The One After the One-Hit Wonder, Part 5

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.

"Love Will Make Your Mind Go Wild," the Penguins
The Penguins weren't just one among many doo-wop vocal groups in the mid-'50s, they were one among several doo-wop vocal groups named after birds. This should give you an idea of how saturated the market was, which is part of why these guys faced an uphill battle even after scoring a Top 10 pop hit with "Earth Angel" in late 1955. (The other part? Racism.)

All of which is to say that "Love Will Make Your Mind Go Wild" is a perfectly serviceable song — maybe not as catchy as "Earth Angel," but definitely not something you'd sit out during a sock hop. The Penguins' problem was really just that they were treated as disposable cannon fodder, which is a record industry story that's been told so many times, we don't need to get into it here. Like many of their peers, the Penguins continued to tour extensively for decades after scoring their single hit, despite breaking up in 1962 and taking on a revolving door of members while doo-wopping through countless state fairs and oldies revues; something tells me no one who ever bought a ticket to any of those shows would have been expecting to hear "Love Will Make Your Mind Go Wild," or would have recognized it if they had.

"Yes, No, Maybe So," Barrett Strong
Barrett Strong's claim to fame stems from his status as the voice behind "Money (That's What I Want)," the oft-covered R&B standard that bears the distinction of giving Motown its first-ever hit. As a performer, Strong was destined for a quick and permanent journey into the cutout bins; although he released four albums between 1975 and 2001, only 1975's Stronghold charted, and that one peaked at a lukewarm No. 45 on the R&B tally. As a songwriter, however, he cemented his place in history by co-writing an assortment of classics that includes "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "War," "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone," and "Just My Imagination."

A genius, in other words. If he whiffed with "Yes, No, Maybe So" — and every other post-"Money" single he released — that still doesn't put a dent in his immense contributions to the culture.

"Mighty Joe," Shocking Blue
Many people my age are unaware that Bananarama's hit single "Venus" was a cover of a fairly elderly hit, which is kind of a shame; when the original version went to No. 1 in 1970, it became the first song by an act from the Netherlands to accomplish this feat in the States. Such was the popularity of "Venus" that the single sold half a million copies here, leaving enough of an afterburner to almost propel Shocking Blue's follow-up, "Mighty Joe," into the Top 40. Alas, it peaked at No. 43, marking the last time the band would ever chart on this side of the Atlantic.

"Mighty Joe" isn't bad, per se — it's just nowhere near as catchy as "Venus." I assume the rest of the group's material was even less radio-friendly. I can't be bothered to check.

"Do the Donkey Kong," Buckner & Garcia
Live by the novelty song, die by the novelty song. With the exception of "Weird Al" Yankovic and Ray Stevens, perilously few artists have ever been able to build on the type of momentum that comes with that sort of left-field success, and Buckner & Garcia are absolutely on the long list of acts who've tried and failed.

I'm not going to spend any time bagging on Buckner & Garcia, because there have been far worse novelty hits than "Pac-Man Fever," and you really can't blame these guys for taking the money and running when they were offered the chance to cut an entire album of songs about video games. There's also nothing offensive about "Do the Donkey Kong" — yes, it's moronic, but it's also competently performed. If a song about Donkey Kong had to exist, I suppose this is probably about as good as it was ever going to get. Listen once and forget it forever.

"Water's Edge," Seven Mary Three
It's well worth noting that Seven Mary Three racked up a not-unimpressive string of rock radio hits during the '90s and early aughts, but we aren't counting genre formats here; our sole marker for Top 40 success is the Hot 100, and on that front, this band was only able to eke out the No. 39 "Cumbersome" before retreating from the mainstream spotlight forever.

"Water's Edge" makes it pretty easy to understand why CHR programmers tuned out as soon as "Cumbersome" had run its course. Released in 1996, this single was huffing heavy Seattle fumes at a time when the Top 40 was shaking off its early '90s grunge blues and starting to lean heavy into Buzz Bin territory. This was the year that "Follow You Down" and the Goo Goo Dolls' "Name" earned most of their airplay; something like "Water's Edge" never had a chance. Don't feel too bad for these guys, though — much to my surprise, they reunited in 2021 after a nine-year layoff. They don't seem to have toured since getting back together, but I'm sure some dates with Silverchair or something aren't far off.

