Biggest One-Hit Wonders of All Time

“Lean on Me” was a hit for its composer, Bill Withers, in 1972. California-based R&B-pop band Club Nouveau recorded a popular cover version in 1986, which not only hit the charts again, but also belatedly won Withers a Grammy for Best R&B Song.

Tommy Page’s one hit was this song, which he co-wrote with New Kids on the Block members Jordan Knight and Danny Wood. Page, who died in 2017 of apparent suicide, went on to become a successful music industry executive, including stints as a vice president of Top 40 promotion for Warner Bros./Reprise Records and as publisher of the music business bible, Billboard.

Bobby McFerrin took a phrase popularized by Indian spiritual adviser Meher Baba (who also influenced The Who’s Pete Townshend) and turned it into a hit in 1988. McFerrin has been nominated for 18 Grammy awards and won 10 times. Three of those awards — song, record, and male pop vocal performance — were for this Jamaican syncopated tune.

Austrian-born rocker Falco, wearing a powdered wig as a punk Mozart, scored his only No. 1 hit in the United States with the campy “Rock Me Amadeus.” The classically trained Falco was unable to successfully follow up that novelty tune. He was killed in car accident in 1998 while vacationing in the Dominican Republic.

The British-American ensemble scored a No. 1 hit on Billboard with the dance-pop song, “I’ve Been Thinking About You,” released from their album “In the Blood.” The song was No. 1 for one week on the Billboard Hot 100 and was on the chart for 19 weeks.

Los Lobos, three-time Grammy Award winners from Los Angeles, had a hit with their Latin-infused rocker “La Bamba” in 1987. The song was No. 1 for three weeks on Billboard and stayed on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for 21 weeks.

The quintessential club band, Billy Vera and the Beaters have been putting on popular shows around Southern California since 1979. But the group — modeled after the classic Ray Charles and Little Richard R&B bands of the 1950s, complete with four saxophones — has had only this one big hit, a song Vera wrote.

Dexys Midnight Runners’ biggest hit remains a favorite of bar patrons. It came off the British band’s second album, “Too-Rye-Ay.” “Come On Eileen” spent one week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart and was on the chart for 23 weeks.

Marky Mark may have been a one-hit wonder, but he also became a big star. “Mark” was actually Mark Wahlberg, and the video for “Good Vibrations” — not to be confused with the Beach Boys song of the same name — showed off his buff physique, which led to a job as a Calvin Klein underwear model. That, in turn, helped him land his role as a porn star in “Boogie Nights,” and the rest is show-biz history.

The Irish singer who has courted controversy throughout her career notched her lone No. 1 hit, so far. “Nothing Compares 2 U,” a remake of a Prince song, reached the top position on April 21, 1990 and stayed there for four weeks. The song was on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 21 weeks.

Canadian singer Alannah Myles’ lone No.1 song reached Billboard’s Hot 100 top spot on March 24, 1990. The song occupied that position for two weeks and was in the Billboard chart for 24 weeks. The song, which garnered a Grammy Award for Myles in 1991, was written by Canadian musicians David Tyson and Christopher Ward about Elvis Presley.

Raised in Harlem by a Venezuelan mother and a father from the Caribbean island of Antigua, Abbott is a prolific songwriter (Jennifer Warnes, Whitney Houston, and 50 Cent are among those who have recorded his work), but “Shake You Down” is his claim to fame as a performer.

A-ha was the first Norwegian group to have a No. 1 single in the U.S. The synth-pop song “Take On Me” topped Billboard’s Hot 100 for one week and spent 27 weeks on the chart. The band is remembered for its groundbreaking video for the song that combined live action with illustrations. The video was created by Steve Barron, who directed Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”

While disco had largely fallen out of favor as a popular music style by the 1980s, the disco/funk/R&B group Lipps Inc. managed to strike gold in 1980 with their disco hit “Funkytown.” Though they failed to reach that level of mainstream success again, they had a number of additional songs that performed well on the Dance Club charts.

The first album by this British band, led by guitarist and songwriter Ian Dench, resulted in four songs in the U.K. Top 40 in 1990. The song “Unbelievable” crossed the pond to America the following year, and the band toured the U.S., but without Dench. E.M.F. had repeatedly played this one song at every show, as it was the only one of theirs the audience had ever heard of.

Californian Timmy T (born Timothy Torres) scored his only No. 1 hit, which stayed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 25 weeks. This song is not to be confused with the Rolling Stones tune of the same name from 1965.

Although Michael Sembello had minor success with his song “Automatic Man,” it pales in comparison to the No. 1 hit “Maniac.” The single’s popularity was no doubt bolstered by its inclusion in the 1983 film “Flashdance.”

