The one-hit wonder may very well be the most back-handed compliment in the music industry. Getting a hit is one thing, but taking that one hit and making something more out of it is another thing entirely. Across the globe, acts appear out of the woodwork with a hit song that takes the world by storm, only to fade into obscurity in a matter of months. A lot of these one hits are great; songs like “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by the Proclaimers and “No Rain” by Blind Melon are genuinely good songs. But there are other songs that, almost against all odds, become hits. Despite how annoying these songs are, the radio can’t play enough of them before the artist’s 15 minutes is over. Here is a list of what are, in my opinion, the 10 most annoying one-hit wonders.
10. “Gangnam Style” by PSY. I didn’t put this higher up on the list because while yes, this song can get irritating, it’s still astoundingly catchy. Previously, PSY had had a string of hits in his native Korea, but this was his only real international hit. And boy, what a hit it was. For several months, this song, accompanied by its wild music video, was all that people were talking about. With over 2 billion views, the “Gangnam Style” music video is the most viewed video in YouTube history. It’s a one-hit wonder, but with an emphasis on the “wonder”.
9. “U Can’t Touch This”, by MC Hammer. Filled to the brim with swagger, after this song came out, it seemed like MC Hammer had to justify the talk behind it. The hit made Hammer obscenely wealthy almost overnight, and he began to spend so lavishly that he was burning through around $1 million a month. As the parachute pant-wearing MC failed to match the success from “U Can’t Touch This”, the excessive spending caught up with him, and he ended up millions of dollars in debt.
8. “Ice Ice Baby”, by Vanilla Ice. As one of the first white rappers to hit the mainstream, one could argue that Vanilla Ice is historically significant. But when you realise that this fame comes from a song as awful as “Ice Ice Baby”, calling Vanilla Ice “historically significant” suddenly makes you feel like you’re giving him a lot more credit than he deserves. The song’s chorus is nothing more than the rapper singing his name over and over again, in case you forgot that you were listening to Vanilla Ice, and the rest of the lyrics are cliche rap fodder at best. After the hype around Vanilla Ice had died down, it would be another 9 years before another white rapper, Eminem, would hit the mainstream once more.
7. “Barbie Girl”, by Aqua. Barbie dolls have recently garnered plenty of controversy for their unrealistic portrayal of the female figure, but if there’s one thing that will get them taken off the shelves of toy stores, it’s this Norwegian dancepop song. While some view “Barbie Girl” as an interesting piece of social commentary about the over-importance of sex appeal in modern pop culture, any meaningful insight this song has to offer is outweighed by the vocalist’s painfully screechy voice, since it’s really impossible to gather any meaning from a song if you can’t even listen to all of it before common decency forces you to turn it off.
6. “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” by Eiffel 65. Any song whose title unironically contains the words “da ba dee” is going to be pretty awful. And in this aspect, Eiffel 65’s one hit does not disappoint. Most of the chorus sounds like nothing more than baby babble, probably because the writer couldn’t think of anything to say other than how blue he was. While a lot of one-hit wonders are decent the first time you hear them, but then get worse with every following listen, “Blue” is unique in that it’s awful the first time, and remains awful no matter how many times you hear it on the radio.
5. “I’m Too Sexy”, by Right Said Fred. This just isn’t a good song. It’s stupid. The lyrics are dumb, the music is flat and everything about it is bad. There’s not much more to say about it.
4. “Dragostea Din Tei”, by O-Zone. While meant to be a dance song, this Moldovan song isn’t even that danceable, making it a massive fail. The vocals are a reason enough to ban auto-tuning, and the only part of the song that’s even vaguely danceable is the chorus, which makes your ears bleed every time you hear it. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this song’s popularity was nothing more than an elaborate prank by the music industry.
3. “Hey There Delilah”, by Plain White T’s. It might be unfair to call the Plain White T’s a “one hit wonder”, but this is undoubtedly their biggest hit, and it absolutely needs to be included in any list of annoying hits. Not a terribly recognisable song on its own, this “ballad” was only made popular because its soft lyrics sounded somewhat meaningful and it was pretty easy to play on a guitar, making it the perfect song for wannabe Romeos to play in an effort to impress girls. Due to this stereotype, however, most girls know to be wary of fellows who strum this song on their acoustic guitars, so that “Hey There Delilah”’s one practical use has since been negated.
2. “Friday”, by Rebecca Black. It’s kind of unfair to beat up on Rebecca Black too much, since this song wasn’t supposed to even be released to the public, let alone become a “hit”. It was put out by the ARK Music Factory, an American company that lets young teenagers record songs, accompanied by a music video (for a fee, of course). While “Friday” was only meant for Rebecca Black and her friends, it quickly became an Internet sensation after it was discovered on YouTube, since its obnoxious autotuning and idiotic lyrics (it’s literally about nothing more than the days of the week) naturally attracted ridicule. Unfortunately for young Rebecca, the infamy generated from this song will most likely follow her around for the rest of her life.
1. “Who Let the Dogs Out”, by the Baha Men. Without a doubt, this is my least favourite of the one-hit wonders out there. Despite this song’s dumb lyrics, annoying hook and foolish video, the radio couldn’t stop playing it, and escaping from it was nearly impossible. It wasn’t until the entire world was absolutely sick of hearing the question this song’s title posed that it was finally put where it deserved to be in the first place, a footnote in the dark side of popular music’s history. While the music industry definitely isn’t what it used to be, I think that music fans across the board can agree that we’re a lot better off without this song being played on the radio.
Frank Macari 