The One After the One-Hit Wonder, Part 4

Very few recording artists are ever lucky enough to land a hit single on the Hot 100 — and fewer still have managed to pull it off more than once. They're often the target of derision, but there's really no shame in being a one-hit wonder; with that in mind, here's another round of looking back at follow-up singles that ended an act's chart streak before it really even had a chance to get started.

"Fletch Theme," Harold Faltermeyer
Harold Faltermeyer's sole Top 40 hit was such an obvious fluke that it might seem uncharitable to include him in a series about one-hit wonders, but facts are facts — and anyway, he scored with "Axel F" during the same period that Herbie Hancock and Jan Hammer gained chart traction with similarly synthy instrumentals, so there was at least a chance that he'd enjoy further radio success. That seems to have been the thinking at MCA, anyway, given that they released Faltermeyer's "Fletch Theme" as a single from the soundtrack to the best Chevy Chase comedy about an undercover reporter.

"Bit by Bit (Theme from Fletch)," a song performed by Stephanie Mills (and co-written by Faltermeyer), was really the record's bid at a big single, but that flopped — albeit not as hard as "Fletch Theme," which failed to chart. Still, I suppose MCA gets points for trying... and for commissioning the deeply silly "Fletch Rap" 12" mix, which I'm including here instead of the single cut because it makes me chuckle.

"Follow My Heartbeat," A'me Lorain and the Family Affair
Looking and sounding a little like Debbie Gibson if Debbie tripped over a drum machine and got tangled up in Cass Elliott's closet, A'me Lorain had a Top Ten hit in 1990 with "Whole Wide World," a song whose absolute erasure from our shared cultural memory probably deserves its own post. Why didn't A'me release a follow-up with RCA after performing reasonably well with her debut? Why did she vanish for years? Why is her sole album, the ludicrously titled Starring in... Standing in a Monkey Sea, out of print?

I don't have answers to any of those questions. What I can tell you is that "Follow My Heartbeat" is a deeply generic song, and it's absolutely unsurprising that it whiffed.

"Spell," Deon Estus
As a musician, Deon Estus had a pretty incredible career — according to legend, Marvin Gaye wanted him to play bass on Midnight Love, but Estus, who was still a teenager at the time, turned him down. Instead, he ended up serving as a long-running musical foil for George Michael, who returned the favor by helping out with Estus' sole solo LP, 1989's Spell. He had a particularly noticeable hand in the record's big hit, "Heaven Help Me," an Estus/Michael co-write that features Michael's clearly noticeable vocals on the chorus. (It certainly didn't hurt that Estus himself could sound a lot like Michael when he wanted to; it isn't at all unreasonable to assume that the song made the Top Five at least in part because people thought they were hearing a new George Michael single.)

Yet while he may have been a talented singer and in-demand bassist, Estus may not have been quite as gifted on the songwriting front — at least if we're comparing the rather excellent "Heaven Help Me" to "Spell," which is a stubbornly average ballad whose late '80s production accoutrements do fuck-all to hide the fact that it feels twice as long as it actually is. If this is the best Spell had to offer after "Heaven Help Me" had run its course, it's probably for the best that Estus was one and done as a recording artist.

"I'm a Man Not a Boy," Chesney Hawkes
Between Chesney Hawkes and Tom Cochrane, 1991 was a great year for record companies to rebrand non-U.S. releases and present relatively established acts as new artists in America. Hawkes struck first with "The One and Only," a naggingly catchy pop anthem — written by Hawkes' fellow one-hit wonder Nik Kershaw — that went to No. 1 in his native U.K. before going transatlantic and peaking at No. 10 here. In the States, "The One and Only" got a healthy assist from the Michael J. Fox movie Doc Hollywood, which featured the song in its opening moments; no such extra help was afforded follow-up single "I'm a Man Not a Boy," which was a minor British hit but completely failed to chart here.

This is one case where I feel like the artist in question may have gotten a raw deal. "Man" may not be quite as undeniable as "The One and Only," but it's still a solidly written and performed song, and the production couldn't be more 1991 pop-rock if it tried. I'd be willing to bet its failure was mainly the fault of Hawkes' label, Chrysalis, which was a steadily sinking ship at this point, but regardless of why it happened, the end result was unavoidable: After releasing an almost completely ignored follow-up LP in 1993, Hawkes went on a lengthy hiatus before returning with a pair of self-distributed albums in 2007 and 2012.

"You've Got a Way," Kathy Troccoli
In addition to being a great year for border-hopping artists, 1991 was also a wonderful time to be a contemporary Christian act. After fluttering around the Top 40 as a solo artist for a handful of years — and going to Number One as Peter Cetera's duet partner on "The Next Time I Fall" — Amy Grant had her big breakthrough that year courtesy of "Baby Baby," the first in a series of smashes spun off from her Heart in Motion LP. Grant's massive success laid the template for CCM artists who wanted to go pop; one of the first to follow was Kathy Troccoli, who cut a pair of Diane Warren numbers for her fourth album, 1991's Pure Attraction.

