One-Hit Wonders of the 90s (Part 2)

Hello, dear reader. I have a favour to ask you. The original post begins after all of the asterisks, if you want to skip this.

Now that the One Hit Wonders of the 90s series is over, I'm not going to be doing my weekly revisiting of all these posts (I had to do that to add the new post to the bottom). Thus, I won't be able to catch any broken picture links or deleted videos any more. Yet I want these posts to be as good as possible.

Please, if you happen upon one of these posts, or if you take a walk through a whole bunch of them, let me know if you find anything that doesn't work. You can leave a comment, or you can send me a message using that handy "Contact Me" page linked above.

Also, feel free to let me know what you think of the post or any of the videos!

Thank you.

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Am I good or what? (Don't answer that.) As a celebration of starting this (now going to be excessively long) series of one-hit wonder posts, I'm giving you two to start off with! I am a benevolent ruler, I must say. You are remembering to bow before entering my room, aren't you? Good.



And I hereby decree that there shall be many more one-hit wonders posts, and that one day these posts will overshadow the "Is there a way to see who unfriended you on Facebook?" post that seems to be so popular. Actually, when you add all of the page views of the various posts together, it probably is more than that. You know what that shows?

That I have a very sick audience.

But I mean that in a good way!

Here's the master list I'm taking these from. It's time for 1990, Part 2!

1) Calloway: "I Wanna Be Rich" (#2)



Hey, at least Calloway's being honest! Sadly, while this song may have made them rich, they couldn't continue with it, though they became successful record producers after it. Wonder how much they had to pay that woman to jump up on stage and try to molest them?

Anyway, this is kind of a catchy song, but nothing really special. It's got a great beat, but that's really about it. For some reason, this video just rubs me the wrong way and I'm not sure why.

2) Faster Pussycat: "House of Pain" (#28)



Isn't it funny that a hard rock band's only real hit is a kind of slow, "important" song? They do seem like a throwback to the 80s hair bands, don't they? They were always overshadowed by Guns & Roses and never really amounted to much.

Still, this song got a lot of airplay when I was in college, and I do remember it quite fondly. This song and video are about being the child of divorce and a fatherless son who has wonderful memories of dad but no current relationship with him. It's rather touching.

Seems out of character for a hair band, doesn't it?

3) Electronic: "Getting Away With It" (#38)



Now this is an 80s throwback! (Can you be a "throwback" when you come out on the cusp of the decade? Discuss). This song really reminds me of New Order as they definitely have the same sound. Maybe with a little Pet Shop Boys thrown in too (all of this is kind of obvious since band members include former New Order singer Bernard Sumner and this song has Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant).

I love this song! Haven't heard it in ages, but it just strikes all the right notes with me, maybe because I was a fan of both the above named bands too. Maybe it's the constant repetition of the chorus too: "I love you more than yooou love meeee." Maybe I just have a soft spot for British electronic musicians. That could be it too.

This song is much more memorable than it's peak of #38. And the group had a lot of international success, though this was their only US hit.

Ah, hell. Let's just throw in a bonus Pet Shop Boys track because I'm feeling gracious (and because I want you to feel good before I raise your taxes so I can invade France and take out its king).


Pet Shop Boys - Domino Dancing
Uploaded by bebepanda. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

One of my favourites!

(The site appears slow today, so if you're trying to watch the video and it keeps stopping, pause it and let more of it download before clicking "play")

4) Perfect Gentleman: "Ooh La La (I Can't Get Over You)" (#10)



Wow, amazing how every site is using the same crappy version of this video. This is the only one I could find with good sound.

And I'm kinda sorry I made the effort, because this is a really crappy song. Perfect Gentlemen were part of a wave of teen R&B acts, all of which were either annoying, sucked, or both. This song is giving me the cold shivers just listening to it, with a combination of the sugar sickies and the "I can't listen to bad singing" sickies. Put that with annoying "rap" in a voice where the kid doesn't seem to have gone through puberty yet and that's just the icing on the cake.

Perfect Gentlemen appears to be still around, or at least they've got a MySpace page fan following.

5) Partners in Kryme: "Turtle Power" (#13)



Ah yes, the theme song from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie back in 1990. It's kind of interesting, and I have a soft spot for movie songs where the actors/characters actually appear in the video (not just scenes from the movie). I loved that Billy Ocean song from Romancing the Stone that had Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito in it.

Anyway, I don't love this song, but I like it a lot. It's rap that I can handle. The movie? Not so much.

6) Giant: "I'll See You in my Dreams" (#20)



What is it with "hard rock" bands whose only hit is soft stuff like this? I love Wikipedia's entry for Giant, calling them a "melodic hard rock band." What the hell does that mean? By the way, when did Richard Marx start playing drums?

This is kind of a poignant song about reflecting back on lost love (the video kind of hits you over the head with that theme, actually). Do you lose any of your "rock" cred when you're most known for being "poignant?" I think so. I remember liking this song at the time, but now it's just kind of lost in all that other "hard rock with a message" pablum that seems to have been the norm in 1990.

7)Whistle: "Always and Forever" (#35)



Oh my God, Boyz II Men wannabes!!!! This type of group seems to be the other norm for the early 90s. It's not that they're bad, but they're just all the same. They don't have bad voices or anything like that, but again, there's nothing to distinguish them from any of the others. And being one-hit wonders who only hit #35, Whistle distinguishes themselves by not being distinguishable. It looks like the fans spoke, and said "We want Boyz II Men."

Sorry, Whistle.

And why are all of these groups quartets? Are they hearkening back to the old Barbershop Quartets?

8) L.A. Guns: "The Ballad of Jayne" (#33)



This song was #93 in VH-1's list of 1980s one-hit wonders. They probably are counting from when the album was released or something, as this apparently peaked in June of 1990 (or maybe was re-released?). Thus, I wrote about it here.

However, I do have to add to the theme that seems prevalent in this post. Another "hard rock" band that's really only known for a "ballad?" What was the state of hard rock in the early 90s to make this happen? I honestly don't remember, but I would love to know. But as I said in my original post, this isn't a bad song and I actually kind of like it. I'm having lots of college flashbacks in these posts, so maybe that's it.

That, or bad sushi, one of the two.

9) Louie Louie: "Sittin' in the Lap of Luxury" (#19)



Somebody should really check to make sure he's not having a seizure. Is that dancing? And how the hell did he get the great Dizzy Gillespie to sit in on this song? That trumpet is true music.

The rest of the song? Eh. Not bad at all, but nothing to write home about. It will get you dancing (hopefully not as spasmodically as he does in the video). If I were king (and hey, I am!), I'd make him go get some dance lessons before entertaining my court. Or maybe he could be court jester?

So there you go. Part 2 of many, many more. Hope you enjoyed it! And if you didn't, then blame the Prime Minister. As king, I can deflect blame like that. This is actually kind of fun.

And now? It's time for me to visit the royal masseur for a massage, before I go to the strenuous effort of taking in today's hockey game. Stay safe everybody!



Oh yeeeeeeeah. Right there...that's it.

One-Hit Wonders of the 90s
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19
Part 20
Part 21
Part 22
Part 23
Part 24
Part 25
Part 26
Part 27
Part 28
Part 29
Part 30
Part 31
Part 32
Part 33
Part 34
Part 35
Part 36
Part 37
Part 38
Part 39
Part 40