Ten Most Culturally Significant One Hit Wonders

Ranking the importance or quality of any handful of songs is an exercise in headbuttery, but when it comes to one-hit wonders, the task becomes all the more difficult. When it came time to review some of the more culturally significant one-hit wonders in pop music, the hardest part was trying to come up with criteria. Fully aware that "culturally significant" is a loaded term in some respects, we looked for one-off songs that jumpstarted a trend, a music genre, or anything that made its mark on our pop culture landscape.

And because "hit" is an abstract term to say the least, we've laid out a few ground rules - criteria that songs must meet if they wish to have the dubious honor of being on this list:

1: It has to have been a big enough hit so that any culturally literate member of the song's generation would at least be somewhat familiar with it.

2: The song must be the only one by the artist to have placed in the Top 40 on the Hot 100.

3: The above criteria applies only to the American chart. Hence, a one-hit wonder in the US could have multiple placings in another country. This is the Musical Youth clause, because we really want to include them but they notched a few other hits in the UK.
1) "Afternoon Delight" – The Starland Vocal Band (1976)
Ron Burgundy Will Fight You

When you consider its age, "Afternoon Delight" by The Starland Vocal Band easily earns marks for being one of the most enduring one-hit wonders. It has been more than 35 years since the song was released and yet it continues to be referenced every few years in pop culture. Will Ferrell's greatest creation - Anchorman character Ron Burgundy - vows that he'll fight anyone who disagrees with the notion that this is the greatest song ever written. Homer Simpson has a Starland Vocal Band tattoo on his arm (although it's a tattoo he regrets). The underappreciated TV series Arrested Development used the song for an awkward karaoke scene featuring Michael Bluth and his niece, which is a funny and slightly disturbing joke on the real reason that this song continues to be so popular.

Put simply, "Afternoon Delight" is about sex... in the afternoon... and how delightful that can be. Not surprisingly, the song had immediate, worldwide appeal, and it even crossed genres. While it was #1 on the Hot 100, Johnny Carver reached #9 on the Country chart with his cover version. A few years later the Circle Jerks performed a version that garnered more than a little fanfare. The song touched a nerve within our cultural zeitgeist right from the outset.

The Starland Vocal Band didn't have another hit, but their principal songwriters Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert had quite a knack for banging out a catchy tune. This husband-and-wife duo had already written '70s megastar John Denver's "Take Me Home Country Roads," another extremely catchy and enjoyable song.

To this day, the song is still remembered fondly either as a joke or as a touching piece of nostalgia and sometimes even both. "It's always contextualized in some ridiculous way, which always pisses me off a little bit, but it also makes me aware that there's something endearing about it," Jon Carroll of Starland told us. Watch the original music video and check your reaction.


2) "Whoomp! There It Is" – Tag Team (1993)
Winner of the Whoomp!/Whoot Wars

"Whoomp! There It Is" wasn't the first instance of hip-hop crossing into the mainstream. By this time, rap was a Grammy category, the Beastie Boys had three albums out, and Bart Simpson was rapping. Tag Team didn't break any new ground with "Whoomp," but their very catchy and very popular song became ubiquitous.

Tag Team was one of the first popular rap groups to come out of Atlanta, and their breakthrough caused record labels to seriously pay attention to the cities that would come to form the "dirty south" years later. At the time only the two coasts were on the rap radar in any significant way. A decade later it would be groups from Memphis, Atlanta, and St. Louis that would come to dominate. And what's more, a new form of rap would come to fame: crunk. When you listen to Tag Team's hit, you'll hear some of the earliest elements of the genre.

Crunk scholars trace its origins to the Miami Bass that was played in strip clubs in Atlanta, which is where Whoomp! originated. At the same time in Memphis, a very similar movement was coming up and spreading outward, but for those closer to the East Coast, Georgia would serve as the anlage. And, not surprisingly, "Whoomp" was one of the most popular numbers for strippers, who could also dance to the song's doppelgänger, a very similar song by 95 South called "Whoot! There It Is."

Someone has to research this stuff, so we checked it out.

