Only thing that comes to mind is...

 

Men At Work - Land Down Under

 

I know they had some other hits, but that is the big one that everyone remembers...at least thats the only one i know lol

 

 

Icicle Works - mainly known for Love Is A Wonderful Colour, though to be fair it was their only top 40 hit. They released some magnificent singles in the 80s including Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream), Evangeline and Understanding Jane, all of which should have been massive hits.

Only thing that comes to mind is...

 

Men At Work - Land Down Under

 

I know they had some other hits, but that is the big one that everyone remembers...at least thats the only one i know lol

yup, I think many people would think they were a one hit wonder though they had another 3 top 40 hits.

 

Another one I would add to the list is Dexy's Midnight Runners, I fcuking adore Geno, one of my fave songs of the last 30 odd years if not ever but I never hear it on the radio only Come On Eileen, Geno gets sadly overlooked as does Jackie Wilson Said and There There My Dear yet Come On Eileen gets all the attention

 

indeed, dexys are known for that goddamn awful 'come on eileen' and at a pinch 'jackie wilson says' but their far superior 'geno' which also was #1 (so SHOULD be remembered) is largely forgotten. also rate 'there there my dear', 'show me' but my fav was their first 'dance stance' ('burn it down ' on searching for the young soul rebels).

Underworld - Born Slippy

 

Their WORST tune..... :rolleyes:

GENERALLY SPEAKING: I'm inclined to go with the notion that the parents of kids that listened to The Osmonds, Rick Astley (depending on their youth era) are likely to pass down equally p***-poor taste to their offspring. No real passion for music; simply having a palate for Lowest Com.. TV. If your parents worshipped the likes of Bowie, Bush and so forth (like mine did) you are more likely to develop your own path in music taste.

 

Yep, spot on... I spent my formative years in house where Hendrix, The Doors and Bowie was played.... And what did I listen to as a stroppy teenager..?? Slayer, Metallica, Iron Maiden, The Smiths, The Cult, etc.... :lol:

 

The elevator-muzak of Simon Cowell is the most foul, conformist, conservative cr@p imaginable... There's absolutely NO "youthful rebellion" to it at all, quite the opposite.... In fact, no "youthfulness" or Joie de Vivre at all..... Which is what "Pop" should surely be about...

Yep, spot on... I spent my formative years in house where Hendrix, The Doors and Bowie was played.... And what did I listen to as a stroppy teenager..?? Slayer, Metallica, Iron Maiden, The Smiths, The Cult, etc.... :lol:

 

The elevator-muzak of Simon Cowell is the most foul, conformist, conservative cr@p imaginable... There's absolutely NO "youthful rebellion" to it at all, quite the opposite.... In fact, no "youthfulness" or Joie de Vivre at all..... Which is what "Pop" should surely be about...

 

Well my parents record collection consisted of: Jim Reeves; Val Doonican; The Bachelors; The Seekers; The Osmonds; Peters & Lee; Nana Miskouri; Cliff Richard and ..... two Black & White Minstrel albums. :lol:

 

I don't know about you but I fit Midge Ure's generational concept of music more than ScottyEm's because as you well know the music I hate most is middle of the road adult contemporary sh!te = the bland muzak produced by Cowell & Walsh.

Well my parents record collection consisted of: Jim Reeves; Val Doonican; The Bachelors; The Seekers; The Osmonds; Peters & Lee; Nana Miskouri; Cliff Richard and ..... two Black & White Minstrel albums. :lol:

 

I don't know about you but I fit Midge Ure's generational concept of music more than ScottyEm's because as you well know the music I hate most is middle of the road adult contemporary sh!te = the bland muzak produced by Cowell & Walsh.

 

I think I stand corrected, yes.

