DAILY DIRT: ‘Two-hit wonders?’ of the ’70s led by The Knack

Daily Dirt for Saturday, March 8, 2025

You’ll get to this in today’s third thought, but as a tease, any guesses who has the foulest mouth among male movie stars? … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 1,223 of The Daily Dirt.

1. One-hit wonders have long been an important part of pop music and so has discussion about them.

But what about TWO-hit wonders? (I know, I know. I had never really thought about this angle that much either — until a recent conversation with a friend, which of course, led to this.)

My buddy and I eventually narrowed down our discussion to a particular decade — the 1970s, in part because we thought that might be the most challenging of the three 10-year periods we deal mostly with in this space on a daily basis. Both the 1960s and 1980s seemed to provide quite a few of the two-hit wonders for whatever reason, but the 1970s seemed to be a different kind of pop culture animal. Our reasoning seemed to lean toward the influence of disco and dance music, which drowned out mainstream pop for a number of years. I have no scientific backing on that, of course. It’s basically a guess, but I’m going with it.

So after much back-and-forth, here’s what we came up as the five best two-hit wonders of the 1970s.

1. The Knack: “My Sharona” (1979) and “Good Girls Don’t” (1979). After these two efforts, these guys pretty much disappeared. When they first burst on the scene, one national publication hinted they might just be the “new Beatles”. Not quite.

2. Maxine Nightingale: “Right Back Where We Started From” (1975) and “Lead Me On” (1978). The only female in the top five provided a pair of solid entries.

3. Silver Convention: “Fly Robin Fly” (1975) and “Get Up and Boogie” (1975). We threw a bone to the dance/disco crowd, but these two songs actually were pretty good.

4. Redbone: “Witch Queen Of New Orleans” (1971) and “Come and Get Your Love” (1973). The second was a bona fide monster hit, the first was rather blah.

5. Blue Swede: “Hooked on a Feeling” (1973) and “Never My Love” (1974). Both were remakes. The first was the far better of the two.

Look for follow-ups next week concerning the 1960s and 1980s and weigh the results yourself. My guess is you’ll look back at the 1970s and the consensus will be when talking about two-hit wonders that decade pretty much sucked.

2. Did you know (Part 297)

• That Baskin-Robbins’ flavor of the month is Chocolate Chip Cheesecake. It’s also available as a milkshake.
• That Queso and Steak Crunch Wrap Sliders are now part of the Taco Bell menu.
• That Jimmy John’s is introducing some new sandwiches this month, including Roast Beef and Cheddar, plus Chicken and Bacon. Any sandwich at Jimmy John’s can now be toasted, too.
• That Burger King released its new Steakhouse Bacon Whopper this week. Jalapeno Cheddar Bites are now available, too.
• That the Beer-Battered Fish Sandwich has returned to Hardee’s.
• That McDonald’s has taken its Bagel Breakfast Sandwiches nationwide. Options are bacon, sausage and steak.

3. When it comes to bad words, here’s some medal-worthy background for you:

Gold medal: The first recorded use of the modern F-word occurred in 1503.

Silver medal: The average U.S. child starts using “adult” swear words at age 11.

Bronze medal: In a 2022 story about foul language in films, these were the movie stars who cursed the most: 1. Jonah Hill, 2. Leonardo DiCaprio, 3. Samuel L. Jackson (to which, Jackson said, “Somebody has miscounted.”) 

Steve Thought O’ The Day – Another story I found dealt with foul-mouthed females, singers in particular. Nicki Minaj was found to have sworn 1,632 times in her lyrics, or about once every 30 words. That was from a 2024 study. (No. 2 was Megan Thee Stallion.)

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. The F-word was the first word Ashley Conrad uttered about five seconds out of the womb.