Todd in the Shadow's dedicated subreddit! Watch Todd's One Hit Wonderland, where he takes a look at the full careers of bands and artists known for only one song, or watch Todd's Pop Song Reviews, where he takes one current smash hit song and take it apart, break it down line by line, see what parts work and what doesn't, and analyze where it fits within both current trends and the artists' body of work.
One Hit Wonderland
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America has dominated the world since the end of WW2, especially when the Soviet Union collapsed, so most artists that get big here end up becoming popular at least in Canada and Western Europe.
With that said, country music is almost exclusively popular in America, so maybe a country act with a crossover hit would count? I haven't looked into it much
I only know Faith Hill for This Kiss so that tracks
Florida Georgia lines only hits outside of the US were their collabs with Bebe Rexha and Hailee steinfeld
Cruise never charted overseas?
It got to the top 40 in Canada, New Zealand and the Netherlands and top 100 in Australia and the UK.
I live in Brazil. The only American country artist I’ve ever heard on the local radio is Chris Stapleton, and exclusively “Tennessee Whiskey”.
Considering Brazil has its own country genre (sertanejo), that’s not much of a surprise to me. But I will add that pretty much none of the country singers that are big in the US right now, Stapleton included, would be recognized around here.
I actually heard Fancy Like playing on the radio here. I was baffled. We don't even have Applebees here, why would you play that???
The Netherlands for some reason loves country, but only the clean polished 1990s onwards stuff, usually by or with female vocalists. Shania Twain, Lady Antebellum, Sam Hunt (basically the only international male exception), etc. We even had our own local country hit makers, mainly Waylon (real name Willem, named himself after Waylon Jennings) who makes countryrock and arguably our biggest country star Ilse DeLange, who makes those exact types of modern pop country ballads like Shania and Lady A. Recently it has kind of dropped of the radar, but until the end of the 2010s they were everywhere.
Garth Brooks is kind of a running gag between me and my dad, because we just find it baffling : the second best-selling artist in the US and basically not a single soul knows him where we live (France). I love showing the list of best selling artists in the US to people and see their reaction when they see this rando (for them) right between The Beatles and Elvis Presley.
I don’t think there are really any bands that are like HUGE in the US that are OHWs abroad, but bands in the US that are mostly well known touring bands may be virtually unheard of and/or much less influential overseas. The Grateful Dead come to mind.
But artists that are OHWs over here in Australia are more like American acts that had a couple of hits in any given decade and then disappeared, eg Sugar Ray is only known for one song here, Head To Toe is the only Lisa Lisa song I’ve ever heard, I’m pretty sure Faith Hill might be a OHW over here outside of Tamworth because country music doesn’t tend to chart here despite having a following
The artists who are OHWs in other countries are basically who you would look at and think oh yeah that makes sense
I’m not sure about his actual chart numbers, but Jimmy Buffet might fall into your first category too.
His tours, restaurants, and resorts all combined to make him a household name in the states but judging by the comments I saw on articles about his death last year he wasn’t very well known internationally.
That might also be a generational divide.
Yeah I can't say that I can recall a single song from him except "Margaritaville" and that's only the chorus because it's a unique/weird song. His music was never played growing up (NZ)
I am Australian and I have never heard of him until this comment.
Probably surprising to Americans, Journey is pretty much a no hit band in Europe.
Fun fact: Don’t Stop Believin’ reached #62 in the UK when it was originally released in 1981. Despite that relatively low performance, it was still their second most successful hit there after Who’s Crying Now, which peaked at #46, also in 1981.
Then in 2009, it was performed twice in one season of the UK edition of The X Factor, and subsequently re-entered the charts and became their best-selling single in the U.K. by far, topping out at #6 and going 5x Platinum a full 28 years after its original release.
I assume the X-Factor performances were off the back of it coming back into the public consciousness through Glee?
Honestly, family guy is much more likely.
In 2009? Absolutely not, that was 100% the Glee effect.
The first time I ever heard that song was a performance from a cover band that my 16 year old high school band supported. This was in September 2009. I’d be willing to bet a fair amount of us brits probably didn’t hear it much if at all before then.
I only know Journey because of Glee
That is surprising since I expect country and some r&b acts to barely chart overseas, but this is a band i expect to be dominant globally.
RATM is one he’s mentioned getting requests from Brit’s to do for OHW, so probably them
This irritated me so much. RATM are not a one hit wonder in the UK damnit! Bulls On Parade hit #8 in 1996, 13 years before Killing In The Name got the number 1. Bullet In The Head went top 20 in 1993! They also had a steady stream of top 40 singles throughout the 90’s. They were more of a one hit wonder in the US where only Guerrilla Radio charted!
