One-hit wonders get another chance to shine
By Edna Gundersen
USA Today
When a single sentence can accommodate Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus," Michael Sembello's "Maniac," Quiet Riot's "Cum on Feel the Noize," Toni Basil's "Mickey" and A-Ha's "Take on Me," all that's missing is a drum roll and the punch line.
Advertiser library photo • • • '100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders' • 4 p.m. today • VH1
Who let these dogs out?
Vanilla Ice broke through with his hit "Ice Ice Baby" but was unable to match that success afterward.
The answer is VH1, but the music channel isn't angling for hoots and snickers in "100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders," a five-part special airing nightly starting tonight. Instead of constructing a hall of shame, VH1 intends to honor musical achievements of artists who scaled the pop chart only once.
"In no way, shape or form are we making fun of them," said Steven Tao, VH1's senior vice president of programming and production. "We're paying homage to songs that were popular for a reason and often so popular, they became impossible to follow up. Many of these artists were very talented, but they had nowhere else to go but down."
Rebutting the idea that novelty tunes are disposable and meaningless, the series suggests that singular sensations by such artists as Vanilla Ice, Taco, Jermaine Stewart and Eddy Grant played significant roles in music and culture, whether it was comic relief (Steve Martin's "King Tut"), sexual liberation (Divinyls' "I Touch Myself") or the birth of a genre (Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight").
Landing high on the pop chart of "Billboard" was the chief criterion for inclusion. Then less specific qualifications were applied, from catchiness to weirdness.
" 'Macarena' and 'Who Let the Dogs Out' were obvious. But we also considered how indelibly the song was marked in the culture and its life beyond the initial hit. Did it live on in commercials? Did it spawn a parody? Did it transcend the music world?"
The countdown will unveil 20 songs each night, starting with No. 100, Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting." Admit it. It's already buzzing in your brain: "... those cats were fast as lightning/In fact it was a little bit frightening ..."
