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One Hit Wonder
Japanese Boy was a hit pretty much everywhere except, oddly enough, Japan. According to singer Mary Sandeman, it was because the melody sounded too Chinese. No matter, as elsewhere, this throbbing…
One Hit Wonder: Toni Basil – Mickey
Toni Basil was pushing 40 when she dressed as a teenage cheerleader for Mickey in 1982, yet she pulled it off stylishly and created an image and track that will…
One Hit Wonder: Club Nouveau – Lean On Me
This cover of the classic Bill Withers track was good enough to win a Grammy in 1987, but it wasn’t the signpost to bigger things for this pop and New…
One-hit Wonder: Hi-Gloss: You’ll Never Know
One of the more enigmatic acts to make a singular fleeting appearance on the UK singles chart, Hi-Gloss followed a growing hit-making recipe which consisted of putting a name to…
One-hit Wonder: Keith Marshall – Only Crying
Keith Marshall was the fresh-faced, gifted lead guitarist of undistinguished glam rock band Hello who neatly wangled for himself a brief solo career afterwards. Marshall and his three bandmates…
One Hit Wonder: Rob ‘n’ Raz Featuring Leila K
ROB ‘N’ RAZ FEAT. LEILA K GOT TO GET While purists of hip-hop and house music were appalled on principle when the two disparate genres were blended together, there’s little…
One Hit Wonder: Phyllis Nelson – Move Closer
Phyllis Nelson was an experienced disco singer and her 1985 single Move Closer was a radical departure into all-out soulful schmaltz that clambered slowly but purposefully to No.1 for a…
One Hit Wonder: Air Supply – All Out Of Love
There have probably been thousands of soft-rock songs about pain and loss, and Air Supply’s contribution to this much-maligned genre was an enormous worldwide hit in 1980. The Australian band…
One Hit Wonder: Pebbles – Girlfriend
Pebbles has had six real surnames in her eventful life, so probably one of the more astute things she ever did was giving herself an easily recognisable pseudonym when launching…
One Hit Wonders: Terri Wells – I’ll Be Around
It‘s not common for a backing singer on a well-known soul hit to later outperform the original with her own pop version, but that’s what Philadelphia’s Terri Wells did in…