Tuesday Top Ten: One-Hit Wonders By Year - 1970s

Previous one-hit wonders by year lists:
-1960s

Continuing the journey through my favorite one-hit wonders from each year between 1960 and 2009, our second stop takes us to the 1970s.  I feel like this is the decade when the one-hit wonder really began to take off.  From rock to disco to soft rock to country rock to soul to punk to pop to funk, there were plenty of great one-hit wonders to choose from.

As a reminder, here are my rules:

• The song must have been in the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100.  There might be a couple songs that are #21 or #22, as not every year had a ton of one-hit wonders with Top 20 songs to choose from (or one-hit wonders with Top 20 songs that I like).  Also, I'm focusing on the American charts, since that's where I've lived my whole life.  Plus, a look at one-hit wonders on the Dutch charts would require a lot more work.  There are certainly songs and artists who may be one-hit wonders here who have been successful in other countries, and vice versa.
• The band or artist cannot have any song that broke into the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100.  And just so you know I'm trying to keep everything on the level, I am truly focused on artists who didn't have a bunch of Top 40 hits.  For instance, if an artist had one Top 10 song and then five or six other Top 40 songs, I don't necessarily consider that a one-hit wonder.  On the other hand, if there is an artist who had one big hit and then another song that isn't as well know that happened to go to #21, I'm considering that artist.
• The band or artist cannot be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or have a band member who is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  For instance, "Layla" by Derek & The Dominos, which hit #10 in 1972, doesn't count because the group featured three-time Rock Hall inductee Eric Clapton (as a solo artist and member of Cream and The Yardbirds) and Duane Allman (who was inducted as a member of The Allman Brothers Band).  Likewise, while T. Rex only had one Top 20 song in the U.S. -- "Get It On," which reached #10 in 1971 -- they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.
• For the year, I am counting the year a song was released, regardless of when it charted.  This avoids having to deal with a situation where a song may have been high on the charts at the end of one year and the beginning of another.  Unfortunately, this also hurts songs that didn't become hits until a few years after their release, as I'm not going to choose a song as my favorite one-hit wonder from a particular year if the song didn't really become big until years later.  For instance, "Disco Inferno" by The Trammps was originally released in 1976, but didn't become a Top 20 hit until it was re-released in 1978 after the success of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

So those are the rules.  With those in mind, here are my favorite one-hit wonders from each year in the 1970s, chronologically by year of release, with the peak chart position on the Billboard Hot 100 noted.

1.  1970:  "O-o-h Child" by The Five Stairsteps (#8)
In 1970, Chicago's own Five Stairsteps -- comprised of five siblings -- put out one of my favorite soul songs ever, "O-o-h Child," and the song rose to #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.  While the group had 15 songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100, this would be the only one that even sniffed the Top 40.  The song always puts me in a happy mood, and I beg you not to overlook drummer Bernard Purdie's delicious fills. Also of note is that, until I saw the video below today, I had always assumed the person singing the first verse was a male.


2.  1971:  "Signs" by Five Man Electrical Band (#3)
A warning against social and economic barriers, "Signs" was Canada's Five Man Electrical Band's only Top 20 song in the U.S., though they had greater success in the Great White North.  It's a classic song, and was famously covered in 1990 by Tesla (whose version went to #8) as part of their live acoustic album, which itself was an homage to Five Man Electrical Band, as it was called Five Man Acoustical Jam.


3.  1972:  "Brandy" by Looking Glass (#1)
What a great song.  It tells the tale of a port town bar maid named Brandy who gets hit on constantly by sailors, but all she really wants is the mariner who left her behind because he loved the sea more than anything else.  That's probably a sign that he wasn't the right guy, but hey, let Brandy live her life.  The song was so popular that the baby name Brandy surged in popularity after this song was released. Now riddle me this: does the lead singer not look like the love child of Alice Cooper and Janice from Friends?



4.  1973:  "Hocus Pocus" by Focus (#9)
You may have heard this song before and had no idea what it was called or who recorded it.  Dutch rockers Focus's "Hocus Pocus" is a blistering hard rock instrumental interspersed with weird yodeling, effing, whistling, and scatting.  So of course it captured the hearts and ears of listeners in 1973, rising to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100.


5.  1974:  "Kung Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas (#1)
In 1974, kung fu movies and culture was at its height, and so Jamaican singer cashed in big time with his now-well-known hit "Kung Fu Fighting," which not only topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in late 1974, but also topped the pop charts in eleven other countries and helped popularize disco music.  It's the kind of cultural appropriation that probably wouldn't fly today, but was widely embraced in the '70s. Like Chubby Checker did with songs about the Twist, Douglas tried to follow up with another kung fu song later the same year, "Dance the Kung Fu," but that topped out at #48 on the Billboard Hot 100 and would be his only other charting song.


6.  1975:  "Love Hurts" by Nazareth (#8)
Scottish hard rockers Nazareth are known within hard rock and metal circles for songs like "Hair of the Dog" (and it's awesome chorus "Now you're messin' with / A son of a bitch"), but their only song that cracked the Top 40 in the U.S. (or the Top 85, for that matter) was their 1975 cover of a relatively unknown song from the early '60s that had been recorded by both The Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison (and also earlier in 1975 by Jim Capaldi).  Nazareth turned it into a power ballad, and it went to #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 -- and nearly two decades later was featured on the Dazed and Confused soundtrack. It's a perfect post-breakup song.


7.  1976:  "The Boys Are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy (#12)
Thin Lizzy is one of my favorite bands, so it pains me that they were technically a one-hit wonder in the U.S. -- and they're not (yet) in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so I couldn't exclude them.  Their classic "The Boys Are Back in Town" went to #12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and it remains the song that most people associate with the band. It's a great song, showcasing both Phil Lynott's blue collar-themed songwriting skills and the twin lead guitar attack of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson.


8.  1977:  "Thunder Island" by Jay Ferguson (#9)
While another one-hit wonder, Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life," dominated the charts in 1977, spending ten weeks at #1, I don't really like that song, so I'm going with Jay Ferguson's yacht rock hit "Thunder Island," which hit #9.  What I didn't know until today is that Ferguson had been a member of psychedelic rock band Spirit in the late '60s and early '70s, and then in the early '80s, he decided to focus on soundtrack work.  Perhaps most famously, he wrote the theme song to the American version of The Office -- and, in the show, he was the guitarist for Kevin's Police cover band Scrantonicity. Also, Ferguson's lion's mane of hair and come-hither pose on the Thunder Island album cover should not go unrecognized.


9.  1978:  "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon (#21)
This is one of those songs that just missed by technical requirements, as it peaked at #21, but I had to include it because it's such a great song, and it has become a classic rock staple.  Warren Zevon was critically acclaimed, but his chart success didn't seem to match the fervor of the critics, for whatever reason.  "Werewolves of London" is a catchy and funny song about, well, a werewolf in London.  "I saw him drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's / And his hair was perfect / Dip!"


10.  1979:  "Cruel to Be Kind" by Nick Lowe (#12)
For 1979, it was a toss-up between Nick Lowe's "Cruel to Be Kind" and The Knack's "My Sharona."  The latter was a bigger hit and probably much more well-known, so I decided to go with "Cruel to Be Kind."  It's a catchy power pop song that hit #12.  Like Zevon, Lowe is a well-regarded songwriter and had a lot of critical acclaim, but this was his only big hit in the U.S. I'd like to think that my hair would have been just about like Lowe's in the video right now had my wife not made me get a haircut last month.