The Ongoing History of New Music, encore presentation: Alt-Rock One-Hit-Wonders of the 90s, part 1
Artists who manage to have one and only one hit song are often the butts of jokes. Getting tagged as a one-hit-wonder certainly can be a career-killer. But let’s turn this around: How many hits do you have?
There is so much music out there, so much competition for our attention, that if you manage to break through all the noise just once, that should be considered a giant victory. And remember, too, that thanks to streaming and the tens of millions of songs available at our fingertips, today’s artists are not only competing with their peers and contemporaries but with the whole of humanity’s history of recorded music.
So let’s consider being a one-hit-wonder a genuine accomplishment. And while that artist might burn brightly and then quickly fade, it is possible that one song is all you’ll need to set you up with some nice royalty cheques for the rest of your life. So what if you’re the answer to a trivia question?
Some of these acts, however, are gone forever. Others have moved on to other things. And others keep plugging away, hoping that lightning strikes twice.
Here are some stories of alt-rock artists who hit it big exactly once.
Songs heard on this program:
- Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Scooby Snacks
- Marcy Playground, Sex and Candy
- Semisonic, Closing Time
- Chumbawamba, Tubthumping
- Mazzy Starr, Fade into You
- The La’s, There She Goes
- Harvey Danger, Flagpole Sitta
- Spacehog, In the Meantime
- The Flys, Got You (Where I Want You)
As usual, Eric Wilhite has done a playlist for us. (For some reason, Harvey Danger isn’t on Spotify. Go figure.)
The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on the following stations:
- 102.1 The Edge/Toronto – Sunday at 7 pm
- Q107/Toronto – Sunday at 9 pm
- Live 88-5/Ottawa
- 107.5 Dave-FM/Kitchener – Sunday at 8p pm
- Big Kingston – Saturday and Sunday at 11 pm
- The Wolf, Peterborough – Sunday at 8 pm
- FM96/London – Sunday night at 7, Monday night at 11
- Power 97/Winnipeg – Sunday at 8 am
- Sonic 102.9/Edmonton
- The Zone/Victoria
- The Fox/Vancouver – Sunday at 11 pm
- WAPS/WKTL The Summit/Arkon, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown The show runs at 11 am Sunday. This, by the way, is a great option for American listeners who are prevented from listening to the show live because of geo-blocking,
We’re still looking for more affiliates in Calgary, Kamloops, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor, Montreal, Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s and anywhere else with a transmitter. If you’re in any of those markets and you want the show, lemme know and I’ll see what I can do.
If you ever miss a show, you can always get the podcast edition available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your on-demand audio.
