4 One-Hit Wonders That Deserved a Second Chance

Many one-hit wonders out there more or less deserved the title. They had just one really pop-friendly song that resonated with American audiences enough to hit the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Some one-hit wonders, though, really did deserve a second chance at pop stardom. They were just that good. And I think the following four one-hit wonders deserved a second chance more than most.

Fiona Apple

It’ll never not be insane to me that Fiona Apple is considered a one-hit wonder. Fetch The Bolt Cutters is, in my opinion, the best album of 2020. And yet, she only hit the Hot 100 one solitary time with “Criminal” in 1997, which peaked at No. 21. In a way, though, I get it. The sex appeal of that song and music video (which is ironically about feeling guilty about using sex appeal to get what one wants) was in vogue at the time. It snatched attention. But Apple continues to be ahead of her time with every release, so she might just be too cool for the mainstream pop charts.

Norman Greenbaum

If folk rock artist Norman Greenbaum had stuck to it, I’m sure he would have been up there with the greats. However, just a few years after “Spirit In The Sky” dropped in 1969 and topped a number of charts, he decided to quit the music industry and return to his life on a dairy farm. Greenbaum would return to music in the 1980s but focused more on management and promotion instead of recording. At the very least, I think the follow-up single “Canned Ham” was good enough to land Greenbaum in two-hit wonder territory.

Gary Numan

This is another pretty insane entry, but it is worth noting that new wave icon Gary Numan is definitely not a one-hit wonder in the UK. In the US, though, he technically only enjoyed one major hit: “Cars” from 1979, which peaked at No. 9 on the Hot 100. It remains his only Top 40 hit on that chart. Considering Numan remained in the UK Top 40 for decades after, I can’t help but think he should have earned that same amount of love in the US.

Chumbawamba

I’m not sure what it was about Chumbawamba that American audiences couldn’t quite stick to. They were an amazing anarcho-punk band, and “Tubthumping” is still a go-to karaoke song across the globe today. This entry on our list of one-hit wonders who deserved a second chance never quite got one, sadly. After “Tubthumping” hit No. 6 in the US in 1997, the group never made it to the chart again, despite killer releases like “Amnesia” and “Top Of The World (Olé, Olé, Olé)”. Chumbawamba disbanded in 2012.

Photo by Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images