The One-Hit-Wonders Debate

While we were digging our car out of the snow, we listened to most of Part 1 of Slate Culture's Exploration of One Hit Wonders which provides the "chart-nerd's perspective" on whether an artist/song combination should get forever widely branded with this tag.

You can listen through if you want, but we immediately noticed a few flaws that were not taken into account.

The podcast primarily focuses on VH1's 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders special from 2002 hosted by William Shatner, which occurred right around the time VH1 gave up on playing "Top 100" specials that aired videos, pivoting to a series of 2-minute documentary-style Behind the Music segments. We determined at some point in the mid-00s that VH1 did not use methodology based on numbers or chart positions for any of their "100 Greatest" specials, but instead they typically opted to determine its then-current placement in the pop culture canon.

The host of the podcast doesn't seem to understand this. VH1 is not Billboard. So in pretty much every instance, "pop culture" was used to determine these placements -- not numbers.

We vividly recall having initial problems with the VH1 series as well. When they aired their "100 Greatest Hits Of The '90s" or whatever it was called, they egregiously excluded "Gangsta's Paradise" and "November Rain" -- two songs which were both crowned MTV's #1 video of the year on the New Years Eve of their respective video years. So yeah, we get it. This was the same era of VH1-revisionism that endlessly tried to convince the world that the dancing baby gif from Ally McBeal was something that literally anyone cared about at any point during the '90s.

Our definition of a true, pure one-hit-wonder is a song/artist combination that is inseperable, where an artist is pretty much only remembered for their signature song -- a phenomenon that was a lot more common in the '50s, '60s and '70 than in the subsequent decades. But VH1 didn't really reach back that far into history because their target demo was Gen X Millennial cusps. So most of the show was '80s and '90s singles.

A pure one-hit-wonder has virtually no substantial chart history outside of one song. So this means that one must examine not only the Hot 100, but the other charts as well -- including album charts and placements outside of the United States.

The Slate podcast and VH1 agree that Faith No More's "Epic" is a one-hit-wonder, but their fanbase loves the albums Angel Dust and Album Of The Year, which both charted really well upon their releases. So this means Faith No More is not a one hit wonder.

Biz Markie may have charted only once with "Just A Friend," but he's also respected among the greats of hiphop's golden era. And if you wanna get technical about it, he has an uncredited singing cameo on Jay-Z's "Girls Girls Girls" from 2001 which reached #17. Biz Markie is not a "Whoomp There It Is."

Gary Numan's "Cars" should only count as a one-hit-wonder if you ignore any other countries outside of United States. The podcast host called "Are Friends Electric" a flop. It was released after "Cars" hit #1 but only reached as high as #105. But the host neglects to mention that it was a #1 hit in the UK for four weeks. Xenophobic much?

Vanilla Ice is probably a good example of a one-hit-wonder that we would grant despite our vivid memories of hearing "Play That Funky Music" and "Satisfaction" on our local Top 40 station. (We have a cassette of KC101 from Summer 1990 where they play both of these songs.) We know he had other charting hits, but no one remembers those songs. Yes, we remember them. And we know the numbers prove that Vanilla was not technically one-hit. But he is. He just is. Because fuck you, that's why.

The title of the podcast episode is literally "One And Done," which means these acts have no history beyond one song. So yeah, Los Del Rio and Right Said Fred are great examples obviously. But Gary Numan never stopped touring. Faith No More had dates scheduled as recently as last year. You can't call legacy/longevity acts "One and Done." Lou Reed is not a one-hit artist. You can't just look at one chart from right after a single's peak in popularity and make an assessment based on this one factor.

It's possible this nuance is explored in the "Part Two" section of the podcast, but we realized our clutch broke again during the snowstorm and now we have to figure out how we're going to find the money to get this paid for. So yea, we're done here.

January 2021: We Did The Blackpill

Losing my goddamn shit over here.

Wednesdays are officially the new hot weekday for sizzling news items. Let's see, we got the insurrection, the new impeachment, the inauguration party, stonks day, Bezos steps down. All happened on Wednesdays. Who knew hump days were all about the wild child?

Throughout it all, January 2021 was probably our official month of Blackpill Ingestion. In celebration of this momentous occasion, we might as well round up all the garbage.

