One-hit Wonders In The United States

A one-hit wonder is a Top 40 phenomenon, the combination of artist and song that scores big in the music industry with one smash hit, but is unable to repeat the achievement with another hit. The term can refer to the artist, the song, or both together. The following were notable one-hit wonders in the United States.

Criteria for inclusion

Artists on this list have exactly 1 song that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 with a rank of 1 to 40 inclusive. Note that this is a much less heuristic aproach to determining a list than the method used by other sources, such as VH1. In VH1's 100 Greatest: One Hit Wonders series, they identified several artists that acutally had more than one Top 40 Hit, but one of those hits was much more significant than the other; and the general public only remembers the artist for their one contribution, including:
  • Vanilla Ice ("Ice Ice Baby" was a #1 Hit, but he also had a #4 hit with his cover of "Play That Funky Music")
  • Rockwell ("Somebody's Watching Me" hit #2, but he had prior chart success with "Obscene Phone Caller" which hit #34)
  • a-ha ("Take On Me" hit #1 but "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." hit #20).
  • Kris Kross ("Jump" hit #1 but "Warm It Up" hit #13 and "Alright" hit #21).
As a rule of thumb, an artist should not be added to this list within a year of their first hit's entry on the Billboard Hot 100.

Songs by decade

1950-1959

1960-1969

1970-1979

1980-1989

1990-1999

2000-present

See also

External links

 

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