Todd In The Shadows Thread

Harvey Danger is actually probably one of the best one hit wonders out there. He doesn't go that in-depth about their albums, but their first two albums are both great, especially the first one. Within the indie pop punk scene, they've got major cred, with covers made by bands as large as Bomb the Music Industry!:

"If you spend all your heart / On something that has died / You are not alive and that can't be a life"

I had only heard the "paranoia paranoia" line as a meme… I had no idea the band was a One-Hit Wonder. >.>

Edited by Lyendith on Feb 3rd 2019 at 12:33:21 PM

So judging from Todd's recent tweets: looks like we're going into somewhat uncharted territory for his next One Hit Wonderland episode, which may very likely be a Marley clause: 2000's Indie

Ah, the joys of requests kinda sorta breaking the rules of what constitutes a OHW. There are a bunch of 2000s era rock bands that I can think of where one song by the band in question gets publicity on the radio nowadays and such (Franz Ferdinand and AFI immediately come to mind) but not sure I'd call them one hit wonders. A lot of them are arguably no-hits.

That said, I can kinda see the appeal of it. Technically Scatman wasn't a Top 40 hit on its release yet a lot of people know about that song nowadays, and I can think of one other band off the top of my head whose biggest hit wasn't a Top 40 but I hope Todd eventually does a video on anyway.

Was just wondering, would Monster by REM count as a trainwreckords candidate? I personally love it (its the only REM album I like actually), but I've heard that it wasnt all that well-recieved by a lot of fans (it was frequently found in used cd bins), and they never achieved as much mainstream success after that album AFAIK.

He already did Wall of Voodoo, who never charted in the Top 40 (highest position: 58). A lot of those “heavy rotation” videos on early MTV hits were not technically big single hits, because Billboard (at least then) weren’t using MTV as a criterion for what constitutes a “hit.” See also: “I Melt With You” by Modern English and “I Want Candy” by Bow Wow Wow, neither of which cracked the top 40.

Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883!

Just wondering, would an artist count as a one hit wonder if their one hit is a collaboration/duet with a artist who has had multiple hits? Just wondered about this while hearing "Easy Lover" which was a duet with Philip Bailey and Phil Collins.

I mean he did include Somebody's Watching Me and that has Micheal Jackson on it.

Philip Bailey also had multiple hits with his band Earth, Wind & Fire, which I’m pretty sure disqualifies him.

There is, however, Marilyn Martin, who had a hit duet with Phil with "Seperate Lives." That song, however, is completely dreary and best forgotten. And she technically had a solo hit with "Night Moves," which I don't remember at all. Similarly, there's Kiki Dee, who also had hits as a solo artist ("I've Got the Music In Me") and as part of a duet ("Don't Go Breaking My Heart" with Elton John). Pretty sure there must be an example of a duet partner who had one hit as half of a duet. Kim Weston (duet partner with Marvin Gaye on "It Takes Two"), maybe?

Edited by Bananaquit on Feb 11th 2019 at 6:35:20 AM

Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883!

Actually, he counts solo acts as a seperate career (see Jordan Knight), so there's still a chance for Bailey.

Edited by J79 on Feb 11th 2019 at 9:45:36 AM

Labrinth had only hit together with Emeli Sandé in Beneath Your Beautiful. Though Sandé might be more famous for her solo hit Next to Me.

Joke? Why are you calling it a joke? You drew a picture of two dudes hugging and wrote "I love hugs!" on it.

I think acts/artists who's one famous song features another, more successful artist still counts as a One-Hit Wonder because then the prevailing wisdom around the band/artist is "they could only get a hit because of the associated star power and you can analyse if that was the case or not.

And he kinda covered Rockwell we can assume "Song that features an already successful band/artist" as fair game.

Likewise, "Artist or band members who used to be in a successful or influential band" is also fair game as he covered Pras and Jordan Knight's solo careers.

I'm having to learn to pay the price

Speaking of what qualifies, would Encore qualify for a Trainwreckords episode? Or is that just for artists that never released a good album afterwards?

Edited by Lyendith on Feb 15th 2019 at 2:07:49 PM

That album didn't kill his career, so I don't think it totally counts.

It's understandable that it would but it's not a complete trainwreck...that's for Revival.

It's a little too early to call Revival the beginning of the end, considering Eminem put out Kamikaze soon after, which was much better received.

Revival is his worst but Todd's show is about what seemed like a good idea at the time. Encore is him starting on drugs but Revival tried too hard to be current.

Bananaquit, Todd did do an episode on Chamillionaire and he had a hit as part of a featured spot, so there's a chance for those who had one hit as part of a duet and another on their own.

Edited by Smasher on Feb 15th 2019 at 7:36:21 AM

Here's a possible example that would be an interesting litmus test for a lot of the questions that have been asked recently.

Do we count Clarence Clemons as a one-hit wonder?

• He was very associated with Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and the many hits they recorded.
• He's done a lot of guest work on other artists' singles as well, right up to shortly before his death when he provided Lady Gaga with a sax solo Todd really loved.
• The big detail here is that he's usually known as a saxophonist and not as a singer. (Think of how Rick Derringer qualified.) But there's exactly one hit song where he sings prominently.
• ...and it has a big-name guest artist on it as a duet as well.

So yeah, I wonder if "You're A Friend Of Mine" qualifies him for that category.

Eeh, was Revival really that bad…? I didn't mind it that much; at least none of the tracks gave me cancer like a good half of Encore did. Though that might be because I'm not too focused on the lyrics when listening to US rap…

I'm still waiting for the opportune time to request Crazy-Gnarls Barkley for one hit wonderland. Might be interesting.

new ep up on Patreon

is he gonna reference the time she did a driveby on his tweet

Literally the first thing he brings up and the reason he did the episode at all. Also he warned people not to tag Halsey on Twitter about this or he'd block them.

ngl, Todd comparing pop stars to superheroes makes an uncanny amount of sense

It's been a while since I burst out laughing out loud at his choice of ending song.

.... Well that backfired

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Feb 18th 2019 at 4:18:40 AM