WHO? One Hit Wonder, That’s WHO (OHW)!

Did you ever stop to realize that the popular musical phrase “One Hit Wonder (OHW),” when you make an acronym out of it, is actually the word “WHO” backwards? Seems kind of appropriate since a One Hit Wonder is known as an artist who had 15 minutes of fame, usually Top 10 and often #1 fame, and then disappeared from the music scene.

The number of One Hit Wonders over my lifetime are definitely too many to count. So how about we look at one from each decade?

The 1960s

This was one of my childhood favorites: “Incense and Peppermints” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock. The song was a huge hit in 1967 and was part of the Psychedelic Rock movement. Honestly, at the time, I was more into The Monkees, but I did like this song a lot. I don’t remember ever hearing anything else on the radio from Strawberry Alarm Clock, though. They came in with “incense” and quickly left with “peppermints!”

The 1970s

There were a massive number of OHWs in the 1970s, some Pop/Rock, some R&B and some Disco: Remember “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks? or “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas or “Keep on Dancing” by Gary’s Gang? But the one I’m going to focus on was a band that came from my home state of Kentucky– Exile.

Exile, a Lexington club band, released their debut pop/rock album in 1978. The album, Mixed Emotions was actually pretty good, but it only produced one hit– and it was a massive one: “Kiss You All Over.” The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in a row at a time when Disco was king. To be honest, Exile had one more single from Mixed Emotions just barely break the Top 40, “You Thrill Me,” but it stalled at #38, and Exile was never heard of again– in the Pop/Rock world. They did release a follow up album, but I’d be surprised if anyone could name it off the top of their head.

In all fairness to Exile, they switched musical genres from Pop/Rock to Country in the 1980s and they were a tremendous success on the Country Charts. Nevertheless, they still remain a OHW on the Hot 100.

The 1980s

Probably my favorite OHW of the 1980s was Pretty Poison. The band was fronted by female vocalist Jade Starling and they had a tremendous dance hit with “Catch Me, I’m Falling.” The percussion in the song was pure dynamite. I don’t think any of Michael Jackson’s songs made me want to get up and dance like “Catch Me” did. But once “Catch Me” reached it’s peaked at #8 and started “falling” on the Hot 100, that was the last I ever heard of the band. According to Wikipedia, the band released nine singles between 1981 and 2009, and are apparently still together. But 1987’s “Catch Me, I’m Falling” was their lone 15 minutes of fame.

The 1990s

Probably the biggest One Hit Wonder of the 1990s was British singer Donna Lewis. She came out of nowhere in 1996 with the single “I Love You Always and Forever,” which was a Top 5 hit across the world. The song peaked at #2 on the Hot 100. It received so much airplay, however, that you would have thought it had peaked at #1 for two months. I was really sick of the song long before it began to fade. But as it did, so did Donna Lewis. At least in the States, she was never popular again. The song was resuscitated for the soundtrack to this year’s film “Isn’t It Romantic,” starring Rebel Wilson.

2000-2009

Into the 2000s, the biggest OHW that comes to my mind is BBmak, who had a massive lone hit with “Back Here” in the year 2000. The single peaked at #5 in the UK and at #13 in the USA. Like “I Love You Always and Forever,” the single received so much airplay again you would have thought it had peaked at #1. Maybe that was because is was #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Chart for 11 weeks!

2010- Present

Since 2010, the OHW that made a big splash was DNCE with their mega-hit “Cake by the Ocean” in 2015. They might be the biggest recent one hit wonder simply because the band was fronted by Joe Jonas of The Jonas Brothers. The song peaked at #9 on the Hot 100 but was a massive world-wide hit. As the name of the band suggests, their music was very dance-oriented. DNCE stayed together for three years, disbanding in 2018. Joe Jonas has since gone on to a successful solo career and reunited with his two brothers as the Jonas Brothers Band.