Troccoli scored with the record's first single, the Warren-penned "Everything Changes," which proved that with the right material, producer Ric Wake could repeat every trick he'd already pulled with Taylor Dayne. I suppose it's to the label's credit that they opted not to go the easy route and double down by releasing the other Warren song, "Can't Get You Out of My Heart," as the follow-up; instead, they went with the Troccoli original "You've Got a Way," a wholly unremarkable ballad that is probably available for low-budget wedding scenes at a discount price. "Way" was a pretty solid AC hit, but that was basically the end of Troccoli's flirtation with the pop market — while she returned to the AC charts a couple of years later, her focus has remained on the CCM market ever since.

"Accidents," Thunderclap Newman
Pete Townshend seems like the kind of guy you wouldn't want to catch on a bad day, but as a boss, he's probably pretty okay. Just ask the members of Thunderclap Newman, who found themselves cobbled together by Townshend in a bid to fashion a recording career for John "Speedy" Keen, who was working at the time as a chauffeur for the Who. Townshend's efforts were rewarded when "Something in the Air," the group's vaguely Who-ish first single, shot to Number One in the U.K. — a happy surprise that not only created unexpected demand for a quick follow-up, but also necessitated a search for a bassist, given that Townshend, in addition to serving as producer, also held down the low end under the pseudonym Bijou Drains.

For all these reasons, "Accidents" was a perfect title for Thunderclap Newman's second single. Unfortunately, their luck ran out about as fast as it started; the song peaked at No. 46 in the U.K. and didn't chart at all here. A year of touring didn't do much to reverse their fortunes, and by 1971, they were kaput. Guitarist Jimmy McCulloch died in 1979, followed by Keen in 2002 — which left pianist Andy "Thunderclap" Newman the last man standing when a new version of the band hit the road the same year. This lineup stayed on stages for a decade before Newman pulled the plug; Newman himself died in 2016.

"There Oughta Be a Law," Mickey & Sylvia
Live by the novelty single, die by the novelty single. It's a pop-chart law few artists have ever been able to get away with breaking — including Mickey & Sylvia, who earned their only hit with a dimple-cute cover of Bo Diddley's "Love Is Strange," featuring a call-and-response bit that made it a perfect fit for the Dirty Dancing soundtrack 30 years later. While nothing they did over the rest of their roughly decade-long partnership approached that level of commercial success, let's give them credit for knowing exactly how and where their bread was buttered: "There Oughta Be a Law" includes a few moments of "Love Is Strange"-style dialogue between Mickey and Sylvia, an early but extremely accurate acknowledgment that they'd forever remain unable to escape that single's long shadow.

As a duo, anyway. Sylvia became a one-hit wonder in her own right with "Pillow Talk" in 1973 — and then fully cemented her place in music history when she and her husband, Joseph Robinson, co-founded Sugar Hill Records.

"Power of Love," Deee-Lite
Rare is the recording artist who wouldn't love to cross over into new markets, but it can be something of a double-edged sword. Case in point: Deee-Lite, whose cheerful, Day-Glo-frosted brand of dance music became the flavor of the moment when their first single, "Groove Is in the Heart," became a worldwide hit in 1990. This was a fairly hospitable time for house music on the Top 40 — "Groove" bobbed up into heavy rotation during the same rough time period that gave us "Pump Up the Jam," "The Power," and "Justify My Love," as well as Enigma and C + C Music Factory — but generally speaking, Deee-Lite was much more of a club act, which is why they were a one-hit wonder on the pop charts but continued to score dance hits throughout their brief recording career. It's easy to hear why "Power of Love" became the second of six No. 1 singles on the dance chart for them — and just as easy to understand why, even arriving in the wake of "Groove Is in the Heart," it stalled outside the pop Top 40.

"Let Me Be Your Lover," The U-Krew
Hailing from Oregon — which has never been a hip-hop hotbed, for reasons we can really only guess at — the members of the U-Krew managed to rack up enough regional success to land a deal with a national imprint. Unfortunately for them, that imprint was Enigma Records, which was in the process of being stripped for parts after its absorption into Capitol/EMI; by the time these guys released their self-titled debut in 1989, Enigma could still coax a stray hit out of its increasingly wobbly roster, but its ability to build a career was already in steep decline.

The U-Krew did indeed enjoy a brief moment in the Top 40 spotlight with the thunderously cheesy but still sorta bangin' "If U Were Mine," which peaked at No. 28. It may not be fair to pin the failure of follow-up single "Let Me Be Your Lover" on Enigma's woes — after all, the U-Krew weren't offering anything here that listeners weren't already getting from Bell Biv DeVoe — but this really isn't a bad song, and it isn't hard to imagine another company getting more chart mileage out of it. (It's a damn sight better than album cuts like the sniggeringly cruel "Ugly," whose claim to fame is being heard in the Dolph Lundgren flop I Come in Peace.)

"Baby Don't You Know," Wild Cherry
You've probably never listened to "Baby Don't You Know," which followed Wild Cherry's signature hit "Play That Funky Music"... but you've still probably heard it in every way that counts, given how baldly it copies its predecessor. On one hand, there's something sort of clever about using your follow-up single to continue the story you started with your debut; on the other hand, it's probably best to wait until the audience has really gotten to know you before you ask them to indulge something so self-referential, especially when it sounds like a rushed rewrite of the last thing they heard from you.

Also, the line "Baby, don't you know / That the honkies got soul" was always going to be a tough sell.