The three largest puzzle pieces that unlocked our epiphany arrived in the reactions to the Bernard meme, the controlled chaos involving meme stonks, and Promising Young Woman.

Bernard Memed Because He Is Cool
Jan 20: We watched the inauguration and the embarrassing DNC celebration party because we correctly figured it would be fascinating. "Return to Obama-land" means a return to celebrity lawmakers, and so the events' TV production team and organizers consider everyone involved a celebrity, including anyone who primaried. Accordingly, they eventually aired the now world-famous 10-second wide shot of Bernard Sanders unintentionally expressing all of the frustration that his past and present supporters felt in that moment, as we anticipate the certain path of upsetting inevitabilities carved and cleared for a flood of status quo irrigation, not unlike the ongoing flow of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Despite catty comments from the fashion police and the classist Karens, Bernard looked stunningly fabulous. We don't throw around the word "King" ever. But for what it's worth, "King" was the first word that came to mind. Stans typically overuse "king" and "queen," so this moment helped us realize that we are "Stans of Bernard." With respect to Jon Moxley and Jeff Tweedy, Bernard is our lone stan figure.

And yes, we get it: We understand why some socialists and progressives felt disappointed by Bernard's decision to support Unky Joe, unjustly labelling him a sellout and a traitor. But we will never understand how easily these same people forgot how the DNC blatantly and publicly stole his (our) delegate lead.

And here's where we get to make Hot Take #1: Fuck Pelosi and The DNC for condemning "people who want to take away our democracy" when they're not only guilty of pulling the exact same shit but - quite predictably - they fucking got away with it. Realizing how close we came, the DNC absolutely wants his past supporters to say "I fell for it" and give up hope.

Like it or not, it's Bernard's job to work with these losers everyday, and he would have made an unwise decision spending the road to election day condemning moderates and risking a vote split just to make his whiniest supporters happy. P.S. These delusional people assumed that a hypothetical Bernard presidency would involve some sort of magic wand that instantly converted the entire country to full socialism. They would have been unhappy no matter what he did or said. He's worked in congress for decades and has somehow avoided the pod people. He also understands long game strategy, and perhaps we should have some faith that the country's only trustworthy politician does in fact know what he's doing.

As the Bernard meme grew exhaustingly overused throughout the following weekend, a handful of remarks - mostly from bot accounts - unsuccessfully attempted to shift the dialogue in the direction of white misogynist cancellation. Others wondered why we weren't using this historic inauguration as an opportunity to meme Kamala The Cop. A week or so later, her Karen-in-training clown of a step-niece not only became a meme but signed a modelling contract, so they got their wish.

Aside from anything Bernard-related, it's definitely worth noting the musical-theater-heavy "Kids Bop" sponsored DNC celebration perfectly capturing their immense condescension and contempt for anyone but themselves and the powerfully rich.

Meme Stonks Are Okay
Smooth segue into the stonks thing: The underlying conflict regards The Powerful VS The Voiceless -- consistent with congress' reaction to the insurrection. They could have impeached Dr. Professor for a hundred other offenses, but none of them really mattered until powerful people felt threatened. The powerful also get to strategically choose which voiceless-adjacent people to provide a temporary platform. But only when they have to. (Like the poet at the inauguration. Or Ken Bone. Two great examples.)

Stonk trading is not supposed to be ethical. But despite its blatant inherent evil, Robinhood users who took the app's branding too literally became surprised when the free user-friendly stonk app cracked down on organized targeting. What did they honestly think would happen? Playing with stonks involves an understanding that powerful people will always win.

That's actually all we really have to say about the stonks thing.

Movie Review: Promising Young Woman
We haven't had this much time to catch up on movies in well over a decade, and the hits just keep on comin'. Accordingly, we've grown obsessed with Letterboxd and the good people at Red Letter Media. But we've also been enjoying episodes of our favorite dirtbag podcasts that occasionally focus on movie critique, perhaps partially as a nod to Zizek's film criticism.

Skipping over some explanation here ... something about how we somewhat expected a years-long movie marathon to expand our worldview, but perhaps not to this extent. In every movie we've seen in the past six weeks, we had no trouble finding at least some hinted theme about power struggle or class struggle.

