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By Rob Copsey

 

Landing a song in the Top 40 on the Official Singles Chart is no mean feat, particularly as the continued overall growth of the music market in recent years has significantly upped the units needed to enter the top flight.

 

There's no obvious recipe for cooking up a Top 40 single; some acts are backed by major label marketing budgets or ride the wave of the latest trend, while others may have a highly dedicated following or find themselves in the middle of a viral storm thanks to YouTube or Tik Tok.

 

The last decade has thrown up many one-off hits for artists who scored one Top 40 song and didn't return to the upper reaches of the Official Singles Chart again. The most successful of the 2010s appear at the bottom of the page; many are by acts who have gone on to have continued success on the Official Albums Chart or as touring artists, while a handful have since faded into obscurity.

 

The biggest 'one-hit wonder' of the decade goes to Let Her Go by Passenger. The Brighton-born musican released the gentle folk-rock track in 2012 as the second single from his fourth album All The Little Lights. It turned out to be a surprise grower, taking almost a full year to reach its chart peak of Number 2 in the UK. The track introduced the little-known siner-songwriter to a wider audience, and he's since scored five Top 10 albums, including 2016's chart-topping Young As The Morning, Old As The Sea.

 

Other big one-off hits of the 2010s include 7 Years by Danish band Lukas Graham, a five-week Number 1 in 2015, and Somebody That I Used To Know by Belgian-Australian singer Gotye. The track's minimalist art-pop sound initially found success online as the antitode to the slew of dance-pop out at the time, and went on to become the UK's biggest song of 2011, logging five weeks at Number 1.

 

In 2013 Candian band Magic topped the Official Singles Chart with their reggae-pop debut song Rude, and as yet haven't managed to recreate the, well, magic again, and in 2014, French folk-pop duo Lilly Wood & The Prick found themselves with a surprise smash with Prayer In C thanks to a remix from German producer Robin Schulz, topping the chart for two weeks.

 

Elsewhere, country music superstars Lady Antebellum feature with their only song to make the Top 40 in the UK, 2010's Need You Now, and comedian Big Shaq features with his Top 3 (and only) hit novelty song Man's Not Hot from 2017.

 

Below are the Top 40 biggest one-hit wonder releases of the 2010s, based on sales and streams compiled by the Official Charts Company.

 

