Number One hits that have fallen into obscurity

I know that just because I'm not sure if I've ever heard a song, that doesn't mean it's not popular AND remembered by millions.

But

This guy was supposed to be the second coming of Prince when he came out. I believe this was his only hit. Although, to be fair to the thread, this one only reached 4 on the hot 100.

Love that Surface song. Can't say the last time I've heard it though, so fair enough.

Terence Trent D'Arby had a hit with "Wishing Well" too. But yeah, he became something of an inside joke I had with this girl in college when we caught him on a rerun of SNL and she, someone who knew music, had no idea who the hell he was. The one piece of vinyl I own is when I came back to my dorm room a few days later and found his LP leaning against my door.

This video freaked me out when I was a kid and I was pretty sure the lead singer of this band was Bono.

I've stumped for it before, but I really recommend Tom Breihan's series where he is covering every Billboard hot 100 #1 in order. That includes some mostly forgotten number ones... this is one of the most recent ones that completely disappeared from the collective memory after coming out: https://www.stereogum.com/2190877/the-number-ones-divines-lately/columns/the-number-ones/

The column really takes me back to the feel of peak Good Dr. Bill posts on SOMB / blog posts... and in fact Andrew just interviewed Breihan about his book that comes out soon: https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/tom-breihan-number-ones-stereogum-interview-1235160058/

Duff... wrote:

This video freaked me out when I was a kid and I was pretty sure the lead singer of this band was Bono.

A couple years ago I was grocery shopping at a major Chicago area supermarket chain and I heard this song played over the overhead store speakers, via satellite radio or whatever passive, automatic music dispensary system that these kind of stores have special subscriptions to.

The song ended and then it started all over again, so it was played twice in a row. I was in the bread aisle and I looked around to see if anyone else was noticing but of course they didn't. I figured that the only rule that governed the playlist of these "stations" was that this could never, ever happen. But it did!

BGwaves wrote:

This guy was supposed to be the second coming of Prince when he came out. I believe this was his only hit. Although, to be fair to the thread, this one only reached 4 on the hot 100.

Driving me nuts trying to identify the singer that his voice reminds me of but 3 days and counting, it's not coming to me.

Indeed, he did get a #1 with the even raspier "Wishing Well."

techno raj wrote:I've stumped for it before, but I really recommend Tom Breihan's series where he is covering every Billboard hot 100 #1 in order. That includes some mostly forgotten number ones... this is one of the most recent ones that completely disappeared from the collective memory after coming out: https://www.stereogum.com/2190877/the-number-ones-divines-lately/columns/the-number-ones/

The column really takes me back to the feel of peak Good Dr. Bill posts on SOMB / blog posts... and in fact Andrew just interviewed Breihan about his book that comes out soon: https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/tom-breihan-number-ones-stereogum-interview-1235160058/

Yeah, I have no memory of that song whatsoever. Feels like it just barely got in under the wire before the TRL-era slammed the door on that kind of R&B being able to top the charts. I'm sure countless examples to the contrary will now be suggested.

I'm sure I thought about The Good Dr. Bill when making this thread and how much of a hit it would have been on peak-era jdff. The prospect of making a playlist (or hopefully just finding one that's already-created) of all the Billboard Hot 100 #1s and getting through it over the course of a year or so has crossed my mind but the easiest way to do that would be to renew my Spotify subscription and I'm not ready to go through with that at this time. The late 50s definitely has plenty of examples that would work for this thread but it feels like stuff like this shouldn't count.



This is so beautiful and smooth and nicely-produced, just the total opposite of the annoying Lou Monte bullshit I was anticipating.

Been tempted to get the Billboard book after reading the GDB interview but wishing that a UK version existed - basically Tom Ewing writes a book.