THEY clog up the charts for a few weeks, you hear them playing on the radio in every shop you go in to, they peak and then ... nada. You never hear from them again until they resurface on some compilation CD of obscure artists ten years later. Or worse still, on one of those late-night Channel 4 programmes – you know the ones.
Yes, pop-pickers, this entry is about those little gems better known as 'one-hit wonders'.
Talking of which, a mate of mine, Andrew Midgley - no, not the former Wham bass player (oh my sides!) - was soon forgotten after scoring a hit of his own wi
th the melodic piece of Euro trash, I mean Euro dance, that was 7 Ways To Love.
Reaching number eight in the UK singles chart in the summer of 1991, 7 Ways To Love was written by Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs of St Etienne, with Sarah Cracknell singing on the original version. After an initial pressing of 500 white label copies sold out, it was re-recorded with vocals by Cracknell's friend Janey Lee Grace, a former Wham backing singer, as Cracknell was under contract to another label and was not permitted to sing on non-St Etienne releases.
Midgley, who was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar at the time (either that or a tax office - I can never remember) was asked to become Cola Boy's other public face. The rest, as they say, is his story...
Ah, but I digress. We're talking one-hit wonders here, not one one-hit wonder.
Be it Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners or Falco's Rock Me Amadeus (hang your head in shame Ross Thompson) everyone has their favourite.
A recent(ish) television poll, conducted by Channel 4, asked viewers to select their favourite one-hit wonder from a shortlist of 60.
Respondents could also vote by e-mail to select a song that was not on the original list, if they were that way inclined.
The top 10 were: 1, Kung Fu Fighting – Carl Douglas; 2, 99 Red Balloons – Nena; 3, Because I Got High – Afroman; 4, Sugar, Sugar – The Archies; 5, Can You Dig It? – The Mock Turtles; 6, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life – Monty Python; 7, Spirit in the Sky – Doctor and the Medics (also Norman Greenbaum); 8, Who Let the Dogs Out – Baha Men; 9, The Safety Dance – Men Without Hats; 10, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please – Splodgenessabounds.
But that list is riddled with inaccuracies, since at least 15 of the 50 acts ranked in the Top 50 by the poll had multiple Top 40 hits in the UK singles chart, thus disqualifying them from the label 'one-hit wonder'.
Confused? You might ask, then, what is a one-hit wonder? Well, the term was first used by the Guinness Book of Hit Singles from the 1970s, and referred strictly to those artists whose first chart action was "a number one hit, and then nothing else, ever". This is now commonly known as a "true" one-hit wonder.
Cola Boy, therefore, are not "true" one-hit wonders, but they're one-hit wonders all the same. In coming weeks we might do a "where are they now?" column. Fortunately, we know where Cola Boy Midgley is now ... he's working right here at the Evening News.
The full article contains 574 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