Both songs were released in 1993. "Whoomp" made the US Top 40 on June 12, and "Whoot" entered a week later. Team 95 South says that the group created their version on the new digital editing system Pro Tools, and the entire song was copied track for track by Tag Team's Cecil Glenn, who had a contact at the studio where 95 South recorded. Tag Team's record label spokesman David Watson, however, told us: "According to the US Copyright Office, 95 South's 'Whoot...' was created in 1993 and Tag Team's 'Whoomp...' was created in 1992. Both singles were written and recorded in Atlanta and were released in the spring of 1993."

Watson isn't messing around: He brought the US Copyright Office into it. And between that and the enduring legacy of the duo's only hit, it's clear that Watson made the right decision by being on Team Tag Team.

The great "Whoot/Whoomp" wars of '93 were a knockout for Tag Team, and it was their song that became the Jock Jam, the catch phrase, and the plot of an AT&T commercial. It even spun off "Addams Family (Whoomp!)" for the movie Addams Family Values.


3) "Macarena" – Los Del Rio (1996)
A Dance For the Decade

Every decade has its signature dance moves, but in the '90s, it seemed the group dance craze would die out with the electric slide. It was especially bleak in the beginning of the decade, when grunge prevailed. You didn't dance to this kind of music so much as you swayed to it. In England, grunge was equally popular thanks to bands like Sonic Youth and the Brian Jonestown Massacre, but even there, dancing wasn't the cool thing to do; not when you were listening to distorted music about heroin and suicide. Case in point: England called their version of grunge "shoegazing," because the performers and audience alike would stare down at their shoes while rocking ever so slightly from side to side.

Now, to be fair, there were a couple of dances that might have come close to defining the '90s. There was a country music craze that brought line dancing, and with it, The Achy Breaky. The Roger Rabbit also had a moment, but it proved to be not nearly as timeless as the Zemeckis film.

But then in 1996 a group known as Los Del Rio reminded us that it was okay to move our bodies. The "Macarena" was easy to do - young and old alike could get behind it. The song stayed at the top of the charts for 14 weeks in America, which is an astonishing feat, but this was a global contagion, topping charts across Europe and even in Australia.

The song had humble beginnings, first showing up on a local label in Spain in 1993. In 2002, VH1 called it the greatest one-hit wonder of all time. It's hard to argue with that logic, since to this day you can probably do at least some of the dance just by muscle memory. And wouldn't you know it? Just a couple of years after this song exploded in popularity, we saw the demise of jaded, non-dancing grunge musicians and the rise of a new generation of boy bands and female performers like Christina and Britney who would build entire videos and concert performances around synchronized dancing. The Macarena was at the forefront of it all.

Sure, many of us lunge for a preset when the song comes on the radio, but that's what a one-hit wonder does best: polarizes. We judge ourselves and others on what we hate just as much as what we love, and that's why we have such a fascination with one-hit wonders. In many ways they can serve as handy cultural barometers. Is "Macarena" one such barometer? Probably not, but it WAS featured on the original Austin Powers in a scene where Dr. Evil does it to prove he's hip.


4) "Tubthumping" – Chumbawamba (1997)
Anarchy In The USA

It's easy to think that this song is all about drinking (sample lyrics: "he drinks a whiskey drink, he drinks a vodka drink, he drinks a lager drink, he drinks a cider drink"), but the song has political undertones that might not at first be apparent to folks outside of Britain and the Commonwealths, where the word "tubthumper" means "politician." In truth, every political word sounds silly or sexual no matter which side of the Atlantic you're on: gerrymander, filibuster, caucus... And if you're nitpicky with names, you're probably still stuck on Chumbawamba.

The song became a worldwide smash when it was released in August 1997, reaching #2 in the UK and #6 in the States. But Chumbawamba served just one term in the musical parliament, and would never again rival the massive success of "Tubthumping."

It's easy to see why the song was a hit: it's crazy catchy with a deceptively complex lyrical structure. There are elements of the Irish classic "Danny Boy" along with dialogue from a movie called Brassed Off to start the tune. Toward the end there's a trumpet solo that evokes the classical piece "Prince of Denmark's March." There is even some football (soccer) chanting in the mix. It's like a James Joyce novel contained within a four-minute pop song that you'll be singing all day.