Here's another bundle

 

Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing -- originally B-side of Blue Night

Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline

Gene Pitney - 24 Hours From Tulsa

Peter & Gordon - World Without Love

Bobby Goldsboro - Honey

Gary Puckett & Union Gap - Young Girl

Status Quo - Rockin' All Over The World

Marmalade - Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da

Procol Harum - A Whiter Shade Of Pale

Aerosmith - I Don't Want To Miss A Thing

Journey - Don't Stop Believin'

Paul Anka - Diana

The Troggs – Love Is All Around

Donovan – Catch The Wind

Drifters – Saturday Night At The Movies

Chris Farlowe – Out Of Time

Foundations – Build Me Up Buttercup

Gerry & The Pacemakers – You’ll Never Walk Alone

Spandau Ballet – True

Jimi Hendrix – All Along The Watchtower

Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell

Shakespears Sister - Stay

Edited February 18, 201015 yr by euro music

^

I think that "In The Army Now" is more famous, at least here in Czech Republic and Areosmith are also very welll known for Cryin and Crazy

Here's another bundle

 

Gene Pitney - 24 Hours From Tulsa

Aerosmith - I Don't Want To Miss A Thing

Donovan – Catch The Wind

Jimi Hendrix – All Along The Watchtower

 

A few there I'd disagree with.

 

Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart.

Aerosmith: How could you forget about Walk This Way? A rock classic and (through the woeful Girls Aloud/Sugababes cover version) their only number 1.

Donovan: Can you get through any montage featuring light colours without hearing his incessent 'Mellow Yellow'? I also like his track 'There Is A Mountain,' although that one isn't as well remembered.

Jimi Hendrix: I'd think Voodoo Chile and Hey Joe are just as well remembered now.

Here's another bundle

 

Aerosmith - I Don't Want To Miss A Thing

The Troggs – Love Is All Around

Donovan – Catch The Wind

Drifters – Saturday Night At The Movies

Jimi Hendrix – All Along The Watchtower

 

I disagree.

 

Surely it's:

 

Gene Pitney - Something's Got A Hold Of My Heart or I'm Gonna Be Strong

Aerosmith - Walk This Way

The Troggs – Wild Thing

Donovan – Sunshine Superman

Drifters – Save The Last Dance For Me

Jimi Hendrix – Hey Joe, Purple Haze & Voodoo Chile are more popular.

I disagree.

 

Surely it's:

 

Gene Pitney - Something's Got A Hold Of My Heart or I'm Gonna Be Strong

Aerosmith - Walk This Way

The Troggs – Wild Thing

Donovan – Sunshine Superman

Drifters – Save The Last Dance For Me

Jimi Hendrix – Hey Joe, Purple Haze & Voodoo Chile are more popular.

 

i agree.

know they had some other hits, but that is the big one that everyone remembers...at least thats the only one i know lo

Copey may well (unfortunately) be another artist in this category due to the success of the World Shut Your Mouth single.

 

Such a shame as he has released some absolutely brilliant music in his time (other than his stuff with the Teardrops)

 

Actually, he could possibly appear on the list twice with The Teardrop's Reward.

 

I would probably add Orange Juice/Edward Collins in the same category with Rip It Up/A Girl Like You.

 

I do not think that The Teardrop Explodes would only be remembered for “Reward”, in fact when I read their name, the first song that came to mind was “Treason”. I do not know why this was but I think it might have been the last song of theirs that was played on the radio recently.

 

“World Shut Your Mouth” is also a great song and as a child I used to pretend I was ‘St. Julian’, as I thought Cope was very cool especially when he clung on to that microphone stand of his. “Trampoline” was good song too but I think my favourite single of his has to be “Charlotte Anne”.

 

“Charlotte Anne” was another song I saw recently, alongside all those hits by The Christians, whilst watching my Chart Show video from the late 1980s. It was a good job that Cope’s video compilation [“Copeulation”] got re-issued onto DVD a few years ago, as half of “Charlotte Anne” was missing when the video tape re-round itself as I had pressed stop at the end of the song.

 

In those days my father would tell me off if I used the ‘pause’ facility for a long time during advertisement breaks. He would tell me that I would damage the ‘heads’ on the machine and as it was his video recorder I had to comply. Once I got my own VCR I would always use the pause facility and I am guessing that the video recorder that I was bought in the early 1990s would probably work better now than some of the hard disc machines I have bought in the last few years, even with a decade of ITV Chart Shows recorded on my old VCR.