90s rock bands are in this grey area due to a lot of their singles not being released as physical singles so they weren't charting on the Hot 100 or if they were they weren't charting that high because rock fans were most likely to buy the album, but the singles/songs were doing very well on rock radio and MTV and could even crossover to Top 40. Technically Live have no Top 40 hits but you wouldn't call them a one-hit wonder since "I Alone" and especially "Lightning Crashes" were radio hits that crossed over to Top 40 radio too.
Oh I know. The fact they had 2 number 1 albums before this easily confirms they don’t belong as a OHW anywhere, it was more a comparison because I’m confused as to why people keep thinking they are in the UK
Dave Matthews Band, one minor hit in the UK but a lot of album success in the US with some weird chart quirk deprived hits.
Not a One-Hit-Wonder (Swallowed hit #7 and Greedy Fly #22, plus they had three others in the top 50), but it’s always been interesting to me that Bush were considerably less successful in their native U.K. than they were in the US.
It was pretty dramatic: Their second, most successful album debuted at #1, went on to sell 10 million copies and was certified triple platinum in the USA. In the UK, however? It never made it past Gold (100,000 copies).
This probably happened because they were so heavily grunge-influenced. Grunge was never as big in the UK as it was in the US (Nirvana being the notable exception), and Bush came about just as Britpop was really taking off. The US, on the other hand, was in the midst of post-grunge fever, and Bush fit in far better with that crowd than they did at home.
EDIT: I just realized OP specifically asked for American artists that were one hit wonders outside of the USA so this comment is even less on topic than I thought it was and actually doesn’t answer the question in any way, shape or form. I hang my head in shame.
Still a valid observation!
I haven’t verified this but I mentioned to a British classmate of mine in college how much I love Billy Joel and he said the Uptown Girl guy?
No knowledge of any other songs from him. Like I said could be just him and not representative of Britain but thought it was interesting.
Nah, Billy Joel was a legit worldwide superstar in the 80s. Big hitmaker all over the world.
70s, yes, he was mostly known in the US, but even by the late-70s he was notching Top 20 hits worldwide.
7 additional songs in the top 20 UK.
Billy Joel is quite popular in the UK. His compilation album regularly charts there.
I think he was less of a big deal over there. Still a massive superstar, but I think how huge he seems is related to how close you are to New York.
I saw a comment that once said Billy Joel isn't as big in the UK because they already have their own piano man in Elton John. But then, you remember Elton is as big in the US as he is in the UK.
I actually don’t think Elton John was as successful over here later in his career as he was in the UK though. I think by the eighties, while he was still having big hits in the US, it wasn’t as many.
I just moved to the US from the UK three months ago, and I hear Billy Joel pretty much every time I go to the supermarket. In contrast, the only songs of his I heard regularly on the radio in the UK are Uptown Girl, and We Didn't Start the Fire.
At least the Europeans appreciate him. Favorite artist growing up and I still hold him in high regard.
I am surprised to see people disagee, as if you said "Uptown Girl Guy" I would be trying to discern what Westlife member you were referring to.
I live in Canada and used to work retail with public radio. It didn't matter how high a country song charted on the US Top 100 - we never heard them unless we searched for it on specific country stations. I heard Morgan Wallen's "Last Night" for the first time like two weeks ago and it blew my mind to learn it is the longest running #1 song in history. Literally never heard it on the radio, not once, ever. Ditto with every other high-charting country song of the last 10 years. I did hear Toby Keith's Red Solo Cup a few times for sure, but I was also living in a small town in Alberta when it came out and it became one of our party songs. Florida Georgia Line also gets a bit of radio play but only when they feature with a pop act.
Hootie never had a top 40 single in the UK, although Fairweather Johnson did sneak into the albums top 10. I honestly thought they were a band made up by the writers of Friends for a decent amount of time after that being the first and for a long time only time I’d ever heard of them. Dave Matthews Band have had one song, for one week, in the top 40 over here and their highest charting album also had one week in the charts (at number 59). From what I gather those bands profiles are (or were in the case of Hootie) in the US I feel like that’s a dramatic contrast.
Three Six Mafia had way more crossover success in their home country despite only charting once in the UK. I can’t tell you how they’re perceived necessarily, but I assume non-crossover American hip hop is more niche overseas.
Probably most country artists. Most US country artists are only known in US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Garth Brooks surprisingly had 3 Top 40 hits in the UK, but I doubt most people outside the US (maybe in Australia/New Zealand since country music has a big audience down under, but as an Aussie, I don't hear people talking about Garth except ironically) would know who he is. Morgan Wallen had the No. 1 song and album in the US last year, but internationally, he's only known in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
I think the most famous country artist internationally is John Denver who some don't even consider country.
