Daily Dirt: Those one-derful one-hit wonders of the ’80s

Daily Dirt for Monday, March 3, 2025

The lead singer of Dexys Midnight Runners, Kevin Rowland, now is 71 and still performing. He has survived a serious motorcycle crash, equally serious drug addiction and the original Dexys band dissolving … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 1,218 of The Daily Dirt.

1. The songs are called “one-hit wonders,” and they’ve always fascinated me. How can an individual, or group, produce such a great song and then never be heard from again? That has always baffled me.

For whatever reason, the decade of the 1980s seemed to produce more of the biggest one-hit wonders than any other 10-year period in rock history. From what I have read on this subject, I’m not alone in this unofficial theory concerning the ’80s.

Here’s one explanation: “Synth-pop exploded onto the charts across the decade and led to some incredible one-hit wonders,” according to the editors at SiriusXM.

Synth-pop is a music genre that uses synthesizers as the main instrument. It’s also known as techno-pop or electro-pop. An example of this was Berlin’s 1986 ballad “Take My Breath Away,” with its melodically rich sound of synth-pop. Originally written for the film “Top Gun,” it impressed film critics, winning an Academy Award and a Golden Globe award for best original song in 1986 while flying to the top spot of the charts.

Similarly, Soft Cell’s dark synth cover of Gloria Jones’s 1965 soul song “Tainted Love” established a Guinness World Record at the time for the longest consecutive stay on the U.S. charts, where it spent a whopping 43 weeks.

Here’s my top 20 one-hit wonders of that wondrous decade:

• 1. “Come On Eileen,” by Dexys Midnight Runners (this was a tough decision — I literally flipped a coin over this song, “Take On Me” and “Waiting For A Star To Fall”.)
• 2. “Take On Me,” by a-Ha
• 3. “Waiting For a Star To Fall,” Boy Meets Girl
• 4. “Calling On You,” by Stryper
• 5. “One Night In Bangkok,” by Murray Head (“I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine”)
• 6. “Mickey,” by Toni Basil
• 7. “99 Luftballoons,” by Nena
• 8. “Walking On Sunshine,” by Katrina and the Waves
• 9. “La Bamba,” by Los Lobos
• 10. “Angel Eyes,” by the Jeff Healey Band
• 11. “Take My Breath Away,” by Berlin
• 12. “Keep Your Hands To Yourself,” Georgia Satellites
• 13. “Tainted Love,” by Soft Cell
• 14. “The Lady In Red,” by Chris DeBurgh
• 15. “867-5309/Jenny,” by Tommy Tutone
• 16. “Key Largo,” by Bertie Higgins
• 17. “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes off,” by Jermaine Stewart
• 18. “It’s Raining Men,” by the Weather Girls
• 19. “Baby I Love Your Way,” by Will To Power
• 20. “Edge Of A Broken Heart,” by Vixen (there’s some serious hairspray used in this video)

2. Did you know (Part 292) …

• Abraham Lincoln and Ben Franklin were both accomplished athletes. Abe was an outstanding amateur wrestler and was posthumously honored with the National Wrestling Hall of Fame’s Outstanding American award in 1992. Ben was posthumously inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1968.
• Lincoln had the largest shoe size of any president — 14.
• LeBron James and Steph Curry were born at the same hospital in Akron, Ohio, about 39 months apart.
• The day of O.J. Simpson’s famous televised vehicle chase was also Domino Pizza’s all-time No. 1 day for sales. More than 95 million people watched that event in June 1994. Domino’s sold more than 2 million pizzas that day, comparable to a Super Bowl Sunday.
• There has never been a U.S. presidential divorce.

3. Actor Nicholas Cage has always been regarded as a bit offbeat. I think this illustrates why.

Cage ate two live cockroaches for the 1988 movie “Vampire’s Kiss.” He later called this the most unbearable moment of his career.

“I’ll never do that again,” he told Variety. “I’m sorry I did it at all.”

The film’s script originally called for Cage to swallow a raw egg, but Cage insisted it be a cockroach instead. As he said on the film’s DVD commentary track: “I saw it as a business decision because when people see the cockroach go in my mouth … they really react.”

Well, he had a point … I think.

Steve Thought O’ The Day
I think we all enjoy the “Yo Mama” jokes. Here’s one I heard over the weekend that still has me laughing: “Yo mama is so ugly, that when she looks in a mirror, the sign ‘viewer discretion advised’ appears.”

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. How much money would you pay to see Steve put a live cockroach in his mouth?