The One After the One-Hit Wonder, Part 6

"Canned Ham," Norman Greenbaum (1970, peaked at No. 46)
"One-hit wonder" is typically used as a pejorative term, but if you're only going to have a single song to hang a career on, you could do a hell of a lot worse than "Spirit in the Sky," a (possibly) tongue-in-cheek gospel boogie with a central riff that's lost absolutely none of its window-lowering, pedal-stomping appeal over the 55 years and counting since its release. Greenbaum had a hell of a rocky road to hoe when it came to following it up, and to be fair, basically anything would have paled in comparison; that said, "Canned Ham" never had a prayer. It isn't a bad song, and has more of a spine than most of the hippie-ish poverty blues cuts from its era, but it was also a pretty strong signal that Greenbaum might not have a ton more to offer pop program directors beyond "Spirit in the Sky."

"News at Ten," The Vapors (1980, did not chart)
This series has given me lots of reasons to talk about the difficulty of following up a novelty hit, and "Turning Japanese" is nothing if not a novelty. After that song peaked at No. 36 in the States, the Vapors were probably always doomed to one-hit wonder status, but there's also an argument that states "News at Ten" was hurt by a whole bunch of business-related issues that were beyond the band's control. I don't know if that's true, but I can say this much: I've never, ever liked "Turning Japanese," but "News at Ten" is pretty great — a wiry, pogo-jumping New Age number about the generation gap.

"That's What I Like," Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers (1990, peaked at No. 69)
What were we just saying about novelty songs? Working under the cheerfully ridiculous nom de DJ Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers, father-son duo John and Andrew Pickles enjoyed worldwide success with their debut single, the Glenn Miller-fueled mashup "Swing the Mood," but pop stations in the U.S. bailed immediately thereafter. "That's What I Like" wasn't a bad follow-up, necessarily; in fact, it's nominally more clever, hopscotching from the Hawaii Five-O theme to Chubby Checker and beyond. On the other hand, how much of this stuff does anyone really need?

"Still," Macy Gray (1999, did not chart)
Very often, when an artist is dubbed a "one-hit wonder," the folks doing the dubbing are ignoring subsequent visits to the Top 40, and I fully expected to find that true for Macy Gray. I mean, "I Try" was pretty massive — certainly popular enough to send a follow-up or two at least into the lower 30s. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Gray has never revisited the Hot 100 since "I Try" peaked at No. 5. Not once! A handful of Adult R&B singles notwithstanding, it's like Gray might as well not even exist since her one big hit faded from the airwaves. I have nothing negative to say about "Still"; this should have peaked no lower than No. 36.

"I Feel Better," Gotye (2011, did not chart)
Sounding vaguely like Sting can do great things for a single (just ask the Outfield), but it doesn't do a lot for career longevity. Again, you could ask the Outfield about that, or at least you could if both core band members weren't dead; instead, we'll have to ask Gotye, who had a global smash with "Somebody That I Used to Know" in 2011, and then promptly vanished from the face of the earth. Well, not really, but he may as well have — as of this writing, he's released seven post-"Somebody" singles, and none of them have charted anywhere. The first of these flops, "I Feel Better," is a listenable albeit anonymous song about, well, feeling better; in retrospect, it probably deserved better than it got, but it's really a song in search of a soundtrack.

"Life and Breath," Climax (1972, peaked at No. 52)
"Precious and Few" is musical diabetes, but in the context of its era, it's really no worse than any other wan, lugubrious early '70s ballad. In a different world, Climax might have been another Bread; fortunately for those of us who aren't excited about drowning in treacle, they were thwarted by a variety of business issues that would be even more boring to discuss than "Precious and Few." "Life and Breath" is basically more of the same, and that's basically all there is to say about it.

"When She Dances," Joey Scarbury (1981, peaked at No. 49)
Joey Scarbury signed his first record deal as a teenager in the early '70s — and then kicked around the industry for about a decade before getting his first real taste of success courtesy of Mike Post, who had Scarbury in his stable when he was hired to produce a theme song for The Greatest American Hero. The show only lasted a few seasons, but that theme — "Believe It or Not" — ranks among the most naggingly undeniable aspirational pop songs of its era. There are probably plenty of reasons for Scarbury's failure to build on that momentum, but I think he was probably really hurt by the fact that, as a recording artist, he was cut from the same Stephen Bishop/Christopher Cross cloth that was already starting to fray at Top 40 radio. Also, much like Gary Portnoy and David Pomeranz, Scarbury's vocals were really made for the opening moments of an '80s TV show: Cut "When She Dances" down to 30 seconds, and you've got yourself the theme for a heartwarming dramedy.

"You've Got to Give Me Room," Oleta Adams (1991, did not chart)
Plucked from obscurity by Tears for Fears co-frontman Roland Orzabal, Oleta Adams was a featured player on their Seeds of Love LP before getting her own deal with their label, Fontana Records. Orzabal co-produced the result, 1990's Circle of One, which sort of drifted around the lower rungs of the charts until someone had the bright idea to release Adams' definitive cover of Brenda Russell's "Get Here" as a single. "Get Here" is a beautiful song, and Adams' version is spine-tingling, but it also highlights the central issue with her recording career — namely, while she's a peerless interpreter of material, she's never really had the knack for coming up with radio-friendly songs on her own. The Adams-penned "You've Got to Give Me Room" is an absolutely lovely song that wouldn't have been out of place on any record by any torch singer of the past, but it's way too slow and quiet to have had any prayer of latching on at any format in 1991. You can imagine the label feeling like the song was a great showcase for Adams' elastic voice, and they weren't wrong. There was no way this was getting played on the radio, though.

"Revolving Door," Crazy Town (2001, did not chart)
In 1997, Sugar Ray were given their first taste of mainstream success courtesy of "Fly," a rap/metal/reggae car accident that had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the album. Immediately understanding which side their bread would be buttered on, the group went full-on pop goofball for subsequent releases, and enjoyed a string of hits along the way. It's the same loose formula that's been followed by a long list of other artists, but it didn't pay off for Sugar Ray's fellow rap-metal enthusiasts in Crazy Town: After they hit No. 1 with album outlier "Butterfly," they tried to do it again with the similar-sounding "Revolving Door," only this time, no one gave a shit. You probably don't need me to tell you that this song is audio herpes, or that it deserved to flop hard. Whoops! I just told you anyway.

"Already Home," A Great Big World (2014, did not chart)
We, as a nation, historically enjoy looking down our noses at boneless adult contemporary pop — and yet, at least once a decade or so, we all rally 'round an artist who pours syrup over greeting cards and sets it to music. A Great Big World, the band/brand name adopted by singer-songwriters Ian Axel and Chad King, arrived about ten years after Five for Fighting, geared up for their big chart run with some extremely TV-friendly music, and then grabbed the spotlight with the Christina Aguilera duet "Say Something." The thing is, without at least a dash of grit, a little of this kind of thing can go an awfully long way, and A Great Big World are absolutely allergic to grit. These guys make Five for Fighting sound like the Who. I'm as ballad-happy as anybody, but I can't imagine what might happen to my brain if I tried listening to an entire album from these guys — all of which is to say that I find it eminently easy to understand why the "Say Something" follow-up, "Already Home," whiffed at every format except for Adult Alternative, where it peaked at a feeble No. 24.