Once and Done: The Acts Whose Only Hot 100 Hit Went to Number One
"One-hit wonder" is usually a polite phrase for a career full of misses. An act gets one record onto the chart, follows it with five that don't, and the label stops calling. What I went looking for was rarer and stranger: acts that charted exactly once in this archive, 1958 through 1990, and went all the way to #1 doing it. No warm-up single. No sad little follow-up peaking at #87. One entry, one trip to the top, then silence.
A warning before the names. The list was built by matching artist credits character for character, and the Hot 100 has always been sloppy about how it spells a billing. That makes it catch two very different kinds of act. There are the genuine one-shots, the Elegants and Zager & Evans of the world. And there are the duet credits, "Diana Ross & Lionel Richie," "Paul McCartney And Michael Jackson," which appear once because that exact pairing appears once, even though everyone involved had a shelf full of hits under their own name. I'll keep the two apart, because only one of them is a story about obscurity.
Doo-Wop, a Caveman, and a Nun
The purest case is also the first one. "Little Star" by the Elegants, a doo-wop group out of Staten Island, debuted on August 4, 1958, the very first Hot 100 ever published. Three weeks later, on August 25, 1958, it was #1. One week on top, 17 weeks on the chart in all, and then the Elegants never charted again. Present at the creation, on top almost immediately, then gone. You couldn't design a neater myth about pop's cruelty.
Two summers later came "Alley-Oop" by the Hollywood Argyles, a novelty about a comic-strip caveman sung by a group that barely existed outside the studio. It debuted May 30, 1960, and reached #1 on July 11, 1960 for a single week, spending 15 weeks on the chart. Not a great record. An irresistible one, which is a different thing and usually a more profitable one.
The Essex were the strangest lineup of the bunch: a vocal group made up of active-duty Marines. "Easier Said Than Done" debuted June 8, 1963, and held #1 for two weeks starting July 6, 1963, out of 13 weeks charted. Tight, bouncy, and the only time the group ever appeared on the Hot 100.
And then there is the Singing Nun. Soeur Sourire was a Belgian nun who sang in French and accompanied herself on guitar, and "Dominique" is a gentle, skipping song about the founder of her order. It debuted November 9, 1963, and took the top spot on December 7, 1963, holding it for four weeks through December 28. Think about the calendar. The country had buried a president two weeks before this record reached #1, and it stayed on top through Christmas. I don't think that's a coincidence. In a stunned December, a nun singing plainly in a language most listeners couldn't follow may have been exactly the right amount of comfort. She never charted again.
Six Weeks in the Year 2525
If the list has a champion, it's Zager & Evans. Denny Zager and Rick Evans were a duo from Nebraska, and "In The Year 2525" is a grim little science-fiction sermon that marches through the millennia predicting what machines and pills will do to us. It's the least likely summer record I can think of, and it owned the summer of 1969.
It debuted June 21, 1969, and hit #1 three weeks later on July 12, 1969. It was still there the week Apollo 11 landed on the moon, which is either perfect or perverse, a song about machines swallowing humanity on top of the chart during technology's finest hour. Its sixth and final week at #1 was August 16, 1969, the weekend of Woodstock. Six weeks at the top, out of only 13 weeks on the chart. That ratio is the real tell. It went straight up, sat there for a month and a half, and fell away.
Six weeks is a serious reign in any year, and among the genuine one-shots here nobody else comes close. Zager & Evans outlasted most Hall of Famers at #1 with the only record they ever put on the Hot 100.
Hustles, Symphonies, and Pop Muzik
The seventies produced a different kind of one-shot: the studio craftsman with one big idea. Van McCoy was a veteran writer and producer, and "The Hustle," credited to Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony, was his turn out front. It debuted April 19, 1975, and reached #1 on July 26, 1975 for a single week, out of 19 on the chart. It's a dance instruction set with a flute on top, and it's glorious.
Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band had an even simpler idea: put a disco beat under Beethoven. "A Fifth Of Beethoven" debuted May 29, 1976, and took the long road, not reaching #1 until October 9, 1976. One week on top, but 28 weeks on the chart, which is a remarkably long life for a gimmick. Vangelis pulled off nearly the same trick five years later with "Chariots Of Fire - Titles," which debuted December 12, 1981, and needed until May 8, 1982 to reach #1. Also one week at the top, also 28 weeks on the chart. Two instrumentals, two slow climbs, two identical chart lives.
My favorite of this group is M. That's the whole name. M was Robin Scott, a British musician with one perfectly built synth-pop record, and "Pop Muzik" is a song about pop music that sounds like a pop song assembling itself. It debuted August 11, 1979, and hit #1 on November 3, 1979 for one week, during a 24-week stay on the chart. Anyone who has ever written that the eighties started early is thinking of a record like this. New York, London, Paris, Munich, and then M went home.
Sheriff, Six Years Late
Every entry so far tells the same short story: arrive, climb, win, leave. Sheriff's doesn't fit the shape. "When I'm With You" debuted on May 14, 1983, did modestly, and dropped away. Sheriff were a Canadian band, and by the time anything else happened they had broken up.
What happened next was radio. Years later, a handful of stations started playing the old ballad again, listeners responded, and the record was reissued and climbed all over again. It reached #1 on February 4, 1989, nearly six years after it first appeared. One week at the top, 28 weeks on the chart across the whole saga. No band to promote it, no tour, no follow-up. In an archive full of records pushed to the top by enormous machines, "When I'm With You" got there by being played, which is the most honest route there is.
The Ones That Only Look Like One-Hit Wonders
Now the other group, and the reason the raw list needs an editor. By the same exact-match rule, "Endless Love" by Diana Ross & Lionel Richie is a one-entry #1. It debuted July 11, 1981, reached #1 on August 15, 1981, and held the top for nine weeks through October 10, matching the longest reign the Beatles ever managed in this archive. Nobody would call Diana Ross or Lionel Richie a one-hit wonder. The billing is the one-hit wonder; that exact string appeared on one record and never again.
The same goes for "Say Say Say" by Paul McCartney And Michael Jackson, six weeks at #1 from December 10, 1983, to January 14, 1984, and "Ebony And Ivory" by Paul McCartney And Stevie Wonder, seven weeks in the spring of 1982. It goes for "Somethin' Stupid," where Nancy Sinatra & Frank Sinatra shared a credit and four weeks at #1 in 1967, and for "Careless Whisper," which went to #1 in early 1985 billed to Wham! Featuring George Michael, a credit as unrepeatable as it is redundant. "Oh, Pretty Woman" is here only because the label named Roy Orbison's band, the Candy Men. "Philadelphia Freedom" is here because someone called the act The Elton John Band for one single. Even The Captain & Tennille slip in on a technicality: "Love Will Keep Us Together" spent four weeks at #1 in the summer of 1975 with a "The" in the credit, and the duo's later hits dropped it.
These are artefacts of how names are typed, not of how careers went, and I'd rather say so plainly than pad the roll of true one-shots with Elton John. Which leaves a short and very odd honor roll. A doo-wop group from the first chart ever printed. A comic-strip caveman. Some singing Marines. A Belgian nun. Two Nebraskans with a dark view of the future. A disco Beethoven, a synth-pop manifesto, a film score, and a Canadian ballad that came back from the dead. None of them got a second hit. Every one of them got the only thing that mattered.
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