Best Top 40 Song by a Big Artist Who Only Had One Hit

Siouxsie

Beck.

Surprised by a few of these artists only having one hit (Beck, Bryan Ferry and Amy Winehouse especially).

Fiona Apple for me. Also despite listening to her albums for years this is the first time I've really realised how damn pretty she is.

Not a fan of Liz Phair but I did like the music video concept (flicking through album covers).

The Ferry song is seriously great.

oh USchartspaws

Was "Valerie" not a hit in the US?

I don't know half of them, but "Loser" by a mile anyway.

I'm sort of amazed that Garth Brooks is on the list--he dominated the album charts, and there's usually some kind of spillover.

I assume the Siouxsie hit's chart position is cut off: it's #23.

and, yeah, Kiss and Tell >>>> Slave to Love

Beck.

Voting for Beck (who actually reached #10 on the Hot 100, contrary to the #27 peak that Yahoo! lists)

All of these seem to be selections from Wikipedia's lists of one-hit wonders (artists with only top 40 Hot 100 hit) by decade, which are actually pretty poll-worthy - apparently 327 one-hit wonders in the 1990s alone, for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1990s_one-hit_wonders_in_the_United_States

I assume the Siouxsie hit's chart position is cut off: it's #23.

yep

Garth Brooks is the only one of these that surprised me. Are people really surprised that Frank Zappa wasn't more of a top 40 presence?

garth brooks didn't release physical singles iirc (no way he's doing anything that cuts into album sales), his 'sole' hit is the sole exception and i'll leave it to you to find out...the rest of the story

Beck because Lou Reed isn't on it like he should be

Also funny that Bryan ferry is on it but not one-hit wonder Roxy Music

or patti smith!

garth brooks released lots of singles! lots of them went top 100 pop, but only one broke the top 40. and that was the one where, as balls alludes, he was basically trying.

the funniest thing about Garth Brooks having only one top 40 hit is that it was a CHRIS GAINES song

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_You_(Chris_Gaines_song)#mediaviewer/File:Chris_Gaines_-_Lost_in_You_single.png

Ferry vs Winehouse vs Siouxsie

garth brooks released lots of singles! lots of them went top 100 pop, but only one broke the top 40

If you go by Wikipedia--who I assume are going by Billboard, none of Brooks' singles during the '90s, when he was at his commercial peak album-wise, made the Top 100 until "It's Your Song" (#62 in 1998). That includes 18 singles that were #1 country.

I find this confusing. I was doing Radio On at the time, and every issue there'd be two or three crossover country hits--but, now that I think about it, I don't think we had a single Garth Brooks song in there for the whole decade. Did Brooks and his record company control that?--i.e., did they literally ask pop radio not to play his music? Why didn't he chart on the Top 100 while people like Brooks & Dunn, and Reba McEntire, and others did? I'm not a fan of that stuff, just curious.

there was a huge overhaul of the Hot 100 in december 1998, most notably involving airplay-only singles finally being allowed on the chart. However they changed the metrics led to a country artists popping onto the lower regions on the top 40 far more consistently than they used to (the country chart was always airplay-centric). i'm sure garth would have had a lot of #28s and #33s if his peak period happened under the post-98 rules, but he never really courted pop radio crossover like Tim McGraw or Faith Hill.

yeah we're still dealing with that phenom of country singles peaking no higher than the pop teens ("Springsteen," "Remind Me," "Boys 'Round Here").

looking at discogs, most of the garth singles pre-98 were 7-inches or europe-only, not seeing a lot of US CD singles or cassingles

actually i don't see any evidence garth release a US cassingle aside from "one heart at a time" and whaddyaknow "lost in you"

meanwhile all of brooks & dunn's pre-98 hot 100s were released on cassingle

"one heart at a time" being an all-star charity single he wrote that peaked #56 pop

