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Post by rick on Mar 30, 2023 4:30:41 GMT -5
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Post by erik on Mar 31, 2023 9:07:06 GMT -5
Well it's a weird time, and a really weird thing, to have all these one-hit wonders hit the charts by getting exposure on Tik-Tok.
One part of that article that struck me as a bit odd was this quote:
I suppose that this would apply to today's music world. But if that metric were applied overall to the entire history of the Billboard Hot 100, that would make an awful lot of artists who have had long careers by having presences on other charts "one-hit wonders" as well. If memory serves me right, this would make even Linda's Trio Emmylou Harris a "one-hit wonder" since her only Top 40 pop entry was "Mr. Sandman" in 1981 (#38), even though her career has thrived with her wide-swath as a country hitmaker of, how shall we say, some standing. The same would apply to Linda's spiritual protégé Trisha Yearwood, who has only cracked the Top 40 once herself with "How Do I Live?", which got up to #23 in the summer of 1997.
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Post by rick on Mar 31, 2023 15:50:36 GMT -5
Hi, erik --
Am sure you know better than I do about these things. But I am just wondering if, for example, that big No. 1 hit by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men. Does that count as a hit for Mariah Carey? for Boyz II Men? as if they landed from Mars and were a one-hit wonder? Because, and this is just my opinion, Trio consists of Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris. Is "Trio" its own entity as if the individual members never charted? Again, I don't know how it all works in the worlds of the big moguls and chart-watchers. But it would seem to me that if Stephen Stills had a hit with "Love the One You're With" he is still Stephen Stills. Not sure if I am being clear. But "Trio" is an entity I guess then like Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville are an entity, or Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram, so that any time Linda charted with anyone else -- not as a solo artist -- then it is as if she charted with Aaron Neville, or with James Ingram, then it is as if she had a hit and was never heard from again. It seems very odd if that's how these things are tabulated. Mama Cass charted and nothing she did with The Mamas & The Papas then counts. She likely would be a "one-hit wonder," I assume. Right?
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Post by erik on Mar 31, 2023 18:28:13 GMT -5
I can't speak how Billboard (or Joel Whitburn, whose books of Top 40 hits have bee rather invaluable) would tally up these crazy things, whether it involves, Mariach, Boys II Men, Stephen Stills, or The Trio. To my mind, neither of them is a "one-hit wonder" by that metric of one-and-done on the Top 40 because they've had at least one other Top 40 hit of their own separate and apart (I've probably muddied the waters even further now with that explanation).
I'm perhaps in the minority in saying this, but some one-hit wonders are pretty damned memorable, especially those from the 1960's and 1970's. I don't know how many remember a surf-rock group from Orange County called The Chantays, but they had such a huge #4 hit in the spring of 1963 with the classic instrumental "Pipeline". There's also the Brazilian jazz-rock keyboardist Eumir Deodato, who was at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 fifty years ago this very day with "Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)" (it won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental for 1973).
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Post by rick on Apr 1, 2023 2:55:02 GMT -5
Erik, I do remember the Deodato instrumental. Back when I used to sit religiously listening to KHJ-AM in Los Angeles for the Boss Top 30 countdown, the following song was ubiquitous on the radio --
I think Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" was another song like that. His follow-up single "Canned Ham" did not do as well as "Spirit in the Sky."
Here's another song that got a lot of airplay back in the day --
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