Last night Beth and I watched the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders on VH-1 Classic. In order to qualify for the list, a song had to be a big hit (in the Top 10) and the artist had to never had any hit song ever again. Since this is a video network, not surprisingly the list weighs heavily to the 80′s and after since there weren’t too many music videos before that. The songs are of the type where you say, “Ugh, I hated that song” or “Great song! I wonder why they never did another one.” What I find interesting is how many of the songs sound like a one-hit. “I Melt With You” by Modern English for example is a great song but it sounds like a song that the group could never duplicate, and indeed, they couldn’t. “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners is another song. It is just so unique that it would be very difficult for the group to be that unique again.

Here is the top 10:

10. “99 Luftballoons” by Nena (1984)
9. “Rico Suave” by Gerardo (1991)
8. “Take On Me” by A-Ha (1985)
7. “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice (1991)
6. “Who Let The Dogs Out” by Baha Men (2000)
5. “Mickey” by Toni Basil (1982)
4. “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred (1992)
3. “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners (1983)
2. “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell (1982)
1. “The Macarena” by Los Del Rio (1996)

Nena, of course, doesn’t really deserve to be on the list since she is German and continues to enjoy success in her native land. My list would have been different, but not very different. My number one song would have been “Take On Me” just because the video is so cool. It truly captures the feel of 1982. If you notice, the young lady is wearing white sneakers with her dress. The video was actually done by filming the entire video and then drawing the scenes. Watch it for yourself, it’s tres cool:

Because the series is a few years old and VH-1 redesigned their site, you can’t navigate through the episodes so here are the links for each episode:

100 Greatest One Hit Wonders (100-81)
100 Greatest One Hit Wonders (80-61)
100 Greatest One Hit Wonders (60-41)
100 Greatest One Hit Wonders (40-21)
100 Greatest One Hit Wonders (20-1)