The One After the One-Hit Wonder, Part 7

"I Remember," Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs (1960, peaked at No. 86)
How do you follow up a single as wildly, timelessly addictive as "Stay"? To their credit, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs didn't return with a retread of the song that would go down in history as their only hit; in fact, "I Remember" is the diametric opposite of its predecessor, at least insofar as it's thoroughly, stubbornly forgettable. There isn't a thing wrong with this song, it just underscores the reality the group soon had to face: They'd captured lightning in a bottle with "Stay," and they weren't destined to pull it off twice.

"Superman," the Ides of March (1970, peaked at No. 64)
Odds are high that you don't know of the Ides of March by name, but you've probably heard their big hit, "Vehicle" — and you've definitely heard a bunch of the songs that co-founding member Jim Peterik had a hand in after the group went into hibernation in 1973. As the chief songwriter for Survivor and a talented song doctor for a long list of other acts, Peterik had a huge hand in mainstream rock's sound during the '80s, to the extent that you'd almost never guess he was slugging it out on Chicago's local charts in the mid-'60s.

For whatever reason, Peterik's golden pen didn't move the needle for the Ides after "Vehicle" went to No. 2. I guess the most likely explanation is that their sound during this period mirrored Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears closely enough that they, like the similarly funky and brass-assisted Chase, got elbowed out of the "rock with horns" sweepstakes of the early '70s. It's kind of a shame, because "Superman" rocks; on the other hand, the Ides reunited in 1990, just as Survivor's platinum streak was drying up, and they've remained active ever since. All's well that ends well.

"Heaven & Hell: 3rd Movement," Vangelis (1981, peaked at No. 48)
For a long time, the pop charts were periodically hospitable to left-field instrumental tracks, but never on a consistent basis. In other words, when Vangelis had a No. 12 hit with the undeniably stirring "Chariots of Fire" in 1981, he probably knew his Top 40 jig was already up — but that didn't stop his label from trying to milk Vangelis fever just a little bit longer. "Heaven & Hell: 3rd Movement" was originally recorded for his 1975 LP Heaven and Hell, which is notable among prog nerds for being the site of his first collaboration with Yes vocalist Jon Anderson. Around this time, however, it was also being used as the theme for Cosmos: A Personal Journey, a 13-part documentary that set viewing records for PBS when it was aired in 1980-'81. You can see what the label was thinking, right? One Vangelis theme song might be just as radio-friendly as another, right?

Well, no. But points for trying. I mean, seriously, it's impressive that this got as high as No. 48.

"Just a Heartbeat Away," Brother Beyond (1990, did not chart)
Brother Beyond's big U.S. hit, 1990's "The Girl I Used to Know," sounded a whole lot like a whole lot of other dance-pop songs at the time, and there's a very good reason for that: After releasing a series of self-penned singles that didn't do much on the charts, the band won a charity auction that made them clients of hitmakers du jour Stock, Aitken & Waterman, which raised their commercial profile considerably while also hastening their inevitable demise.

When EMI ported their second album, 1989's Trust, over to the U.S., they tacked on two new songs: "The Girl I Used to Know," which peaked at No. 27 thanks to incessant airplay in Macy's dressing rooms, and this one, which whiffed a big whiff. (According to the group's Wikipedia page, there's a S/A/W podcast that suggests the band had to pay the Mafia about $250,000 to secure airplay for "The Girl I Used to Know," which might go some way toward explaining its follow-up's failure to launch.)

Anyway, you've never heard "Just a Heartbeat Away," but you've heard plenty of songs that sound just like it. I imagine Donny Osmond probably passed on this. Brother Beyond broke up shortly thereafter.

"Did Ya' Understand That," Willa Ford (2001, did not chart)
The late '90s were chock full of blonde pop princesses who played things just coy enough to leverage their sexuality into Top 40 fame while remaining plausibly virginal enough to pass muster with concerned parents. That tide was high enough to float Britney and Christina and Mandy and Jessica for a couple of years before it inevitably turned into a hydrant spray of Axe-scented Maxim cover shoots, and Willa Ford's "I Wanna Be Bad" was one of the first songs to turn that spigot.

