One-Hit Purgatory: It's 'Orrible Being in Love (When You're Thirty-Eight and a Half)
We all know that there are people who've built a career- or at least, a respectable income- on the back of being known for little more than one song.
This set me wondering. What would be the worst song or one-hit-wonder act- for the original artists themselves- to have to repeatedly play for nostalgia tours and TV appearances for an audience that won't let them move on?
The idea that set this off; Claire and Friends' circa-1986 hit "It's 'Orrible Being in Love (When You're Eight-and-a-Half)".
It occurred to me that thirty years on, "Claire" must be, well, thirty-eight-and-a-half. Given that a lot of 80s acts are now playing the nostalgia circuit, I idly took this to its (il-)logical conclusion and figured it would be a somewhat bizarre if "Claire" in her late thirties was making a living by going up on stage and singing that same song night after night.
Regardless of what one thinks of the song itself, that would have to be fate worse than death.
Similar would be "Little" Jimmy Osmond and "Long Haired Lover from Liverpool", but I saw him being interviewed not so long ago, whereas Claire's "whatever happened to"- and the song itself- lends itself to this even better. I know that in truth she's probably a well-adjusted, settled down person with a normal life who looks back on her fifteen minutes of childhood fame with detached nostalgia (#), but my version with "Claire" driven mad by having to sing an eight-year-old's song at endless 80s festivals is funnier (and more disturbing).
Can anyone think of any similar (and equally made-up) examples of "one hit wonder career purgatory"? Remember that this about what would be horrible for them; not necessarily us!
(#) Yeah, I know there's probably a Wikipedia page, but looking it up would be kind of missing the point here!
This set me wondering. What would be the worst song or one-hit-wonder act- for the original artists themselves- to have to repeatedly play for nostalgia tours and TV appearances for an audience that won't let them move on?
The idea that set this off; Claire and Friends' circa-1986 hit "It's 'Orrible Being in Love (When You're Eight-and-a-Half)".
It occurred to me that thirty years on, "Claire" must be, well, thirty-eight-and-a-half. Given that a lot of 80s acts are now playing the nostalgia circuit, I idly took this to its (il-)logical conclusion and figured it would be a somewhat bizarre if "Claire" in her late thirties was making a living by going up on stage and singing that same song night after night.
Regardless of what one thinks of the song itself, that would have to be fate worse than death.
Similar would be "Little" Jimmy Osmond and "Long Haired Lover from Liverpool", but I saw him being interviewed not so long ago, whereas Claire's "whatever happened to"- and the song itself- lends itself to this even better. I know that in truth she's probably a well-adjusted, settled down person with a normal life who looks back on her fifteen minutes of childhood fame with detached nostalgia (#), but my version with "Claire" driven mad by having to sing an eight-year-old's song at endless 80s festivals is funnier (and more disturbing).
Can anyone think of any similar (and equally made-up) examples of "one hit wonder career purgatory"? Remember that this about what would be horrible for them; not necessarily us!
(#) Yeah, I know there's probably a Wikipedia page, but looking it up would be kind of missing the point here!
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Wasn't she in Riverdance at one point? Anyway as a recently turned 39 year old
That's disappointingly normal. ;-) I was hoping to find out she'd become a fugitive, teaming up with the girl who sang lead vocal on "There's No-One Quite Like Grandma" to go on a crime spree, driving around the country in a 1930s car and robbing banks.
Doubt it, that was several years prior.