{"id":2371597,"date":"2026-04-13T18:30:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2371597"},"modified":"2026-04-13T18:30:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:30:30","slug":"the-ongoing-history-of-new-music-episode-1081-the-50-biggest-all-time-alt-rock-one-hit-wonders-20-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-ongoing-history-of-new-music-episode-1081-the-50-biggest-all-time-alt-rock-one-hit-wonders-20-11\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ongoing History of New Music, episode 1081: The 50 biggest all-time alt-rock one-hit wonders (20-11)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>What do the following authors have in common: J.D. Salinger, Emily Bront\u00eb, and Oscar Wilde? They are famous for writing just one novel.<\/p>\n<p>J.D. Salinger? <em data-start=\"152\" data-end=\"176\">The Catcher in the Rye<\/em>. Emily Bront\u00eb? <em data-start=\"192\" data-end=\"211\">Wuthering Heights<\/em>. And Oscar Wilde? <em data-start=\"230\" data-end=\"258\">The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/em>. Home runs. Classics. Enduring favourites. Lasting fame. Millions of copies sold around the planet. But in each case, there were no follow-ups. They were all one and done.<\/p>\n<p>J.D. Salinger became a recluse. Emily Bront\u00eb died shortly after the publication of<em> Wuthering Heights<\/em>. And Oscar Wilde stayed with writing plays. As novelists go, they are all one-hit wonders.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to music, one-hit wonders are an endless source of amusement. How can someone become internationally famous for decades when they only have one song that anyone cares about?<\/p>\n<p>These are special cases where lightning is captured exactly once. And no matter how many more songs these artists wrote, they would never, ever achieve that extreme level of fame again. A single song overshadows every other effort.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s apply this to the history of alt-rock. What songs and artists qualify?<\/p>\n<p>It took a bunch of research, but I think I managed to crack it using a combination of statistics. And we\u2019re now up to episode four of five in this mission: the 50 all-time biggest alt-rock one-hit wonders.<\/p>\n<p>Songs heard on this show:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li data-start=\"1117\" data-end=\"1322\">Doctor and the Medics, Spirit in the Sky<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1117\" data-end=\"1322\">Enigma, Sadeness (Part 1)<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1117\" data-end=\"1322\">Edwyn Collins, A Girl Like You<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1117\" data-end=\"1322\">Peter Schilling, Major Tom (Coming Home)<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1117\" data-end=\"1322\">White Town, Your Woman<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1117\" data-end=\"1322\">Meredith Brooks, Bitch<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1117\" data-end=\"1322\">Marcy Playground, Sex and Candy<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1117\" data-end=\"1322\">The Caesars, Jerk It Out<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1117\" data-end=\"1322\">Chumbawamba, Tubthumping<\/li>\n<li data-start=\"1117\" data-end=\"1322\">The La\u2019s, There She Goes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here\u2019s Eric Wilhite\u2019s playlist.<\/p>\n<p>The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on these stations.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>102.1 The Edge\/Toronto \u2013 Sunday night at 7pm<\/li>\n<li>Q107\/Toronto \u2013 Sunday night at 9pm<\/li>\n<li>Live 88-5\/Ottawa \u2013 Saturdays at 9am and Sundays at 6pm.<\/li>\n<li>107.5 Dave-FM\/Kitchener \u2013 Sunday nights at 11pm<\/li>\n<li>FM96\/London \u2013 Sunday nights at 8pm<\/li>\n<li>Power 97\/Winnipeg \u2013 Sunday nights at 10am and 10pm<\/li>\n<li>107-3 The Edge\/Calgary \u2013 Sundays at 10am and 10pm<\/li>\n<li>Sonic 102.9\/Edmonton \u2013 Sunday at 8am and 8pm<\/li>\n<li>The Zone\/Victoria \u2013 Sunday at 9am and 9pm<\/li>\n<li>The Fox\/Vancouver \u2013 Sundays at 10anm and 10pm<\/li>\n<li>The Goat Network\/Interior BC<\/li>\n<li>Surge 105\/Halifax \u2013 Sunday at 7pm<\/li>\n<li>WAPS\/WKTL The Summit\/Arkon, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown \u2013 Mon-Fri at 9pm<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"l-article__copyright\">\n\t\t\t\t\u00a9\u00a02026\u00a0Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script>\n\t(function (d, s, id) {\n\t\tvar js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n\t\tif (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n\t\tjs = d.createElement(s);\n\t\tjs.id = id;\n\t\tjs.src = \"\\\/\\\/connect.facebook.net\\\/en_US\\\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.6&appId=161185570739502\";\n\t\tfjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n\t}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source q107.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do the following authors have in common: J.D. Salinger, Emily Bront\u00eb, and Oscar Wilde? They are famous for writing just one novel. J.D. Salinger? The Catcher in the Rye. Emily Bront\u00eb? Wuthering Heights. And Oscar Wilde? The Picture of Dorian Gray. Home runs. Classics. Enduring favourites. Lasting fame. Millions of copies sold around the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2024291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[454142],"class_list":["post-2371597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-one-hit-wonders"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/The-Ongoing-History-of-New-Music-episode-1055-Still-more.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2371597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2371598,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371597\/revisions\/2371598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2024291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2371597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2371597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2371597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}