Promising Young Woman is an interesting case -- an exercise in modern capitalist liberal idpol pro-cop propaganda. Earlier today, it was nominated for four Golden Globes. We would recommend it to anyone for the same reason we would recommend occasionally watching 30-60 minutes of cable news 2 or 3 times a month: it's important to know your enemy; it's good to know the extent of the bullshit.

We appreciate it because it's not an echo chamber of our own belief system and its grossly flawed messaging actually helped us gain clarity about a few aspects of liberalism that we most strongly disagree. So it's an important movie, but not at all in the way its filmmaker intended.

As a movie, it's pretty sloppy; its narrative's got some clunks, a few unchecked plotholes, a few too many "how convenient" moments, and virtually no likeable characters. Viewers are expected to root for the main protagonist lady, although she's never really given a moment or two of endearment. Her motivation for revenge only about 50% makes sense. However, the filmmaker (nom'd for Best Screenplay and Best Director) can use the film's messaging as a crutch to fight back against any anticipated critique. Yes it's flawed with many exposed loose ends, but that should only matter if you're part of the problem.

Here's the spoiler paragraph: So it's structured with a standard three act template. The first and third acts could have both been pretty great -- and in the case of the final act, very moving -- if they had been presented as shorts or as episodic segments. Acts one and three actually feel tonally incongruent. These are separated by an objectively bad second act (spoilers) that ends with a badly executed, awkward, corny, uncomfortable "dating" montage that's (probably) intended to trick people into thinking that the movie is wrapping up. But since happy endings don't exist in real life, the movie continues. Also by the middle of the second act (spoilers), we learn that the protagonist's one-dimensional revenge-motive doesn't involve any actions that actually teach the film's would-be-predators any long-lasting lessons, which renders her efforts entirely meaningless. At the end of the movie, the big finale (spoilers) concludes with the cops taking care of literally everything. A great message indeed.

We're almost positive that PYW was one of the 8 or 9 trailers screened prior to Cats, our most recent movie theater experience (one entire year ago this week), which also included a trailer for Trolls World Tour (a $110 million movie) among others. When it eventually hit streaming services, PYW's $19.99 rental price seemed suspiciously large compared to most of the other mid-to-low budget 2020 Sundance premieres. We suspect it had some big investors. And after today's multiple nomination announcement, we can see why.

If you're interested in seeing a film that handles #metoo responsibly and effectively, PYW is not that movie; instead, go see The Assistant, which also premiered at Sundance 2020 and was probably our favorite film of the year.

The Assistant is now streaming on Hulu.

More 2020 End-Of-Year Stuff | The Dime Store Hegemon Radio Hour's "Best Of 2020" Records

Our end-of-year shenanigans might commence by the end of the weekend or at least by Feb 1st.

Our methodology has grown less and less coherent over time, but these days it's mostly pulled from a bunch of other shows and lists that we compile throughout December:

1. MTVZ's Top 100 of 2020 Video Countdown -- MTV used to air their top 100 videos of the year on New Years Eve and then reaired on New Years Day, and now they don't anymore, so we started doing it for them, hypothetically imagining their inclusions if the tone and branding were similar to how they appeared throughout "The '90s," a.k.a. the only calendar decade when MTV aired one of these specials every year. Most of the pop and rap that we enjoy or that seemed ubiquitous throughout a given year will appear here, as long as the songs had videos.

2. WXCI After Hours' Top 102 of 2020 -- This is our attempt at re-imagining an "alternative rock" radio format that actually sounds like a rock station, focusing on metal, loud rock, and "alternative" in its broadest possible definition. We started the overnight block on Memorial Day weekend 2019 and hopefully it will last throughout 2021.

3. Late Night Noise "Best Of 2020" Parts 1 and 2 -- This is our Monday night show focusing on "stuff that sounds like drugs or satan." It's not really a "noise music" show despite its title; abrasive 25-minute-long Merzbow tracks appear only rarely. Instead, we play "noisy" stuff -- more abrasive and often absurd metal or hardcore, the weirdest and most warped experimental stuff we can find, and anything lofi or outsider or "found." For the sake of variance, about 10% of the show does not fall into these categories.