And we do still sing it. In 2003, the Flaming Lips did a remix of the song along with Dave Fridmann. The 2009 movie Fired Up! had a scene where a character says, "Chumbawamba man, soundtrack to my life." Yes, it was ironic and ridiculous, but everybody laughed because everybody knows the song. And by everyone, we even mean people in space, where it was used as the wake-up call on Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2011, nearly 15 years after the song was first released. It's clear that we really are never going to keep Chumbawamba down, are we?


5) "Achy Breaky Heart" – Billy Ray Cyrus (1992)
Miley's Dad Takes Country Mainstream

Okay, when we said that there weren't any dances in the '90s before the Macarena, we meant there weren't any good dances. But "Achy Breaky Heart" did cause an explosion in the popularity of line dancing, and that can't be forgotten.

Now far better known as Miley's dad, Billy Ray Cyrus was once the superstar who brought us this incredibly pervasive hit. It was so big it was parodied by Weird Al in the song "Achy Breaky Song." Al's lyrics are surprisingly cruel: "Tie me to a chair, and kick me down the stairs, just please don't play that stupid song." He also says, "I just can't take no more of Billy Ray." More Cyrus abuse came in the 1996 Kid Rock song "Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp," where he sings, "You're looking really gay, like f--king Billy Ray Cyrus." The Maxim spinoff music magazine Blender would later place the song at #2 on the worst songs of all time list, edged out by "We Built This City."

Despite the derision, Cyrus never backed down. When accepting the American Music Award for Best Country Single (yes, this song won an award), he offered his critics a quarter, and told them to "call someone who cares."

Whether you hated the song or loved it, you could not escape it. And, in a similar theme to the above-mentioned love we have for entertainment that is very polarizing, you'll notice that as time goes on the things that stay a part of our zeitgeist the longest always seem to be the most divisive.

But even if you take away the explosion of popularity in the line dance field (this writer had to learn to dance to the song in elementary school along with every other kid in physical education class), the song was the first triple-platinum seller in Australian history. It reached #3 on the UK singles chart, where American country rarely connects. It made #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Even Alvin and the Chipmunks covered the song. And of course, Cyrus passed down his fame, using his achy breaky clout to get his daughter noticed by Disney.


6) "Bad Day" – Daniel Powter (2005)
Sendoff Song Signals a Musical Shift

This is one of those songs that everybody knows (in part because of it being the "goodbye" theme on American Idol) and yet nobody can remember who sings it. The answer is Daniel Powter, the first Canadian singer (he's from British Columbia) to top the American charts since Nickelback.

Coca-Cola broke the song in 2005 when they used it in European commercials. The next year, American Idol used it for a whole season as theme music when a contestant departed. This sent the song to #1 and made it the best-selling digital download of 2006.

"Bad Day" was part of our digital transition, as music was shifting toward singles rather than a collective body of work. Think about this: Do you know anybody with a Daniel Powter album?

A generation from now, many of us will think back to the first song we bought digitally, and we'll remember that after hearing "Bad Day" in a commercial or on Idol, we thought it was worth the 99 cents. Check your iPhone - you still might have it.


7) "Pass The Dutchie" – Musical Youth (1982)
The First Black Artist on MTV

"Pass The Dutchie" was the video that broke the MTV color barrier. The obvious choice, "Super Freak" by Rick James, was a little too freaky for the network, which launched in the summer of 1981.

Late in 1982, Musical Youth - five British kids of Jamaican descent - hit #1 in the UK with their take on a song called "Pass The Kutchie" (a "kutchie" holds marijuana, a "dutchie" is a cooking pot). The song and video were three minutes of quirky fun out of England, the source of many MTV clips in their early years. The network broke the song in America, where it peaked at #10 in February 1983, proving that MTV was a legitimate hitmaker.

Musical Youth helped MTV just as much with its own musical youth. Little kids singing reggae didn't translate to American radio, but when you see them in action, it all comes together. Credible and deserving acts like Thomas Dolby, Talking Heads and Devo also used MTV to expand their reach by putting the right pictures to the music. In later years, MTV peddled plenty of corporate pablum, but early on, you could discover very talented artists previously known only to niche audiences on the channel.