I was going to say this, but more in relation to pop/bro country. Florida Georgia Line have 1 top 40 and Luke Bryan has 1 track in the top 75. As i understand it these guys are massive stateside.
Yeah 99% of people outside of the US (and maybe Canada I dunno) won't know who Florida Georgia Line or Luke Bryan is, especially in Europe, Asia and South America. I only know who those guys are because I follow music channels who cover country music. I do unfournately hear that FGL song they did with that female pop singer sometimes. Blake Shelton is much more well known for The Voice US than his music career internationally. I didn't even know Maren Morris was country. I thought she was a pop singer due to that Zedd collab.
Dolly Parton is pretty well known internationally. Or at least her name is. Same with Willie Nelson. Shania Twain had big success internationally with Come on Over. And everyone knows and likes Johnny Cash.
The first concert I ever went to was Garth Brooks in Stuttgart, Germany in like 1993 or 1994. Sold out arena.
Van Halen, Alice in Chains, Kid Rock. I went into detail about it in a similar post I made a few months ago.
Kid Rock is an interesting one, since the big hit he had outside the US was in a fairly different style for what he was mostly known for domestically. (Not that literally anything else about Kid Rock is interesting, maaaan I hate that song)
AIC had six top 40 hits in the UK. Van Halen had seven. Kid Rock had three. Only the last of them had one stand-out hit in UK.
this is gonna be controversial, so blame it on me being born after the fact, but for all i hear about mariah carey and her cultural impact, she has always felt like an afterthought to me and to most in the UK. i just looked and she had 2 number 1s here, one of them being “all i want for christmas is you”, which tracks, considering that’s probably the only mariah song i ever hear playing anywhere. the second was “without you” which is a song i’ve never even heard. not even her “biggest” hits like vision of love, i’ll be there, hero or emotions hit number one which is kinda crazy to me, they managed to all break top 10 or top 20 at least.
anyway, to sum up, when i hear people talk about mariah carey, they speak of her in the same wavelength they do about whitney houston or celine dion, but it feels like, here in the UK at least, she’s sort of a sidenote in comparison to the other 80s and 90s divas who were superstars. it’s kinda weird to have all that star power and still feel sort of… forgotten?
Mariah has really only been massive in two continents: North America and Asia. And in particular the US and Japan. Janet Jackson has a similar issue.
ah so i wasn’t going crazy! i found out more about mariah through social media than i ever did through her music haha
No you were right lol 🙂
Mc Hammer is only known for U Can't Touch This in my experience as a South American. Never heard of any other hits he had in the US.
Same as a European, I always assumed he was OHW
Rachel Platten. From what I gather she had a couple of other successful singles in the US, but while "Fight Song" was a staple of sports and talent show montages for a good while, nobody here could name her.
I can think of certain acts who were huge in the US but didn’t get much of a chance to blow up elsewhere, like Van Halen, but the only OHW elsewhere who were anything but in the states are Rage Against the Machine in the UK.
RATM were not a one-hit wonder in the UK. Yes it’s true the only chart activity they’re remembered for is the 2009 run of Killing in the Name. But Bulls on Parade hit #8 when it was released and several of their other songs charted.
And I doubt they’re a cultural one either, since I’m sure their other songs are also known in the UK.
Can confirm: RATM were massivein the UK in the 2000s among my age group (born late 80s/early 90s).
It felt like an established pipeline in the 00’s, you’d start at Limp Bizkit/Linkin Park, move on to SOAD and end up at Rage. It’s how most people started to grow out of nu metal. Shit was huge.
Wow, really? My whole life feels like a lie.
They headlined Reading & Leeds (then our biggest “rock” festival) in 2008 before the whole Christmas saga happened. They’ve always been at least as big over here as they are in the US, lots of their songs are very well known and regularly get play in rock circles.
One of the reasons that song was chosen for the Christmas Number 1 campaign was because it was a well known song by a well known band. I’d wager the vast majority of people who bought it already knew the song & band looooong beforehand.
Rage against the machine only chartered once over hear.
Where's "here"? The only country where they only have one appearance on a mainstream chart is... the U.S.
I haven't checked if "I Was Made For Lovin' You" was the only KISS single to chart in France, but it feels like it, as it's the only one I remember hearing on French radio.
Kinda similar but Seether are considered kinda small in their home of South Africa. They’ve only had marginal success over there, whereas they get on the Top 200 everytime they drop an album here. I’m not complaining, I think they were the best of the 2000’s “post grunge” era.
Isn’t Rage Against The Machine a one hit wonder in the UK?
According to Todd, Rage is a one hit wonder