I was just gonna' ask: How many confuse that whole business with being a "one-hit wonder"? I'm betting a-plenty . . . I certainly know the difference.
I have Terence Trent D'arby's 3rd album...Symphony or Damn....its excellent. Alas its in the future....1993.
nah... One album wonder means an artist only had one successful record: I've heard the term many times before, I didn't create it. Instead of only one hit, it's one successful record/era, Mr. Mister's second album is a prime example of this too as their first album barely charted and their third album fell without a trace. Hardline #4 album 2 #61 album 3 #119 album 4 #178 every album since after the name change didn't chart This to me is exactly the definition is a one album wonder. It wasn't as if the second album "only" went gold and spawned a couple minor hits, he fell off the cliff after 1989, outside of one song that actually got some surprise alternative radio and MTV airplay in 1993 that still wasn't enough to push the album higher than #119
Yeah, Vangelis held the longest path to #1 in a single chart run. I remember hearing it for the first time on the radio months before it reached the top 10...and being stunned Phoenix radio was even playing Vangelis. I listened to AT 40 week after week as it slowly...slowly...slowly climbed up the charts. Every week I waited longer to hear it played, assuming it had somehow just dropped out of the Top 40 entirely (especially when it was down under #20). Once it cleared #20 I expected it to stall out, but it continued slowly climbing. I sorta couldn't believe it once it got into the Top 10, and I knew enough about the charts to know that he must have moved a ton of singles by that point and that the song was already a massive success, but I still wanted it to reach #1. Which after several more agonizing weeks it finally did. It also drug the soundtrack along with it to #1. One of the few big chart highlights for me of the post-disco, pre-MTV era of late '80 thru late '82.
Longest Top 40 run by a single - at least under the old methodology - was "I Go Crazy" by Paul Davis, which entered the Top 40 on August 27, 1977 and dropped off the chart May 27, 1978, an astounding nine months and one week on the Top 40, peaking at #7. But I'm sure he must have outsold some #1 hits that year.
FWIW, I did a search on "one album wonder" and it came up with acts who only made one album, not acts who recorded more than one album but only had one successful album...
Weird. You're perhaps right but I've heard the term used for artists like TTD, Mr. Mister amongst others who are still to come (namely a pop rapper who hit #1 with his debut next year yet the followup album a mere two years later didnt dent the top 200)
I wouldn't complain if someone used it in the way you intend - context should make it clear that's what it means...
Lol, she was about as big as anybody could be though, her second album was a decline in quality from her first but was a smash the world over, it was actually her second consecutive diamond selling album. I didn't realize the Bee Gees were tied with the Beatles for that record, but it's probably cause of the SNF ST right?
It makes sense that people would assume TTD only had one album, since his first album was huge and most people have never even heard of the others. Much like people use the term "one-hit wonder" for acts that did actually have at least one (and sometimes several) other top 40 hits but are only remembered for their biggest one. In other words, they're wrong but you can see why they're using that term.
Now for the next topper . . . #659 (13th of 1988): "Anything For You" by Gloria Estefan And Miami Sound Machine (#1 for 2 weeks - May 14-21, 1988) As I keep saying, David Gates/Bread music with a Latin accent - plus a twinge of Anne Murray there somewhere. ("At the time," I heard all sorts of comparisons of Ms. Estefan, in these ballads, to the late Karen Carpenter, but I don't hear that as much.) This one had the same amount of weeks at the top on both the Cash Box and Radio & Records charts. In the UK - this would likewise be a breakthrough, several months from this point reaching a peak of #10 on the "official" UK chart, and #11 on the Network Top 50 chart compiled by the Music Research Information Bureau (MRIB; which NME and Melody Maker began carrying in this period, after ending their respective independently-compiled charts). Meanwhile, in these two weeks in the UK, the first week had at the top a song that, early in the next year, would only get to #80 on the Hot 100 here (thus I'm holding off on further details); plus another, in the first of its four weeks at the top, which failed to make the U.S. charts and thus can be revealed: "With A Little Help By My Friends" by a group called Wet Wet Wet, b/w "She's Leaving Home" as by Billy Bragg and Cara Tivey; both of which came from a charity LP called Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father.
Anything for You - Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine I have possibly irrational appreciation for this song. I don't know why. I don't know much about Gloria Estefan except the bus thing, so it's not any natural affection for her as a person or performer. I actually kind of despise her up tempo hits a lot. I said earlier that I never believe anything Whitney Houston sings, and it's the exact opposite for Gloria Estefan's ballads. I find her delivery, especially here, very compelling and affecting and engaging. I just find this to be a lovely, heartfelt, warming song whenever I hear it, and the only reason I haven't rated it higher is that I don't ever remember thinking "gosh I want to hear Anything for You right now." But when it's on, I'm engaged and I totally buy in.
She wrote it. It's not bad, but it's not #1 caliber material, either. I'm not big on ballads to begin with - this one is paint by numbers and also sounds incredibly dated, like it crawled out of 1982. That single sounds awful - hissy, grainy and shrill, yet muffled. They must have been pressing them on the lowest-quality recycled vinyl imaginable. I barely remember the song and have no memory of the video. Her outfit looks vaguely familiar, so I guess I saw it. The video is as generic and somewhat dated as the song itself, but the production values - cinematography and whatnot - are fairly high, so the label clearly considered her a major property. Another Gloria Estefan song that's whiter than anything Madonna ever recorded. And duller than any of Madge's big hits, even if Estefan is clearly technically a better singer (and does sound sincere, unlike Whitney). You really have to wonder how stuff this dull managed to top the charts. Even back in the boring gap between late '80 and late '82 the chart toppers tended to be interesting ("Chariots of Fire") or at least bangers ("Physical"). Many of these '87-'88 chart toppers are about as exciting as wallpaper paste.
Boring. My Dad loved this band, " maybe even more than Hall & Oates", he told me. I had a big crush on Gloria Estefan.
Not vinyl. Styrene. Columbia, from their earliest days of pressing 45's (dating back to 1950), had a thing for that.
Gloria Estefan - Anything For You. OK in my book...but she did start to knock out to many ballads after this. I much prefer her (and Miami Sound Machines) more upbeat, dance songs. 3/5
Anything For You Boring…didn’t like it then and don’t like it now. I was never a big fan of Gloria Estefan; I found her voice uninteresting and most of her music bland.
"OHAW" sounds clunky, so I can understand why someone might prefer "OAW" to mean the same thing. Like I said, the context of the artist under discussion would make the difference between an act who put out only one album vs. an act who put out only one successful album clear. Man, we'll argue about anything on this thread, won't we?
I didn't remember this song at all until I played it. Then I realized why I didn't remember it: it's forgettable, generic ballad goop. Objectively not a terrible song, but bland and soft and blah!