To locate the stuff that appears in these little projects, we typically check on a multitude of sources.

A few that come to mind right now include the category-sorting options at Rate Your Music, although we suspect they got overtaken by /mu/ nerds throughout the past 5 or 6 years. We also usually browse Post-Trash - probably the only consistantly updated websource that focuses on current rock music. Matt Korvette from Pissed Jeans has a monthly updated blog that we love. ILM's annual Tracks and Albums polls have been useful in the past for finding non-charting pop and rap, and we still consider them a resource worth exploring, although their recommendations since 2017 have grown decreasingly aligned with our preferences. Same goes for The Singles Jukebox, but it's worth putting time into the research when we finally find something that rules.

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For the past half-decade, we were blessed to recieve sneak peeks of The Dime Store Hegemon Radio Hours's "best of" lists. The show airs Wednesday nights on KONR in Anchorage, Alaska, and we'd be lying if we didn't admit that it's among the most consistantly helpful resources for radio, MTVZ, and our end-of-year lists.

We're not sure why we only thought of this now, but we asked permission to post the entire list here. So let's "let her rip" as they say.

An abridged version of the list was aired on the show's January 13th edition:

Playist: https://spinitron.com/KONR/pl/12412013/Dime-Store-Hedgemon-Radio-Hour

Here's a copy+paste:

2020 Records (this is a lot)

This is a lot of records. Yikes. Make sure and check out the highlighted ones if you can, but also all of them.

David Nance - Staunch Honey – I can’t believe how good this record is.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I Made A Place – I love this record. It’s so positive and cozy and insular while still being weird or at least strange.
https://bonnieprincebilly.bandcamp.com/album/i-made-a-place

Thiago Nassife – Mente – This music is weird and I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like French African synth post-punk but also not. I love it. It’s extremely vibe music but then also it isn’t. It is possible that, because I have never listened to a Talking Heads album, this music is just normal to everyone who has. Some of it sounds like T. Rex too.


The Spits – VI – the Spits do it again.

Nothing – The Great Dismal – I sent this to you already. It’s also a good shoegaze record but I still think the Wednesday one is better.

Shrinkwrap Killers – Feral Rats Have Become Our Only Friends – poppy- punk rock that is definitely Spits influenced but not dumb like they are (in a good way).


Panopticon - Live Migration – This is a live black metal album that sounds better than most regular black metal albums. What an incredible group.


Limousine Beach - Stealin' Wine + 2 Single – Just some good rockin’ baby. Dudes from Carousel. So glammy. Sorta sounds like the Sweet or something?


Rebel Wizard - Magickal Mystical Indifference – this might be lame ass poser shit but I love the song (title) “The Mind Is Not Your Friend.” Kinda stonery music with some industrial elements that has good samples throughout.


Mike Polizze - Long Lost Solace Find – this is the dude from Purling Hiss (right?) and Kurt Vile plays guitar. It’s that type of music (singer-songwriter) but in a good way.


Fyzical - Demo 2020 – dumb music that rules -


Boris – NØ – this is one of my favorite records of theirs – I either like when they make weird pop music or punk.


Home Blitz - All Through The Year – this album has the coolest song of the year on it.
[Note: Pretty sure this is referring to "Final Decay."]


Geld - Beyond the Floor – this is insane music and I love it. They put a few slower jams on this record. It’s psychedelic dbeat which is like, a dream come true for me. So nasty sounding


Hum – Inlet – duh!

namatay sa ingay - Ang Talim ng Galit – I like this, especially the song TNT. For a punk band to make a 4 song record that is this varied, I think that’s cool


P22 - Human Snake – I think this came out on Dean Spunt’s label? It’s sure weird and it’s pretty cool.


Vintlechkeit - Svartskogen Svartwinter etc. – This is very cool black metal and ambient stuff. Very wintery


The Cowboy - WiFi on the Prairie – weird punk that is slightly unhinged but also quite melodic and interesting


Cirith Ungol - Forever Black – I feel like I don’t know enough about how to talk about metal or the different types of metal. This to me just seems like “good metal” in a varied way and it’s ok that the band is LOTR themed because it’s good.