Musical Youth got no more love in America, but that was more a fault of their management, as these guys played their own instruments and had real talent. They were abandoned by their record company in favor of New Edition, but did place five more songs in the UK Top 40.

As for that color barrier, it was soon shattered by Michael Jackson, whose ""Billie Jean" video went in rotation a few weeks later.


8) "What's Up" - 4 Non Blondes (1992)
Linda Perry and Lesbian Rock

Many people know this song not by its name but as "the one where the girls go 'hey-ey-ey-ya.'" And while it does indeed have that hook, there is much more going on in this one-hit wonder than what may at first be apparent. Besides being an undeniably infectious pop number, it was also the first major Billboard hit by an openly lesbian band. The Indigo Girls had already been around for half a decade, and they made quite a mark during that time, but "Closer To Fine" couldn't get closer to #52 on the charts. k.d. Lang was already a Grammy winner, but she had yet to come out as openly gay. 4NB bass player Christa Hillhouse explained in a Songfacts interview:

"We ended up signing with Interscope in June 1991. We had a shot with a couple of other labels, but we kind of freaked them out because we were kind of weird. At the time, we were all women, we were all gay - that was the time before it was the cool thing to do, I don't even think k.d. lang was out of the closet yet. I think the marketing thing threw a lot of labels off because they're always looking at marketing."

4 Non Blondes had the talent, but not the timing. They broke up during the making of their second album, securing their one-hit wonder status. Their lead singer was Linda Perry, whose next visit to the charts was in 2001 as the writer of Pink's hit "Get The Party Started," quite a departure from the angst-ridden "What's Up." She quickly became one of the top songwriter/producers in the business, with tracks by Alicia Keys, Courtney Love, Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera. In 2018, she became just the second woman nominated for the Producer Of The Year Grammy on her own, following Paula Cole. She didn't win (Pharrell did), but she and her signature hat got plenty of airtime on the 2019 telecast, where the theme was "rise of the woman."


9) "Don't Worry Be Happy" – Bobby McFerrin (1988)
Public Enemy's Public Enemy

Like many one-hit wonders, including most on this list, this song receives equal amounts of praise and ridicule. It's a sad irony that this song, with its innocent and heartfelt message, seems to make a lot of people decidedly unhappy.

While it never reached an "Achy Breaky" level of scorn, it certainly had its detractors, notably the seminal rap group Public Enemy, who declared on their song "Fight the Power":

"Don't Worry Be Happy" was a number one jam.
Damn, if I say it you can slap me right here


The animosity isn't exactly directed toward McFerrin, but it is clear that many people consider the song to be a vapid, Leibniz-style way of shrugging off responsibility for anything, with McFerrin the dubious Dr. Pangloss that would be cursed to one-hit wonder status as his glorious Spain crumbled to ruins.

The "Don't Worry, Be Happy" mantra comes from Pete Townshend's Indian guru Meher Baba, who said the phrase in an interview McFerrin read. Depending on your perspective, the late-'80s, with apartheid, a recession, a crack epidemic, and various other social problems, was either the perfect time to receive a message of hope, or the worst time to put your head in the sand. Simba didn't take nearly as much abuse for "Hakuna Matata."

McFerrin, who is a jazz musician by trade, didn't use any instruments on the song, just his voice in a capella style. It is one of the most memorable of one-hit wonders, with a video starring Robin Williams, an appearance in the movie Cocktail, and even a kerfuffle when George H. W. Bush used the song in his 1988 presidential campaign - until McFerrin asked him to cease and desist.


10) "Journey to the Center of the Mind" - The Amboy Dukes (1968)
Ted Nugent Plays Innocent

Back in 1968, psychedelic rock was nothing new, and this certainly wasn't the first song to celebrate trippy drugs. So why culturally significant? Well, for one, it introduced us to a man named Ted Nugent, guitarist and leader of The Amboy Dukes.

