportunity to spread the band’s message to a wider audience.

What message they were trying to across in “Tubthumping” was anybody’s guess. The karaoke hit was Chumbawamba’s highest charting single and prompted thousands of drunken bar patrons to shout, “I get knocked down, but I get up again!”

But the band didn’t let mainstream success get in the way of their anarchist attitudes. During an appearance on American political talk show Politically Incorrect in 1998, vocalist/drummer Alice Nutter told fans to steal Tubthumping from large chains like Virgin. Well, Virgin didn’t really appreciate that, so the chain began removing the album from shelves and selling it from behind the counter.

Where Are They Now?

Still churning out albums (and a musical)!

After the “Tubthumping” hype died down at the end of the ‘90s, Chumbawamba left EMI and formed their own record label, MUTT.

In 2002, the band released Readymades, an album that mixed samples of folk music and dance beats.

That same year, General Motors paid Chumbawamba $100,000 to use their song “Pass It Along” for a Pontiac Vibe ad. Much to everyone’s surprise, the band agreed, but ended up giving the money they received to anti-corporate activist groups.

And what did those groups do with the cash? Why, they launched an information and environmental campaign against GM. Ah, those clever anarchists.

Subsequent releases Un, A Singsong and a Scrap, and The Boys Bands Have Won were a little more on the folksy side. After a few more tours, the lineup began to change.

As of right now, there are five members of Chumbawamba (that number has fluctuated since the band formed in 1982). Former members have gone on to work in the film industry, like former vocalist Dunstan Bruce. He founded Dandy Films, an independent film and video company in the UK.

Alice Nutter and former drummer Harry Hamer collaborated on a handful of musical dramas, most notably 2006’s Love and Petrol and 2008’s Where’s Vietnam?. Both of them continue to work in theater.

But Why Chumbawamba?

Believe it or not, this band still churns out albums. They also churn out musicals now, apparently. While the musical has yet to surface, Chumbawamba went ahead and made a soundtrack for it anyway. It’s called Chumbawamba & Red Ladder Present: Big Society! and it was released back in January of this year. So hopefully we’ll have a real musical to go along with the soundtrack sometime soon.

What Does Sam Think?

In terms of commercial appeal, Chumbawamba is definitely a one-hit-wonder band. Don’t lie to me and say that you’re hoarding their entire discography in your attic because, let’s face it, you probably didn’t know they had more than two albums until today.

I was aware that these guys were huge anarchists before I wrote this entry, but I had no idea they had such a rich history. The sections above are condensed accounts of Chumbawamba’s adventures throughout the years because I know nobody would read the novel I could have written.

That said, it’s very unusual for a one-hit-wonder band to keep on keepin’ on after the success of their one hit. It’s normal for that kind of band to release a couple more albums before calling it quits, but dropping album after album a decade after your popularity diminishes? That takes dedication.

While I really can’t analyze Chumbawamba’s 17-album discography (yes, I said 17), I can always comment on “Tubthumping.”

The song is pretty simplistic, even for a punk band. But at the same time, it’s not surprising that it was written by a bunch of anarchists.

Why? Well, look at the lyrics:

I get knocked down, but I get up again.
No, you’re never gonna keep me down.

How punk rock is that for you? As catchy as “Tubthumping” is, it’s really a song about being oppressed. I have a feeling that the band knew the appeal the song would have and used that as a way to spread their message. The message wasn’t that everyone should be an anarchist; the message was that you shouldn’t let someone or something hold you down.

So that middle-aged drunk guy slurring “Tubthumping” at karaoke night may actually be a victim of oppression. Or maybe he just really likes embarrassing himself.

-- Sam Boyer, reporting from the ‘90s.