Tidiane Thiam – Siftorde – this record sounds like it was recorded around a campfire but also features the most insane guitar playing. This is a record that doesn’t really lend itself to specific songs – it’s just a full on vibe.


KeiyaA - Forever, Ya Girl – I really do like off-kilter R&B – I guess this reminds me of that Melanie Charles record from a few years ago (what happened to her?) but way more assertive


Hallelujah! - Wanna Dance – varied punk, kinda funky maybe? Very weird, a lot of synth. Has a song called “your duck” and also “burka for everyone” which are both good song names


Subliminal Excess – 2020 – this record is perfect hardcore punk. It’s insane. It’s menacing, angry, the guitars sound insane, so many riffs, great vocals.


Yves Tumor - Heaven to a Tortured Mind – everybody loves this dude now.

FACS - Void Moments – do you like music like this? I don’t think I know how to describe it other than maybe art punk. Like, it’s arty music that is aggressive and slightly threatening and weird. I like it. I watched them play an online streamed concert this year and they were great, just a great rock group


Lohesh - The Ascension – this is my old roommate Zach’s band in DC. It’s post-punk but not like you are thinking. It’s got some jams on there. The vocals are very strong imo. She can really belt it out. I guess it is goth-y(?). Moss Creep (last track) is really good.


Royce da 5'9 - The Allegory – good record

Lavender Flu - Barbarian Dust – I truly cannot believe this album came out this year – February feels like years ago. They cover Venom and also a song by a First Nations dude from rural Canada and it all just sounds like cool van/biker rock music.


Chiller – Chiller – this is their new record, which has the same name as their old one. PGH dudes. Burly (but not tough) hardcore. Short songs, crazy guitar playing.


Wednesday - I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone – I have a hard time imagining that someone put out a better shoegaze album this year.


Six Organs of Admittance - Companion Rises – I love this band and I think this is some of their/his most concise work in the vein of the type of music I like the most – the sort of spaced out desert rock raga type stuff.


Soakie - s/t- Extremely mad women -


The Men – Mercy – I actually don’t know if I have listened to this whole record but it has one of my top 5 songs of the year on it (Children All Over the World) that was immediately added to my “twice in a row” playlist


MHYSA – Nevaeh – Oh, you thought the KeiyaA record was weird? Well, this one goes off the rails. I love it.


Kveltertak – Splid – it blows my mind they don’t have a bandcamp. This is on spotify or youtube or whatever. This is good metal from the north, like trad metal not some death metal or anything. It rocks like crazy. Riffs riffs riffs riffs. Honestly this is what I wish the Refused sounded like. It’s kind of like buckcherry was good maybe and also from Sweden or something.

Chubby and the Gang - Speed Kills – All Along the Uxbridge Road is an insane song. I love this album. It’s like somewhere between Oi/Hardcore/the Dictators. It’s top 10 for me this year, maybe top 5.


Wax Chattels – Clot – this is what I think indie rock should actually sound like. Kinda punk weird arty music. Of course they are from New Zealand or something.


Goblin USA - Demo 2020 – this tape sounds insane. It actually sounds like a monster singing for a sludgy hardcore band. It’s so cool. Also calling your band Goblin USA rules. The song “Loose Flesh” is so awesome.


Kate NV - Room for the Moon – I always think this is like, beeps and boops but it’s way more than that.


Hiroshi Yoshimura – Green – the most peaceful music I have ever heard. I love this record.

Go Hirano - Corridor of Daylights

Oh also, I forgot to put this one in there. It should be in the top ones.


So many more!!!
Some of these deserve to be up there, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, 9th Wonder & Kamasi Washington EPs
Drakeo the Ruler & JoogSzn - Thank You For Using GTL
All Hits - Men and Their Work
Powerplant - A Spine/Evidence EP
Woods - Strange to Explain and the collection one
Melenas - Dias Raros
Cinder Well - No Summer
Rat Cage - Screams From the Cage
WOW - Come La Notte
Dungen - Dungen Live
Man Eaters - Gentle Ballads for the Simple Soul
Freon - PYK
Three Knee Deep - s/t
Terrace Martin - Soul Juice EP
Nudie Mag - Our Milk
Jocko - Wise Man/Majority Rule
U.S. Girls - Heavy Light
En Attendant Ana - Julliet
Gunn-Truscinski Duo - Soundkeeper
Psychology Machine - Never Trust Anyone With More Money Than You
GAG – Still Laughing
ISS – Too Punk For Heavy Metal
Chill Parents - At the Barricades
Necrot - Mortal
Duma - s/t

Also Very Good!
These records are all super great. It is crazy how many incredible records, of all different types, came out this year.

Naked Roommate - Do the Duvet
CCR Headcleaner - Street Riffs
The Green Child - Shimmering Basset
H.C. McEntire - Eno Axis
Cass McCombs - Sweet Lucy/Wild Mountain Thyme EP
Wild Flowers of America - Lost in the Salvation
Uniform - Shame
R. Boyd & Dusk - High Country Skyway
Lambchop - Trip
Body Double - Milk Fed
Bent Arcana - s/t
Alien Nosejob - Once Again the Present Becomes the Past
Alien Nosejob - Suddenly Everything is Twice As Loud
Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - May Our Chambers be Full
Ilsa - Preyer
Kurt Vile - Speed, Sound, Lonely KV EP
Death Valley Girls - Under the Spell of Joy
Eartheater - Phoenix: Flames Are Dw Upon My Skin
Shlomo - Heaven Inc. EP
Kelly Lee Owens - Inner Song
Body Count - Carnivore
GBV - Mirrored Aztec
Roger Eno & Brian Eno - Mixing Colours
Bowel Rupture/Punisher Split 
Joe Pernice - Richard
The Whip - s/t
Initiate - Lavender
Ecostrike - A Truth We Still Believe
Steve Hartlett - both records but I like solitude for dummies more because I have listened to it a lot. 
Whettman Chelmets - 1000 Faces
Crack Cloud - Pain Olympics
Bing & Ruth - Species
Julianna Barwick - Healing Is a Miracle
Margo Price - That's How Rumors Get Started
Kawaguchi Masami's New Rock Syndicate & Kryssi Battalene - s/t
Oranssi Puzuzu - Mestarin Kynsi
Pottery - Welcome To Bobby's Motel
No Age - Goons Be Gone
Jim Whitte & Marisa Anderson - The Quickening
Mourning a Blkstar - The Cycle
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - The Mosaic of Transformation
Mark McGuire - Nothing In This World
KA - Descendants of Cain
Sven Wounder - Eastern Flowers
Blake Mills - Mutable Set
Forgotten Tomb - Nihilistic Estrangement
Ritual Clearing - s/t
Primo - Sogni
So Cow - But What Has That Done to the Scores?
Fu Manchu - Fu30, Pt. 1 Single
Local H - Lifers
Irreal - 2020
Kohti Tuhoa - Elä Totuudesta
Qlowski - Ikea Youth/Grinding Halt
Masterpiece Machine - single 
Glâsbird - Norskfjorōr
RZA - Guided Explorations
Stephen Malkmus - Traditional Techniques
SMUT - First Kiss
Wasted Shirt - Fungus II
Shopping - All or Nothing
Elkhorn - The Storm Sessions
Walter Martin - The World At Night
Wire - Mind Hive
Chromatics - Closer to Grey
Annihilator - Ballistic Sadistic
Kirk Windstein - Dream in Motion
Amos Pitsch - Acid Rain
Zulu - My People . . . Hold On
Brett Naucke & Ryley Walker - I Am Aware We Do Not Save One Another Very Often
Venom Prison - Primeval
Gord Downie - Away Is Mine
Haircut - Cake
Rolex - s/t EP
North Americans - Roped In
Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never
The Bats – Foothills
The Nels Cline Singers – Share the Wealth
Heathered Pearls – Cast
Com Truise – In Decay, Too
Lithics – Tower of Age
Autechre (?)

John Wilson's Vimeo Channel

For those who need more How To With John Wilson, why not try https://vimeo.com/johnsmovies??

We haven't watched all of these yet, but How To Live With Regret is our favorite so far:

How To Live With Regret from JOHNS MOVIES on Vimeo.