Bound for the Floor: 5 Songs from 90s One-Hit Wonders

This week's songs are from Harvey Danger, Nada Surf, James, The Verve, and Fastball

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RIP Ozzy Osbourne

“The most unbelievable thing about my behavior is that I was convinced it was entirely f**king normal.”

Forget the biting off the head of the bat. The dove, too. Skip past the reality TV show caricature, the substance abuse, snorting ants. The whole “Prince of Darkness” characterization. Pissing on the Alamo. You can forget “Crazy Train” and “Bark at the Moon,” too. Black Sabbath is enough to cement Ozzy Osbourne as a legend. It sounds as fresh and thrilling and—most of all—heavy as I’m sure it did back when it was first released. Everyone that’s followed in their wake that’s tried to be heavier, or scarier, or more shocking ends up looking silly by comparison. But the respect Ozzy gets from musicians goes beyond crazy stories and musical influence. He gave countless opportunities to younger, up-and-coming bands, bringing them to his audience on tours and through Ozzfest.

Osbourne exited on his own terms, with a final performance at his home stadium, with the original members of Black Sabbath (among many other guests) just 17 days prior. “War Pigs” is probably Sabbath’s masterpiece, and one of Osbourne’s best vocal performances. I am partial to the sludge of Vol. 4, which the band recorded, alongside what’s reported to be mountains of cocaine, at a Bel Air mansion. A sense of how out of control they were in three points:

• They tried to name the album Snowblind, but it was rejected by their label

• Ozzy succeeded in thanking ‘the great COKE-cola

• After finding a passed out, naked Bill Ward, they spray-painted him gold from head to toe, a prank which nearly killed him.

The chaos translated to the record, which is best exemplified by the monstrous, gripping and ripping “Supernaut.” This one goes to 12.

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I turned 10 in 1994 and with my birthday money, I bought a boom box with a CD player, cassette player, and I could record songs from the radio on it. As a musical age, I’m a 90s kid. Most of my frames of reference are of and from that era. Despite that, the 90s seems to be the decade du jour on the Nostalgia Merry-Go-Round is not a welcome development. What it was about, what it felt like, what it meant, and what was actually being listened to is coming back in a weird distorted version that I don’t particularly recognize. The typical pattern when nostalgia hits on a decade seems to be that after the generational icons have their resurgence, the second wave is all the “One Hit Wonders,” as if people go back to their NOW! That’s What I Call Music playlists and play “remember this?!”

But not every “One Hit Wonder” deserves the label. Sometimes there are two hits! Director Howard Hawks once said the definition of a good movie is “three good scenes and no bad ones.” You might not be able to say that about a band’s career—even the best artists make at least one bad album. But the rule might apply to an album. If I liked a song enough, I would typically by the album. Sometimes that led to some real stinkers, other times a few extra songs would stick, and lead to some hidden gems. Rarely would it be a classic, but those are the ones that typically stick around the longest.

Here are 5 songs from 90s bands with something to offer beyond the hit they’re known for that have stuck around my rotation through the years.

“The day before you have a hit, it doesn’t sound so bad. The day you have a hit, you’re like, ‘Well, I guess it’ll just be that way.’ And the day after you have a hit, you’re like, ‘God, I don’t want this to be my whole life.’” - Sean Nelson

Harvey Danger - “Old Hat”

Maybe it’s the sardonic, “intellectual” lyrics that verge on incomprehensible that turned so many people off of Harvey Danger beyond “Flagpole Sitta.” After all, singer Sean Nelson did wear some pretty thick-rimmed glasses. And they struck mainstream success in 1998, on the cusp of nu-metal. Who wants to listen to $5 words when they have 2 Dolla Bill Yall and can grunt along to “Give me something to break!” But despite only really making a dent with “Flagpole Sitta,” Harvey Danger had 17 year lifespan.

Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? deserves more. I happen to love this album. It’s a bit snotty and has a child’s sense of destructive fun. The metallic, fuzzed out bass throws punches all over its run-time, and it makes for a great combination with some light-touch, but assertive drumming. “Old Hat” is as good as it gets. It’s brash, often loud, and punchy. The best way to describe the lyrics is that it’s kind of like Lenny from Of Mice and Men, but written as an inner-monologue like Faulkner. You have to dissect every line to feel the destructive, messy, and crushing new love the singer seems to have trouble describing.

What do you do when it's so brand new that it kills you?