Anybody who follows Ted Nugent knows that he is many things: An outspoken gun and hunting advocate, a vocal political personality... and a teetotaler. Nugent was straight edge before there was a term for it. He tried a few joints in the mid-'60s and never went back. He even abstained when touring with Aerosmith in the '70s, which was like being on the road with a pharmacy.

The funny thing is, the song is clearly about doing drugs. Written by the group's other guitarist, Steve Farmer, it inspires the feelings and overtones experienced when tripping on acid or mushrooms. Nugent may have thought the subject matter to be spiritual or something akin, but he claimed to have no idea that the song had anything to do with drugs. When you listen to his solo, it does seem to have a more rock-oriented style to it instead of something that might enhance the connections between the song and a hallucinogenic trip.

The Dukes never matched the success of "Journey To The Center Of The Mind" and Ted went solo, becoming "The Motor City Madman." As time went on, his personality became just as interesting as his nuanced soloing. This is one of the few examples where it isn't the one-hit wonder that becomes polarizing so much as the performer. For in the end, how you feel about Ted Nugent is equally as divisive as how you feel about any of the songs on this list.

~Landon McQuilkin
February 12, 2019

More Song Writing

Comments: 20

  • Camille from Toronto, OhPlease admit to a huge error on this list of top 10 culturally significant one-hit wonders, Songfacts. Way up near the top should be “Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry. Not only was it a huge hit in 1976, the song continues to be very relevant today. Here are some facts about the song copied from your own website to prove my point:
    *
    -The song sold over *two million copies*, but was Wild Cherry's only hit.
    -This song was a topic of conversation on the 2015 episode of The Big Bang Theory, "The Skywalker Incursion." When the song comes on the car radio, the scientist character Sheldon determines that the song is funky, and that it is requesting a white boy to play funky music. Seeing it as an example of Russell's Paradox, he asks, "Do you think this song is the music the white boy ultimately plays?"
    -For certain plot lines, ONLY THIS SONG WILL DO (all caps mine, but your words). TV series that have used it include Scandal and The Office; movies include Mystery Men (1999), Whatever It Takes (2000), Evolution (2001), Undercover Brother (2002), Malibu's Most Wanted (2003), Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004) and Obsessed (2009).
    *
    Instantly recognized by its first few chords, everyone jumps in to howl the first line: “HHHHEY! Do it now!
    Made its mark on our pop cultural landscape? I’ll say!
  • Phil from MalaysiaHuh, how could you forget Baltimora, 'Tarzen Boy?!'
  • Fred from Laurel, MdOnly one I can think to add at the moment: Walk Away, Renée, by The Left Banke. I liked their second song, Pretty Ballerina, but it bombed on the charts. Probably wouldn't qual for this list, though, because of criterion #2. I believe it did manage to crack the Top 40.
    OK, maybe also I'm Too Sexy (for My Shirt) by Right Said Fred.
    And maybe a list of 2-hit wonders, and even 3-hit wonders, would be fun to compile.
  • Kris from Essex. UkWhat about Down Under by Men At Work? Everyone knows and loves that song!
  • Holly from Brighton, United KingdomChallenge accepted, I have found someone who owns a Daniel Powter album. But you're right, I asked further and they claim they only ever played it maybe once and wouldn't recognise any songs from it other than Bad Day.
  • Martin from Rostock, Germany"In England at the time, grunge was equally popular thanks to bands like Sonic Youth and the Brian Jonestown Massacre, but even there dancing wasn't the cool thing to do; not when you were listening to depressing, distorted music about heroin and suicide. Case in point: England called their version of grunge 'shoegazing' "
    Sonic Youth are from New York and not a Grunge band. The Brian Jonestown Massacre are from San Francisco and not a Grunge band... and Shoegaze is the English Grunge? Huh? I don't get that at all! does anyone care to try to explain that to me?
  • Rose from Kansas City, MoI still remember Bad Day, it's on my I pod...
