One-hit wonders in the United States

A one-hit wonder is a Top 40 phenomenon; the combination of artist and song that scores huge in the music industry with one single, but is unable to repeat the achievement. The term can refer to the artist, the song, or both together.

Music journalist Wayne Jancik, whose book, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, defines a one-hit wonder rather conservatively, as "an act that has won a position on Billboard's national, pop, Top 40 just once." He therefore includes influential performers such as Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix solely on the basis of their Top 40 performance on the Billboard Hot 100 (the criteria thus ignores competing charts such as those published by Mediabase and the now defunct Cash Box and Radio & Records). In his definition of an "act", Jancik distinguishes between a solo performer and any group he or she may have performed in; thus Roger Daltrey is distinguished from The Who, Joplin is distinguished from Big Brother and the Holding Company and Ted Nugent is distinguished from The Amboy Dukes. He restricts his reporting time to the period from the start of the "rock-and-roll era" (defined by the author as 1 January 1955) to 31 December 1992. The latter date was picked to allow a five-year "lag time" before publication for a listed one-hit wonder to produce a second hit; this unfortunately does not allow for a longer hiatus between hits for a particular performer. For example, Lenny Kravitz is listed for "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over" (No. 2, August 1991); the book therefore misses subsequent hits, such as "Fly Away" (which hit number 12 on the Hot 100) and "Dig In" (which hit number 31 on the Hot 100).

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