Only so many artists and bands manage to rise to the top of the charts with songs that the whole country gets stuck in their heads. So, to have a second or third hit is all the more rare. Yes, we're talking about those infamous one-hit wonders. But just because they never managed to reach the success of their biggest hits a second time around, that doesn't make their songs any less legendary. In our humble opinions, one-hit wonders are also worthy of celebration. So, in honor of those artists who captured lightning in a bottle, we went back to the late s all the way through the early s to find the best one-hit wonders of all time. We dare you not to hum along with the songs that brought them their fleeting 15 minutes of fame. This catchy single only has three words—and they're all "tequila. After all, " Tequila " is easy to learn and impossible to forget.
"Rockin Robin" by Bobby Day (1958)
Because sometimes one hit is all you need...
A one-hit wonder is a musical artist who is successful with one hit song, but without a comparable subsequent hit. Music reviewers and journalists sometimes describe a musical artist as a one-hit wonder, based on their professional assessment of chart success, sales figures and fame. For the purpose of his book The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders , music journalist Wayne Jancik defines a one-hit wonder as "an act that has won a position on Billboard ' s national, pop, Top 40 just once. Eponymous bands are generally not separated; thus Charlie Daniels is not counted as a one-hit wonder for " Uneasy Rider " and the hits of the Charlie Daniels Band are credited to him. Fred Bronson , a journalist and former writer for Billboard magazine, in his book Billboard's Hottest Hot Hits , uses the criterion that an artist is ineligible to be categorized as a "one-hit wonder" if they have a second song listed on the Billboard Hot In both cases, the Billboard Hot was used as an objective standard for one-hit wonder status, since Billboard magazine published the books. Disc jockey and music writer Brent Mann points out how some artists have been called a "one-hit wonder" despite having other charting singles; in these cases, one signature song so overshadows the rest of the artist's discography that only that song remains familiar to later audiences. As an example, English-born singer Albert Hammond enjoyed success with " It Never Rains in Southern California " rising to number 5 in the US, but his follow-up single, " I'm a Train " was dismissed by Mann as "totally forgotten" even though it charted at number 31 in
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Rank and File finds us sorting through an exhaustive, comprehensive body of work or collection of pop-culture artifacts. This time, we sift through the slush pile and revisit the one-hit wonders we actually love. The standard definition determined by who, Right Said Fred?
A one-hit wonder is any entity that achieves mainstream popularity, often for only one piece of work, and becomes known among the general public solely for that momentary success. The term is most commonly used in regard to music performers with only one hit single that overshadows their other work. Sometimes, artists dubbed "one-hit wonders" in a particular country have had great success in other countries.
