Thursday, January 07, 2010
Breaking Down the Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 00's
If there is one thing I have learned from the One Hit Wonder lists that VH1 runs ad nausea is that the list are really subjective (they labeled Vanilla Ice one despite landing two songs in the top 5). And what makes things harder for this decade is the fractionation of music making it hard to call most songs hits. It doesn’t help that The Billboard Hot 100 became pretty much worthless earlier this decade as record companies realized they could easily manipulate it (seriously, check out the Wikipedia page List of 2000s One Hit Wonders and see if you can recognize over half the songs or scoft at some artist they claim to be ones).
So when coming up with The 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 00’s, I made it quite simple: artist that landed on one of my Best Songs of the Year lists once and only once last decade (there were actually 177 of them). I am sure this will lead to some debate as to what is a One Hit Wonder, but I refuse using Billboard as a reference and calling the likes of Gnarls Barkley, The White Stripes, Snow Patrol, Norah Jones, Jimmy Eat World, Incubus, Common, Weezer, Gorillaz and Sara Bareilles one hit wonders. But just to show you how subjective One Hit Wonder’s can be, Jimi Hendrix, Grateful Dead and Garth Brooks are technically One Hit Wonders. So if anyone wants to argue with my list, go right ahead, I am ready to hear any arguments.
One Hit Wonders by Years
2000 - 11
2001 – 13
2002 – 11
2003 – 5
2004 – 10
2005 – 7
2006 – 12
2007 – 7
2008 – 10
2009 – 14
One Hit Wonders by Genre
Adult Contemporary – 23
Pop – 21
Alternative Rock – 18
Rap – 14
RnB – 9
Rock - 7
Electronic – 5
Power-Pop – 5
Comedy – 2
Country – 1
Cover Songs: 4
Television Show Theme Songs: 3
Songs with Parentheses: 7
Number of Times Blu Cantrell Showed Up: 2
Other Artists Who Had Other Hits:
Sisqo (with DMX)
Ben Gibbard of The Postal Service (Death Cab for Cutie)
Jadakiss (with The Lox and Mya)
Emerson Hart (Tonic)
Members of +44 (Blink 182)
Nas of QB Finest
Brendan Benson (The Raconteurs)
The Dap-Kings (backing Amy Winehouse)
Joe Budden of Slaughterhouse
Members of Zwan (Smashing Pumpkins)
Labels:
The Greatest of the 00s
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Duh..Of course, Weezer, Common, and Jimmy Eat World are one hit wonders....I mean, they only have a 15 year career and are still going strong.
ReplyDeleteYou're right that the Hot 100 is useless now as well as the concept of a "hit"
The ones that are still labeled "hits" these days all seem to be terrible songs/
ReplyDeleteiTunes would be the better way to deliniate hits but they do update hourly so it is hard to keep track. But when it comes down to it, a hit is like the old Congressmen saying for labeling pornography, You know it when you see it, or hear it in music case.
ReplyDeleteyou should do a 100 for the past 50 years
ReplyDeleteSisqo had another hit you know: "Incomplete" was a #1 hit in the U.S., how did you not research that?
ReplyDeleteWhat part of "So when coming up with The 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 00’s, I made it quite simple: artist that landed on one of my Best Songs of the Year lists once and only once last decade" did you not understand?
Delete