English duo Right Said Fred found quick success when they released their debut single “I’m Too Sexy” in 1992. While the goofy single only spent three weeks at No. 1, it stayed in the Top 40 for another 14.

Extreme was formed by Massachusetts-born vocalist Gary Cherone (who went on to have a brief career as lead singer for Van Halen) and Portuguese guitarist Nuno Bettencourt (later to tour with Rihanna). The band recorded this acoustic love ballad as a contrast to their more usual rock music.

Toni Basil is a multiple Emmy and Grammy nominee, choreographer, actor, director, and dancer, and was named a Living Legend of Hip Hop by Hip Hop International in 2008. Though “Mickey” was hailed by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as one of the groundbreaking singles of the ’80s, it was Basil’s only smash hit recording.

Mims (full name Shawn Mims) had a huge hit with this “memorably minimalist chest-bump anthem” (in the words of Stereogum). The follow-ups, however, were tepidly received, and Mims subsequently turned to Silicon Valley, creating an app, RecordGram, with two partners.

Written by Crazy Town lead singer Shifty Shellshock (otherwise known as Seth Binzer), “Butterfly” samples “Pretty Little Ditty” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band Crazy Town toured with. The song — identified by the Federal Trade Commission as inappropriate for underage listeners — didn’t top the charts until a year-and-a-half after it was released.

Darrin Kenneth O’Brien, the Canadian reggae-rapper who performs as Snow, got into the Guinness Book of World Records for this song, named the biggest selling reggae single of all time. Subsequent recordings failed to duplicate the success of “Informer,” and since 2009, when his longtime partner died of cancer, he has devoted himself to charities funding cancer research and to helping residents of nonprofit housing.

Atlanta rappers D4L (which stands for “Down for Life”) initially created this song as a smartphone ringtone before it came out as a single.

Ini Kamoze had modest success as a reggae artist, but he wanted to try something in a different format in an attempt to gather more airplay. The chorus on this track is sampled from the Cannibal and the Headhunters version of “Land of 1,000 Dances,” and the bass line is sampled from “Heartbeat” by Taana Gardner. “Hotstepper,” a Jamaican term for a fugitive from the law, is the singer’s nickname.

Seattle rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot’s derrière-themed hit has been widely covered and parodied and referred to in everything from “Friends” to “Shrek.” Last year, the singer, born Anthony Ray, debuted a real estate-themed reality show called “Sir Mix-a-Lot’s House Remix” on the DIY Network.

Owl City is Minnesotan Adam Young’s electronic-pop project. He apparently doesn’t care that he produced no successful follow-ups to this No. 1 hit, telling Songfacts, “I don’t really care if people only know me for ‘Fireflies.’ I just do my own thing.”

This gospel-inspired ballad by R&B trio Divine topped the Billboard charts only a few weeks after the three young members of the group graduated from high school. Follow-ups faltered, and the group disbanded in 2000.

With this song, Daniel Powter, who is from British Columbia, became the first Canadian to top the U.S. charts since Nickelback did so four years earlier. Billboard named Powter the top one-hit wonder of the years 2000 to 2007.

Big Punisher and Fat Joe, two already notable Latino rappers from the Bronx, formed the core of this late-1990s/early-2000s group. “Lean Back” reached the top five on Billboard’s Hot 100 list before the album featuring it was released. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks.

Plain White T’s lead singer Tom Higgenson wrote this song about a woman named Delilah DiCrescenzo, whom he was trying to woo (he failed). Last year, according to the Hollywood Reporter, the band began pitching a TV series based on the song.

English singer-songwriter James Blunt scored his sole Top 40 hit with this soulful pop ballad. The song did exceptionally well on the charts — it was on the Billboard Hot 100 for 38 weeks — and was nominated for multiple Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year. But even Blunt, as he told Hello! Magazine in 2014, found the overplaying of the track “annoying.”

Released nearly a decade after the band’s formation, Vertical Horizon’s “Everything You Want” was a huge success for the alternative rock band from Washington, D.C. In addition to spending 34 weeks in the Top 40, the song was Billboard’s Most Played Single of 2000.

Anyone alive during the mid-1990s will remember the inescapable fad that was the “Macarena.” Complete with its signature dance, the song was played everywhere – from sporting events to the 1996 Democratic National Convention.

Australian electronic musician Gotye scored his one top 40 hit with this infectious 2012 pop song. The track — which samples Brazilian guitarist Luiz Bonfa’s 1967 song “Seville” — spent an impressive 44 weeks in the Top 40 and eight weeks at No. 1. “Somebody That I Used to Know” also won the awards for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards.