The band actually started as a solo project in June 1983 for singer / songwriter / guitarist Steve Plunkett, who had worked on the second album for another (real) one-hit wonder of the 80s, Silver Condor (who reached No. One of those acts was a Glam Metal band originating from Pasadena, California – the home of fellow Hard Rockers Van Halen – the five-man band, Autograph. Out of the 100-plus (real) one-hit wonders of the 80s that reached the Top 40, just three of them peaked at No. More than 100 (real) one-hit wonders of the 80s reached the Top 40 of the BILLBOARD Hot 100 between 19, and in this month-long tribute to Casey Kasem, I’ll feature five of them. Once a week, I’ll highlight a (real) one-hit wonder for you. 1.Īs Casey used to say on AT40, “And on we go!”īetween late 1979 and the end of 1989, there were nearly 500 (real) one-hit wonders of the 80s that reached the BILLBOARD Hot 100 just one time, a list that includes Soft Cell, Gary Numan, Timbuk 3, The Church, Bronski Beat, Nik Kershaw, The Buggles, The Waitresses, Ultravox and two different bands named The Silencers. On June 30, I’ll feature a “song of the day” that went all the way to No.
On June 1, 2017, I featured a song that peaked at No. In honor of my radio hero, Casey Kasem, for the entire month of June, I will be highlighting a song each day (some days will have two songs!) that peaked in the Top 40 of the BILLBOARD Hot 100 (including five (real) one-hit wonders of the 80s), and with every blog post, just like on AMERICAN TOP 40, the hits will get bigger with each post. And still is (thanks to the re-airing of broadcasts of AT40 on iHeart Radio).
Not only could I hear the 40 biggest songs in the country every week, but also Casey’s cool trivia and facts about the songs and the artists, a trait I treasure to this day. From my first blog post (and prolly some more inbetween then and now), I explained how, in 1979, I was a geeky, lanky and somewhat lost 12-year-old living in Central Maine, had a few friends and not a lot of interest in much of anything, but at some point early that year, I discovered AMERICAN TOP 40, and was glued to it every weekend. On June 15, 2014, Casey Kasem, host of the longtime countdown program, AMERICAN TOP 40, passed away at the age of 82.