 

In regards to this list, I think “World Shut Your Mouth” would be the most obvious single that Absolute would play during their 80s Hour, though critically, I doubt that any albums from this mid 1980s period would feature in any magazine’s ‘Essential Cope’ list. Unlike his early 1990s work I would say that these albums would mainly end up in the ‘Good’ or ‘Worth A Try’ sections.

 

Over the weekend I was in Waterstone’s, looking for a book to buy that would be portable enough to take with me on the train into work, when I picked up the Bill Drummond book called “17”. I opened the book randomly at a section called ‘Pete Waterman – The Genius’ which mostly documented the time when Youth and Jimmy Caulty’s band Brilliant recorded their album with S/A/W for release on Food Records [some interesting opinions that you may like to read by Drummond about The Specials here as well]. Now I mention this here because this Brilliant album, which I still own on vinyl, was one of the first albums released by Food Records, a label set up by former Teardrop Explodes man David Balfe.

 

I had forgotten about Food Records links to Liverpool, just regarding it as EMI’s Britpop label, which was perhaps run by people who frequented The Good Mixer in Camden a lot. I also forgot how important a figure Drummond was in the Liverpool music scene and how he was involved with bands such as Echo and The Bunnymen, before he was part of The KLF.

 

Even though in the end I bought a book by Mark Radcliffe, I would like to continue with discussing about various figures in the Liverpool music scene in regards to this ‘One Song Wonder’ list.

 

I think another person perhaps suited to this discussion would be Pete Wylie, who will be mostly remembered for his hit single “Sinful”. Obviously I think people on this site will know other songs by him or his bands, but then again, it could be the case that all the various amendments he has done to his ‘Wah!’ band name have just confused a lot of people who are just casual fans of 1980s music.

 

I doubt the majority of people will have bothered to remember whether he was in ‘The Mighty Wah!’ or ‘Wah! The Mongrel’, though I think he will be easily remembered for “Sinful”, especially since it was a hit a couple of times in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

“Sinful” was also another important song from my childhood ‘playtime’. When I was little, my friends and I used to make up our own ‘groups’ and ‘write’ our own songs. Most of the time, these songs were actually based on the tunes of other hits, though at the time we did not realise it.

 

Whereas one of the songs used the verses of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax” and the chorus of Yazoo’s “Don’t Go”, another co-opted the whole of Pete Wylie’s “Sinful” with the lyrics of the chorus changed to something else. It was a good job that we were children who did not understand the workings of copyright law, as if we were older and had recorded these songs no doubt we would be in court now, signing away our royalties just like Colin Hay and the rest of Men At Work.

 

By the way, before I move off the subject of Wylie, does anyone know what the phrase “Fourelevenfortyfour” means? Is the title of the song a football reference or is it a meaning that only people from Liverpool would know?

 

As this is quite an obscure reference to a Pete Wylie single that charted outside the Top 75 in 1988, I would not think it would be the kind of question that would crop up normally in a pub’s pop quiz or be asked as part of Ken Bruce’s ‘Popmaster’.

 

I do not know if anybody here regularly listens to ‘Popmaster’ or has actually been a contestant, but I would guess most people on here would be high scorers, depending on what questions have been selected for the bonus record round.

 

Generally I only listen to the show in the car where I cannot receive 6music and this is quite infrequent as I am normally in work at that time in the morning. As I was not in work on a number of days last week, I happened to hear a show where a contestant was being quizzed on a clip of Let Loose.

 

Now I would have guessed that the contestant would have known Let Loose as the song was a big pop hit in the mid 1990s and perhaps would be the only song remembered by that band. However, the contestant failed to give the answer correctly, guessing that it was in fact [‘Absolute Classic Rock’ types] REO Speedwagon. This surprised me as if any wrong answer was to be given I would have expected it to be 2wo Third3 or Chesney Hawkes, the former as it was a boyband of the same era, the latter because Nik Kershaw was also involved at some point with Let Loose as well [i think he wrote “Seventeen” with Richie Wermaling].

 

Not only that, but the other day, somebody else failed to identify Phil Collins from a clip of his “Dance Into The Light” single. This is probably more surprising as even though it was not one of his biggest hits I would have said that Collins still has quite a distinctive voice.