"Too Much of Heaven," Eiffel 65
"Blue (Da Ba Dee)" is one of my least favorite songs of all time. Thank goodness "Too Much of Heaven," along with everything else these dipshits released, failed to chart here. That's all I have to say about anything involving Eiffel 65.

"Helena Beat," Foster the People
From a distance, it might seem as though Foster the People should be exempted from one-hit wonder status, because after "Pumped Up Kicks" did its thing, they released a sophomore album that peaked at No. 3. The counterargument to this is that the second Foster the People album was released in 2014, a time when it was perilously easy to notch a No. 1 album if you were an act with any kind of name recognition at all — and anyway, the proof lies on the pop charts, where programmers sent "Pumped Up Kicks" to No. 3 and then decided to forget Foster the People ever existed.

They've had a bunch of rock hits since their brief brush with mainstream popularity, although I can't imagine why. I also can't imagine why they're considered a "rock" act, but that's a discussion for another day and a pile of Imagine Dragons LPs. "Helena Beat" is okay, I guess, and I can understand why someone at the label thought it might work as a follow-up to "Kicks," but it's really just sort of there. See if you disagree.

"The Globe," Big Audio Dynamite II
Around the time former Electric Light Orchestra drummer Bev Bevan was teaming up with some fellow ELO vets to start the creatively named Electric Light Orchestra Part II, Mick Jones was doing the same thing with Big Audio Dynamite, busting up the original lineup and rolling out a new version, which he dubbed Big Audio Dynamite II.

Old Chicago albums aside, American record buyers tend to be less than enthusiastic about Roman numerals, which might explain why BAD II scored only one U.S. Top 40 hit with "Rush" in 1991. It was a perfect single for its moment, blending rock with hip-hop textures at a time when everyone from Jesus Jones to EMF were wiggling their way into heavy rotation by doing pretty much the same thing. If anything, it's harder to understand why the pop train stopped for BAD II with "Rush" — follow-up single "The Globe" is very similar to "Rush," but if Phil Collins could get away with releasing "Sussudio" and "Who Said I Would" on the same album, then I don't see why these guys couldn't have copied themselves just as successfully.

Whatever the reasons, BAD II's retreat from the spotlight was permanent, and after a few more albums, they broke up for good... or at least until 2011, when Jones led a reunited lineup to the Lollapalooza stage.

"Thinkin' About Your Body," Bobby McFerrin
What was I just saying about novelty songs? Every record executive, radio programmer, and McFerrin family member on Earth must have known that Bobby was never, ever going to have another Top 40 hit after the cute yet grossly overplayed "Don't Worry, Be Happy," but they still had to give it their best shot. That best shot was "Thinkin' About Your Body," which works just fine as a showcase for McFerrin's unique vocal brilliance, but had absolutely no business being shipped to pop radio programmers. One imagines program directors listening to this song once, nodding politely, and sliding the single slowly toward the circular file.

"Don't Drop My Love," Anita Ward
Anita Ward made a huge splash with her first single, 1979's chart-topping "Ring My Bell," and in line with the custom of the day, she rush-released her next album, Sweet Surrender, which arrived in stores later the same year. Unfortunately for Anita, the market for disco hits cratered between the summer and fall of '79. This has commonly been attributed to a certain event taking place in bacon-inhaling Friend of Jefitoblog Dave Lifton's future home city, but things like that don't just happen in a vacuum; plenty of other factors were at play, including growing listener exhaustion after years of oversaturation.

This is a topic that's been written about at length for decades, and we can certainly get into it in a different post. For now, it's sufficient to say that regardless of the disco killer's true identity, Ward re-emerged into a marketplace that was vastly different than the one that had sent her to No. 1 just a few months before.

Also, it probably didn't help that "Don't Drop My Love" sounds more than vaguely similar to "Ring My Bell," and is also boring as hell. I guess if it had been released in 1978, it probably would have charted, but in the fall of '79, it was dead on arrival. Ward wouldn't release another album for ten years, and even a decade wasn't enough to refuel her tank at pop or R&B radio — Wherever There's Love failed to chart, and the album's sole single, "Be My Baby," peaked at No. 164. In Australia.