  • Kent from Greensburg, PaWhat about The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star?" It is a one hit wonder that deserves recognition as being one of the most important songs in modern times! It was MTV's first EVER music video to be played and everyone remembers it for that reason but yet not many can honestly say they know what was the second video to air on the network. It sparked a NEW way of getting music out to the masses and without it there porbably would be no Madonna, no Thriller, no Cyndi Laupner, and definitely no Macarena. Think about it for a minute. The only reason the Macarena probably became a HUGE phenomenom was because the video had a dance to its catchy tune and everyone had to learn it. So that is why it is almost a crime that the VERY first video to EVER air on MTV isn't on this list!
  • Robert from Topeka KsI thought Billy Ray Cyrus had a couple more lesser hits, they play them on older country stations.
  • Gerard Pin from FranceI do agree with "dogg from Tulsa" - now what's all this?
  • Dogg from Tulsa, OkThis is an incomprehensible list. I can't image numbers 3-8 having any significance 20 years from now. I don't know anything about them now.
  • Terry from Nova ScotiaAll the songs are familiar except number 2, this is the first time I've ever heard it.
  • AnonymousThe list is pretty good. Some songs remain a part of our culture because of their universal themes that every generation experiences (i.e. you had a bad day). A few of these songs I'd heard but never knew the title or that they were a one-hit wonder. What I especially like about this list is that it's so eclectic. Oh, and that song "Something In the Air"...I've always loved it, and agree it should garner a place on this list...maybe replacing Tubthumping (altho that played a continuous loop in my head too many times).
  • Bob from Southfield, MiI don't know how Nugent did not realize the song was about drugs! If you look at the album cover, it consisted of a photo full of water pipes! Not to mention that several other songs on the album touched on the same subject. I guess ole' Ted is as dumb as he looks!!!!
  • Zachary from CanadaSo true about "Bad Day". It was the first song on my iPod and I can only name one other Dan Powter song. He's apparently making a new album though, so we'll see if he can come up with another hit...
  • Robin from Bolton, United KingdomRe: Tubthumping - It's being used right now (August 2012) for a UK tv ad for an ambulance-chasing insurance company.
  • Karen from Manchester, NhTalk about polarizing! There are 5 that I can't stand (2, 3, 4, 5 & 7), 4 that I love (1, 8, 9 & 10) and one that I only marginally know (I don't watch AI).
  • Robin from Bolton, United KingdomI'd like to nominate "Something In The Air" by Thunderclap Newman which got to 37 in the Billboard chart in 1969 but to No 1 in the UK. Thunderclap Newman, a band set up by Pete Townshend for the Who's former roadie John 'Speedy' Keen, apparently never played live more than half a dozen times, but the song has appeared in six movies, several TV series in the UK and US, and numerous advertisements in both countries. It has also been significant in many other countries around the world and is still going strong. "We've got to get it together - now!" is a stirring call at any time!
  • Courtney from CanadaBob Gaudio Who wears short shorts. That was his only solo one hit, but he became a legend after he joined the four seasons
  • Sioraf from Macroon, IrelandI am into philosophy but I can't understand that Leibniz reference.
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Tim McIlrath of Rise Against

Tim McIlrath of Rise AgainstSongwriter Interviews

Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath explains the meanings behind some of their biggest songs and names the sci-fi books that have influenced him.

Graham Bonnet (Alcatrazz, Rainbow)

Graham Bonnet (Alcatrazz, Rainbow)Songwriter Interviews

Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai were two of Graham's co-writers for some '80s rock classics.

Donnie Iris (Ah! Leah!, The Rapper)

Donnie Iris (Ah! Leah!, The Rapper)Songwriter Interviews

Before "Rap" was a form of music, it was something guys did to pick up girls in nightclubs. Donnie talks about "The Rapper" and reveals the identity of Leah.

Stephen Christian of Anberlin

Stephen Christian of AnberlinSongwriter Interviews

The lead singer/lyricist for Anberlin breaks down "Impossible" and covers some tracks from their 2012 album Vital.

Bill Withers

Bill WithersSongwriter Interviews

Soul music legend Bill Withers on how life experience and the company you keep leads to classic songs like "Lean On Me."

Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues

Justin Hayward of The Moody BluesSongwriter Interviews

Justin wrote the classic "Nights In White Satin," but his fondest musical memories are from a different decade.