 

Now where this relates to the previous discussion, as obviously Collins has had many other hits that people can remember, is actually in relation to another gentleman with the surname Collins, this time Edwyn Collins of Orange Juice fame.

 

Now earlier in this discussion I read that that Edwyn Collins would be only remembered for one solo hit and for one hit with Orange Juice, though as the examples from ‘Popmaster’ have shown it is hard to know if he will be actually remembered at all [though certain ‘indie’ fans, perhaps those who think Morrissey is far too mainstream, will probably know a song like “Blue Boy” which I have heard quite a few times on the radio, on shows such as Jarvis Cocker’s].

 

I would say that of the two Collins, Edwyn has got the more distinctive voice but casual pub quiz players [those playing for fun, not those who have spent hours revising all the answers from the Hit Singles Book] would be more likely to distinguish between Phil solo and Genesis, rather than Edwyn solo and Orange Juice.

 

I can imagine Edwyn Collins being given as the answer to a ‘mystery clip round’ when “Rip It Up” is played and I guess most of the time the quizmaster will not be too pedantic, at least giving any team half a point when the quiz is played just for fun.

 

Now, I have a number of albums by Edwyn Collins and have recently seen him play live too [it was post-stroke and from his performance I think he should be an inspiration to us all], so I think I would probably be able to distinguish between his solo and group recordings if it came up in the quiz.

 

Generally, when my friends and I were quizzed on 1980s music we did alright, though I remember once when I was a student my team was caught out by an overly pedantic quizmaster. He would not allow our answer to a ‘mystery clip round’, a round that nobody had won outright for more than a year.

 

This time we were a team that had come close to guessing all the clips correctly and actually we knew what all the songs were called, that were being played. The only problem was that with one answer we had correctly identified the singer but put him down as part of his rock group, not as a solo artist and therefore the quizmaster would not accept our answer.

 

Whereas today in my local pub this would not matter, as the winnings would only be a few pints, back in my student days the prize for getting all the artists in the mystery clip round correct was £150. That was a lot of money in those days, especially for students like we were, who would normally go out midweek and have a drunken night out for only £10 [which would equal be to 20 pints at student night prices].

 

It has been many years since I last went to a student nightclub and even though I doubt the prices will still be set at 50p, I am guessing the music will still largely be the same, as in ten years of frequenting those kinds of student indie nights the music policy always remained very similar, but with whatever was the more modern equivalent of The Mock Turtles, being played in later years instead of “Can You Dig It”.

 

 

Loz

 

 

 

another excellant post zippy.. :)

 

however, i think teardrop explodes are known for 'reward' by most.... i prefer 'when i dream' anyway!

 

drummond referd to waterman as a 'genius'? was that sarcastic? and caulty recorded for S/A/W ? ...oh dear, i find that uncomfortable! :lol:

another excellant post zippy.. :)

 

however, i think teardrop explodes are known for 'reward' by most.... i prefer 'when i dream' anyway!

 

drummond referd to waterman as a 'genius'? was that sarcastic? and caulty recorded for S/A/W ? ...oh dear, i find that uncomfortable! :lol:

 

Hello,

 

I cannot comment on that as I only had a quick look through the book and bought the Mark Radcliffe book instead as that was ‘signed by the author’. I think I will wait to see if there is a signed copy of “17” in another branch of Waterstone’s, as when I met Drummond at his ‘film premiere’ [of burning the money] he would only sign £20 notes and being a student I needed that money for ‘50p a pint’ night.

 

On the other hand, Gimpo did sign my rare promo copy of “America: What Time Is Love” and even though he is not known to music fans like Mark Manning will be [as Zodiac Mindwarp], at least Gimpo is known as a KLF-associate by obsessive fans of the band.

 

Loz

 

Zippy I think you are missing the point somewhat here. Most people are going to remember an artist's hits and in this respect Cope had one (major-ish) solo hit and one with his group, ditto for Collins. The Terdrops biggest hit and sole top ten entry was Reward which is the track that gets played most on TOTP 2 and the like.

