Ready, Aye, Ready

Link: http://www.last.fm/group/Last.fm+One-Hit+Wonders

Convention has it that any band for which you can name one major single but absolutely nothing else is a "One Hit Wonder". Of course, when one tries to actually define specific examples of that it results in failure.

Take for example Virgin/EMI's stab at it. I think they did a pretty good job in choosing the entries. For most groups listed I would have a tough time trying to come up with anything else they did. Some though, I'm not so sure about. I'm not a fan of Eric Carmen but when the first paragraph of his bio on AllMusic reads:

Eric Carmen has amassed an impressive amount of hit singles over his long career

I'm unconvinced about the tagging. The Cutting Crew is also here; presumably they didn't do so well in the US where this album was compiled as they had a few more hits in the UK. A similar story happens with the Crash Test Dummies who did pretty well in Canada.

So how do you come up with an unarguable case over which unfortunate soul ends up being an OHW? Last.FM (aka AudioScrobbler) has an interesting way of defining a musical One Hit Wonder:

The following rules make an artist a one-hit wonder on the Last.fm charts:

· Their hit song has at least 10,000 listeners (or near enough) on their Top Tracks, Last Six Months chart.

· Their hit song has at least 5 times as many listeners as any other song on their Top Tracks, Last Six Months chart.

As Last.FM's an international -- and basically impartial -- gathering system, I think that's as good a definition as any.