Anatomy of a Fad

By Thilo Latrell Widder

My favorite band of all time is Fountains of Wayne. You may know them for hits such as Stacy's Mom and well, that's probably it.

That is constantly the problem with explaining the nature of my favorite band being well known and yet uncared for.

When lead singer Adam Schlessinger passed away during 2020, I was left explaining the importance of projects like "Utopia Parkway" and "Welcome Interstate Managers" to blank eyes. I was left searching for the words to invalidate the one song that made everyone even recognize the name.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel this way.

Not all of us can be Swifties...

Anyway, what makes a one hit wonder. I'd claim that it means some nebulous number or percentage of their total plays comes from one hugely popular song. It's time to find that number.

That is every single one hit wonder since the 1980s according to Wikipedia.I got myself banned from Spotify to get this data so I need you to enjoy it. Are you scrolling back up? Can you please do so?

Look at Sir Mix-A-Lot and Vanilla Ice, whose impact on music is purely negative and has given so many talentless hacks the hope to achieve financial victory. Look at Digable Planets, who has no business being up there (WTF is wrong with you Wikipedia!?). How did Aqua have a hit that wasn't Barbie Girl????

Aaaaaanyway, one hit wonders on this chart are usually one of four types:

Type One: Made it big, never made it back - These bands had their one hit take up around 70+% of their total listens and never had any other song even get close to rivaling it.
Type Two: The Swift School of Rereleases - Look, if you win with a two - six off suit once, you'll keep going all in on that combo to bring back the rush. Or, you're Aqua and release four versions of "Barbie Girl".
Type Three: Creep Chorus Lines Two and Three - They don't belong here. Bow Wow has three songs with over 100 million listens. Falco had semi-viral (at least in Germany) hit "Der Komissar". Digable Planets makes really cool music and Blowout Comb is one of my favorite CDs.
Type Four: If there was ever an industry plant... - When you're hitting 95% on one song, either your career lasted a very eventful 12 weeks or something went terribly wrong. (I removed Tracy Chapman from this group. Data journalism is allowed to be a bit biased.)

I've given you a ton of examples, but before we get to the conclusion, I'll give you all a figurative whoosh bottle. I'm providing ethanol, a lighter, and a plastic bottle. Mess around, but don't burn the house down.

(PS it may take a while to load, but this has been in progress for three weeks. I care that it works and less about how well)

(PPS that doesn't reflect on me as an employee, I swear I work really hard (hire me!))

Now that you've experimented with your musical knowledge (please tweet your best guesses at Tlo_L_W on Twitter), let's get to the obvious.

What's the number I promised we'd find?

It's *drumroll please*

It's around 85%. Anti-climatic ending once again...

Fountains of Wayne sits at a solid 87%. I hate it. I hate that my favorite band is just resigned to this role. Even Adam Schlessinger, who went on to do a beautiful project called Ivy, is a virtual unknown. It's heartbreaking. All I can offer is this piece as a eulogy to him and my personal fandom. One hit wonders are about data, not about music. Enjoy the songs, ignore the discourse.

Who gives a shit about data science? Just let life be fun for once

On a related note, here's a video of a puffin...

What makes a "One Hit Wonder"?