 

And any Essential Cope list would include Sunshine Playroom, Sunspots and Reynard the Fox which are all from his 80s albums and would not solely focus on his 90s material.

there's some interesting bits about Balfe and Food Records in the (rather brilliant) Alex James biog 'A Bit of a Blur' - one of my favourite rock star biogs, albeit a bit watered down and drugs-free.

Zippy I think you are missing the point somewhat here. Most people are going to remember an artist's hits and in this respect Cope had one (major-ish) solo hit and one with his group, ditto for Collins. The Terdrops biggest hit and sole top ten entry was Reward which is the track that gets played most on TOTP 2 and the like.

 

I do not know how ‘casual’ a listener is supposed to be or how you can properly assess ‘most people’ for definite, but it is also as likely that ‘most people’ will not actually know or care who Cope is, even if they have heard “Reward” at least once in their lifetime. In fact, ‘most people’ that I have spoken to [that is people who have identified themselves as music fans] do not know or remember who Collins, Cope or Mackenzie were/are, and in return, I have been equally none-the-wiser with any of the Afrobeat, Metal or Minimal Techno references that they have spoken to me about. In fact when it comes to music ‘most people’ have quite surprising and eclectic tastes.

 

I suppose this is why I am discussing these artists here with you now and I have to say that it is good to find people with similar tastes, who probably have had similar life experiences, for example, in regards to childhood eras and University education. However, I would not want any of my reminiscing to turn into some kind of socio-political argument about what people should or should not know, as that sounds too much like hard work to me and I suppose it is not what the person, who posed the question in the first place, would want.

 

However, at this point, I am reminded of a cultural critic, who once commented about the ‘battle’ of two television channels who were trying to get the highest ratings of one night with their ‘prestigious’ new show formats. I cannot remember the two shows in question, as it was not a recent event, nor the critic who made the point in the first place, though I think it happened around Christmas and perhaps said by somebody who was on one of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe shows [maybe it was Brooker himself, as I enjoy his views a lot and think he should do a ‘pophitswipe’ or an ‘albumwipe’ spin-off next].

 

Due to this uncertainty, I will illustrate their point with two recent shows that I have recently seen the overnights for. The viewpoint was that if The Brit Awards got 5.8 million viewers and Holby City got 6.3 million viewers, it will be reported in the press that most people watched Holby City, though what this critic argued was that in a country of 60 million, most people could not be bothered with either shows and therefore doing better things instead, which is quite an unique way at looking at that particular ratings ‘clash’.

 

By the way, whilst we are on the subject of different competing channels, though this time in regards to radio rather than television, you might be interested to know that Absolute played “Reward” as part of Leona’s 80s Hour on Saturday night, whilst yesterday morning at 7am, Shaun Keaveny played “Treason” on 6music. Even though these are Cope’s biggest hits [by chart positions] I wonder if a comment could be provided on the stations that played them ['Save 6music' perhaps?] and what would be expected of them, though to give Absolute credit, Leona did play Faith No More’s “We Care A Lot” a few hours later rather than “Epic”.

 

I did not hear all of “Reward” on Saturday night as when I switched on the radio “Body Moving” by The Beastie Boys was playing on 6music. I listened to that for a short while but as it was not the Fatboy Slim remix and as I had remembered that the 80s Hour had already started on the other side, I decided not to wait till the end of the song and switched over instead.

 

As in the case of The Teardrop Explodes, the Beastie Boys are another act that I was thinking of buying on CD in the last week, whereby a number of non-playlisted songs came on the radio within days of each other that would probably help my purchasing decision [rather than the case of XFM playing the last two Editors singles over-and-over again ad infinitum].

 

This morning another Beastie Boys record was played on 6music, this time by Andrew Collins on the breakfast show [as Shaun Keaveny is absent for the next two days]. The song in question was “Fight For Your Right (To Party)” which could be also a contender for this list, or at least any ‘Iconic Song’ list, especially as some people may only know the song in the hip-house/hard-house cover version, which was released by a German projection group some years ago. I think that the act in question were called ‘NYCCC’, though it would never have been a recording that my friends and I would have danced to, at places that we would have frequented, unlike the Beastie’s “Intergalactic”, which was always a song that we would get up to dance to at ‘student indie nights’, no matter how drunk we were.

 

Loz