The thing Britney and Christina and Mandy and Jessica's handlers understood, though, is that the art of the tease is so successful because it always leaves 'em wanting more; when you stride in selling softcore sex by the bushel, it's a lot more difficult to generate further interest. (See: Madonna; Jackson, Janet; et al.) It can certainly be done (again, see above), but it requires a lot more, shall we say, talent than Ms. Ford might have been naturally gifted with, which is why her career as a pop singer was over as quickly as it started. She kept trying for a few more years — her last single, "Sexy Sex Obsessive," was released in 2004 — and jiggled her way through a series of relatively minor acting (or "acting") roles before settling into a presumably much more fulfilling life as an interior decorator.

As far as this song goes? It sounds like 2001, which in this case is absolutely not a compliment.

"The Cabin," Ylvis (2013, did not chart)
Based on the minimal amount of research I'm willing to do, the list of Norwegian musical acts who've had major chart success in the United States has this novelty act sitting directly behind a-ha, which strikes me as a significant cultural failure on someone's part. (Probably ours.) While you almost certainly don't remember Ylvis by name, I'm sadly willing to bet that you've heard their big fucking hit — "The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)" — many more times than you can count or would prefer.

"The Fox" was always only intended to be a novelty song, so there's no real reason to beat up on it here, although I do find it frankly appalling that it led to Ylvis publishing a children's book that went to No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Well, here's "The Cabin," which sounds shockingly like something the guys in the Lonely Island might have recorded. If I'd been given the opportunity to choose between this or "The Fox" becoming a worldwide hit, this would have been the easy winner. Alas.

"Shake Sherry," the Contours (1963, No. 43)
It can sometimes be difficult to ferret out the likely reasons for an act's failure to maintain Top 40 success, but with the Contours, there's no mystery at all — this song rules, and the only reason it didn't kick as much chart ass as "Do You Love Me" is that white program directors weren't about to let the same group sneak over from the R&B charts twice in the same year. Like a lot of other very talented artists, they peeled off a string of hits on the "race" charts while millions of melanin-deficient teens were largely shielded from their music. "Do You Love Me" is great, but the Contours had more to offer, and here's delightfully sweaty proof.

"Telegram Sam," T. Rex (1972, did not chart)
I don't have anything negative to say about T. Rex, but if we're looking for reasons that "Telegram Sam" failed to chart, I don't think we need to look very far: If you listen to this song with the volume down while you're focused on other things, it sounds enough like "(Bang a Gong) Get It On" that you might never question the difference. Ultimately, this is just one of those British rock bands who were consistently popular at home, but never managed to carve out consistent inroads over here.

"Oh Patti (Don't Feel Sorry for Loverboy)," Scritti Politti featuring Miles Davis (1988, did not chart)
Commercial success allows for increased artistic ambition, which isn't always a good thing. We could point to any number of recording acts as examples, but for the purposes of this column, let's just focus on Scritti Politti, who nearly cracked the Top 10 with their breakout American hit "Perfect Way" in 1985 and then made audiences wait three full years while frontman Green Gartside and bandmates David Gamson and Fred Maher crawled up their own butts fiddling with digital gadgets and flitting about ten recording studios. That long layoff probably would have spelled instant commercial death even if Gartside hadn't been struggling with a variety of physical and mental health issues, but his creeping burnout did them no additional favors.

On the other hand? Getting Miles Davis to play on your song — repaying the favor after he covered "Perfect Way" on his Tutu LP — is something you can hang your hat on forever, especially when the song in question includes billowing clouds of glistening slow-dance synths.

"Life," Haddaway (1993, peaked at No. 41)
I've never thought about it prior to writing this sentence, but the annoying thing about Eurodance hits — and, I think, the reason they've happened relatively infrequently — is that they tend to stick around in heavy rotation for what feels like forever, so by the time one has run its course, it's quite awhile before most right-minded people want to hear another one again.

What I'm trying to say here is that as much as I grew to loathe "What Is Love" during its interminable run, I am now willing to extend Haddaway a miniature olive branch in the form of this One After the One-Hit Wonder entry, which will now theorize that he was a victim of his own success rather than a Lou Bega-style one-trick pony. (The fact that he recorded "What Is Love 2k9" in 2009 suggests I might be overly charitable here, but fuck it; a little extra kindness never hurt.)

I've gone that far, which is far enough. I don't think I need to listen to "Life."