Beck but I thought seriously about "Kiss Them For Me," in retrospect the very best of all the many songs that sounded like it

this old issue of billboard (see top of hot 100 spotlight section) sez that "lost in you" was actually his first retail single ever issued in the u.s., and it debuted at its peak position of #5 due to the high volume of sales (at the time -- 107,000) despite not registering enough airplay to be on the hot 100 airplay component chart. so basically this surprising chart factoid is basically a relic of how the song was released, not how pop listeners were bizarrely receptive to that song. (it did do decently on adult contemporary radio.)

also it was apparently the highest hot 100 debut since the chart's rules were revamped

anyway i voted for liz phair's avril lavigne song :)

Surprised that the liz phair only got to #32. At its peak that song felt inescapable, at least in my surroundings, such that I was sure it was a top 10 hit.

it nearly did go top 10 on mainstream pop radio, and did go top 10 on the 'adult pop' panel, but the biggest hot 100 hits around that time tended to get more support from other formats as well, especially r&b/rhythmic

actually it did go top 10 on mainstream pop lol, just barely tho

If you go by Wikipedia--who I assume are going by Billboard, none of Brooks' singles during the '90s, when he was at his commercial peak album-wise, made the Top 100 until "It's Your Song" (#62 in 1998). That includes 18 singles that were #1 country.

aah, i was going by joel whitburn's top pop singles, which notes one pop top 100 before that -- his kiss cover "hard luck woman, (#45 in 1994). but now that i look again, i see whitburn notes that was only on the hot 100 airplay chart.

in all, though, he did hit the pop top 100 seven times -- all of them coming after his commercial peak.

only ones really surprising are garth, PE and maybe siouxsie

actually surprised zappa had a single one

fiona's surprising imo just cuz "sleep to dream" and "shadowboxer" got a ton of MTV play

actually surprised zappa had a single one

I feel this way about Siouxsie, given that it's based on the US pop chart.

actually surprised zappa had a single one

If only it hadn't been for one of the worst songs he ever recorded.

lol for a long time it was the only Zappa track i liked

Thought the Siouxie one would be "Peek-A-Book" and the Phair one "Extraordinary."

a-Boo

Ha, I didn't know that song was Liz Phair.

zappa almost had two, just missing the top 40 with "dancin' fool."

lol i remember that from dr demento

seriously, fuck the billboard singles charts

yeah, coldplay

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Nugent also had a #3 hit with Damn Yankees, but I guess we're speaking strictly solo material.

I'm really surprised the original list did not include Jimi Hendrix or The Grateful Dead, who are the acts most famous for having only one Top 40 hit.

Another candidate:

Ric Ocasek: "Emotion in Motion"

The Band only had one, "Up On Cripple Creek" (#25).

how many U.S. hits has Tom Jones had?

17 top 40 hits, plus a bunch more on the Country chart, and 3 on the Dance chart.

come on people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB8wTs7xA_U

once again with the same ol bounce
i'm callin a foul - and once again, it counts

i'm surprised fight the power didn't chart? it seemed like it was everywhere that summer. something weird/racist about the charts then?

First PE song to chart on the Hot 100 was "Can't Truss It" (#50). And yeah, presumably many things weird/racist about the charts then (and now).

"Can't Truss It" roughly coincided with the moment Billboard switched to a SoundScan-derived Pop chart, so I bet that had something to do with it

Ric Ocasek: "Emotion in Motion"

at this point aren't people more likely to be surprised ric ocasek HAD a solo Top 40 hit?

especially when it's still played at CVSs across the land and people think it's by the Cars.

another Big Artist People Might Not Guess Had A Top 40 Outside Their Bigger Band was technically Brian Wilson

http://i.fokzine.net/upload/14/05/140516_344020_Brian_Wilson_-_Caroline_No_450_444.jpeg

released as a solo single at hit like #32 a few months before it was put on Pet Sounds

Beck

but man Cat Scratch Fever...

bet Mike Love was thrilled with that single xp

He didn't take it well...

http://i60.tinypic.com/5p0aj9.png

LOL

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