POS TITLE ARTIST PEAK YEAR

1 LET HER GO PASSENGER 2 2012

2 7 YEARS LUKAS GRAHAM 1 2015

3 WAVES MR PROBZ 1 2014

4 SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW GOTYE FT KIMBRA 1 2011

5 SHUT UP & DANCE WALK THE MOON 4 2014

6 DANCING ON MY OWN CALUM SCOTT 2 2016

7 RIPTIDE VANCE JOY 10 2013

8 FEEL IT STILL PORTUGAL THE MAN 3 2017

9 HO HEY LUMINEERS 8 2012

10 THIS GIRL KUNGS VS COOKIN' ON 3 BURNERS 2 2016

11 CAKE BY THE OCEAN DNCE 4 2015

12 SEXUAL NEIKED 5 2016

13 FADED ALAN WALKER 7 2015

14 PUMPED UP KICKS FOSTER THE PEOPLE 18 2011

15 RUDE MAGIC 1 2013

16 SOLO DANCE MARTIN JENSEN 7 2016

17 BODY LOUD LUXURY FT BRANDO 4 2017

18 MY LOVE ROUTE 94 FT JESS GLYNNE 1 2014

19 PRAYER IN C LILLY WOOD & ROBIN SCHULZ 1 2014

20 PRETTY GIRL MAGGIE LINDEMANN 8 2017

21 I HATE U I LOVE U GNASH FT OLIVIA O'BRIEN 7 2016

22 SAY SOMETHING A GREAT BIG WORLD/AGUILERA 4 2013

23 CALL ON ME STARLEY 6 2016

24 MI GENTE J BALVIN/WILLY WILLIAM 5 2017

25 AM I WRONG NICO & VINZ 1 2014

26 FIGHT SONG RACHEL PLATTEN 1 2015

27 REGGAETON LENTO (REMIX) CNCO (& LITTLE MIX) 5 2017

28 LITTLE TALKS OF MONSTERS & MEN 12 2012

29 PANDA DESIIGNER 7 2016

30 XO TOUR LLIF3 LIL UZI VERT 25 2017

31 LET YOU DOWN NF 6 2017

32 DANCE MONKEY TONES & I 1 2019

33 NEED YOU NOW LADY ANTEBELLUM 15 2010

34 GIRL IS MINE (DESTINY'S CHILD & BRANDY) 99 SOULS 5 2015

35 1-800-273-8255 LOGIC/ALESSIA CARA/KHALID 9 2017

36 MAN'S NOT HOT BIG SHAQ 3 2017

37 IN2 WSTRN 4 2015

38 SAIL AWOLNATION 17 2010

39 YOU DON'T OWN ME GRACE FT G-EAZY 4 2015

40 MY HEAD IS A JUNGLE WANKELMUT & EMMA LOUISE 5 2014

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Some of these are kinda stretching what “one hit wonder” means but interesting read, although I thought You Are The Reason went Top 40?

Great list but how is Logic a 1HW when he had another top 20 hit this year with 'Homicide'?

J Balvin shouldn't be on this list either especially if they're excluding Omi for being featured on a very minor top 40 hit.

 

Mr Probz, Gotye and Kungs all in the top 10 is great to see anyway. :heart:

Such a shame that Alan Walker is still a 1HW in the UK however, he had quite a few big hits across Europe.

 

^ YATR missed top 40 although I believe it still went Silver, it was top 100 for quite a few weeks.

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Logic and J Balvin being included in here does seem like an error! :lol: Philip George as well! (If we're including features then Lil Uzi Vert and Pia Mia shouldn't be on there either)

 

On the whole that's a pretty good list anyway.

Some great tracks here. My favs in the top 10 are Gotye and Vance Joy. Gotye could well be my fav no1 of the decade! Everything's went downhill from there lol.
Philip George literally had a second top 5 hit... some of those other mistaken inclusions make sense if you assume they just meant hits as lead artist (although Logic did have a second one of those too) but really no excuse for them to have missed that one.
Philip George also passed me by oops, easy to forget he had a 2nd hit but OCC should've done their factchecking.
They got the years wrong on some of those songs as well, they listed some songs as being released one year earlier than they actually were.
It's not hard to check polyhex like?!

 

...or their own database :P

 

Although having said that, that seems like it might be the problem. 'Alone No More' isn't listed on Philip's own page in the artists archive, only the page for 'Philip George & Anton Powers'.

I'd love a job like that too and yet they seem not to overly care about the facts which is what is important surely for their company!
They got the years wrong on some of those songs as well, they listed some songs as being released one year earlier than they actually were.

 

That is because in some cases the songs were released the year before, but only took off in the following year. “Somebody That I Used To Know” being a good example, came out in the summer of 2011 but only charted in January 2012.

 

(Though it charted, peaked and exited my chart before the end of summer 11!)

their archive is really a mess

Makes no sense to list collabs separetely

 

Lots of great songs especially the indie/alt singer-songwriter songs

like Gotye, Riptide or Portugal

For this kind of artist its difficult to get a 2nd hit

omg the OCC already foreshadowing Tones & I's career

It does scream one hit wonder. Time will tell for Tones & I but get the feeling anything released over the next year will be overshadowed by Dance Monkey.

I doubt it'll be her only hit, would surely be unprecedented for a hit this huge to have absolutely no follow-up at all (the previous record for weeks at #1 for a one hit wonder was The Archies' 'Sugar, Sugar' I think, a clear novelty hit by a fictional band). We can only pray she'll never have another really big hit tho.
She has other songs but never dared to listen :D but I think she's got 3/4 hits already in Australia?
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She has other songs but never dared to listen :D but I think she's got 3/4 hits already in Australia?

I've heard 'The Kids Are Coming' and it's at least 100x worse than Dance Monkey imo!

Never Seen The Rain is top 10 in australia and could be a cute hit here with a push.

I get the feeling she will be remembered as a one hit wonder though even if she does get 1 or 2 more top 40s.

can’t see her getting any more than 3 hits in total here.

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