Ah, the '90s. Acid-washed jeans, flannel shirts, "Seinfeld," O.J.'s trial and hysterical fears of Y2K. And for every musical act that went gangbusters - Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs - there were many more who had one hit (wonder why?) and were never heard from again.
Even if you were embarrassed to have MC Hammer or Vanilla Ice in your record collection at the time, thanks to nostalgia - which has a way of turning everything once-awful into "retro cool" - there's a good chance many of these one-hit wonders were regular listens for anyone who graduated high school or college in the final decade of the last century.
So grab your Walkman or Discman for a walk down one-hit memory lane.
Artist: Natalie Imbruglia
Album: "Left of the Middle"
Year released: 1998
Aussie import Natalie Imbruglia was only 23 when she scored on the U.S. charts thanks to "Torn," a poppy song about being severely burned in the game of love. Never mind that Imbruglia was actually covering a song that had been written in 1993 and wasa first recorded by Anne Preven. Imbruglia made it her own and appeared in the song's video sporting her signature pixie cut while wearing a pullover.
She sang her way into our collective hearts in the summer of '98, and even though she has tried her hand at acting and continued recording music, she has never again reached such heights on the charts.
I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed
Lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed
Into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
Artist: OMC
Album: "How Bizarre"
Year released: 1996
This earworm was a constant nuisance in the middle years of the ninth decade of the 20th century, what with its simple guitar riff and that refrain: "How bizarre? How bizarre!"
You can be forgiven for not recollecting that the song was recorded by OMC of New Zealand, which we had also collectively forgotten was shortened from "Otara Millionaires Club." Though the band was celebrated by Kiwi compatriots for the hit, the group wasn't much heard from thereafter.
Destination unknown, as we pull in for some gas
Freshly pasted poster reveals a smile from the past
Elephants and acrobats, lions snakes monkey
Pele speaks "righteous," Sister Zina says "funky"
Artist: White Town
Album: "Women in Technology"
Year released: 1997
Man, talk about weird with a capital W. White Town was a one-man band that dabbled in all kinds of experimental grooves, but none caught fire with audiophiles as did this surreal 1997 quasi-techno song wherein the male narrator sings dolefully about how he can "never be your woman."
The beat is incessantly catchy, the lyrics delightfully bizarre and the video eccentric nearly to a fault. It went No. 1 in the U.K., which says either something about their tastes or America's lack of same (it only peaked at No. 23 in the Land of the Free).
You don't even know you're being unkind
So much for all your highbrow Marxist ways
Just use me up and then you walk away
Boy, you can't play me that way