“From the outside it probably seems like Nada Surf’s had various ups and downs. But our second career was really the one we wanted in the first place.” - Matthew Caws

Nada Surf - “What is Your Secret”

Out of all of these selections, Nada Surf’s “Popular” might be the most gimmicky of hits. It clearly wasn’t written as a crass attempt at commercialism—a spoken-word satirical anthem laying out the rules for "the teenage guide to popularity” isn’t anyone’s idea of a meal ticket. Take a mish-mash of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “The Sweater Song” (both Weezer and Nada Surf’s High/Low were produced by Rik Ocasek of The Cars), and add in some tongue-in-cheek, snide lyrics kind of like Cake’s “Rock & Roll Lifestyle,” and you have the recipe for a novelty song that captures all of the hallmarks of Alternative Rock, which was just on the back end of its peak in 1996. It was a safe bet to assume Nada Surf would be relegated to a footnote. But they stuck around long enough to catch another wave - the Indie Rock boom of the Early Aughts.

Members of Nada Surf had gone back to day jobs ahead of the release of Let Go in 2002. They then followed that with The Weight is a Gift in 2005, produced in part by Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie. Two solid albums of guitar-driven rock that doesn’t necessarily “rock,” but delivers hooks and harmonies, and since then they’ve strung together a solid career. It might be the former drummer in me, and I feel a bit like a broken record, but I have to reiterate how a good bass sound can really boost a song (or record). Harvey Danger gets it. Nada Surf does too. In addition to “What is Your Secret,” “Do it Again” has all of the same key ingredients, plus a nice third act.

“We ended up veering towards the obscure—A very James thing to do.” - Tim Booth

James - “Sometimes”

There’s a whole neo-hippy/flower power element to the 90s alternative sound that gets overlooked. It feeds into the style—bulky socks and cargo boots, flowery and flowing dresses, silly hats, round-rim glasses. The album cover for James’ Laid has six guys wearing all of that. Hearing their driving-acoustic sound, it’s hard to understand how there are so many people in this band. But the driving, theatricality that powers their iconic anthem, also serves “Sometimes.” It’s melodramatic and passionate and verges on the silly, but sometimes a good hook is a good hook (see also: “Say Something”). But James is really only a one-hit-wonder in the US; in the UK they strung together multiple Top 10 hits, and outside of a few silent years, they remain a going concern. As kind of a fun thought experiment to reconsider James: imagine if U2 never got out from the pub circuit, never had the budget to go full theatrical, The Edge couldn’t afford the pedals, and people still called them David and Paul. In that scenario, I think you have James…(and in a perfect post-script, I just noticed Laid was produced by Brian Eno).

"They play it before England plays. So [now] I can sit back and watch England ... and finally just enjoy the moment." - Richard Ashcroft

The Verve - “Lucky Man”

Richard Ashcroft probably aspired to one day be in league with the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, which he ultimately was, but for unfortunate reasons. “Bittersweet Symphony” is an iconic, and frankly timeless, song that I don’t know that anyone ever got sick of. Enter notorious manager/greedy parasite Allen Klein, who catches wind of the song’s using a sample from a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time” which the band got permission to use. So he sues and takes all publishing and royalties from Ashcroft. When the song received a Best Song Grammy nomination, it had Jagger/Richards credits. In 2019, Mick and Keith—after Klein’s death—reverted all rights back to Ashcroft. Prior to that, the band had only ever received $175,000 for the song when it was used in an ad campaign against their wishes; the band donated the money to charity. The financial rip-off aside, to contextualize “Bittersweet Symphony”—it would be like if Bob Dylan only landed with “Like a Rolling Stone,” and then went back to making folk records to middling success; the song is that iconic, and rightly so.

But The Verve weren’t really one-hit-wonders. Urban Hymns was the Verve’s third album, so they weren’t exactly shot from obscurity on the first go-round. The album includes other excellent songs (and hits in the UK) such as “The Drugs Don’t Work,” and “Lucky Man,” which has the same symphonic sweep, hard-won optimism, and self-assured cool as “Bittersweet Symphony.” Between break-ups and reunions of The Verve, Ashcroft has maintained a steady solo career, mainly in the UK. “Lucky Man,” like “Bittersweet Symphony” is a big anthem and has all the sing-along qualities you could ask for. I’m genuinely confused as to why The Verve didn’t get a stronger foothold in the US. Maybe Oasis was all the Britpop we could at one time.

“You need to ask your fans what they want and communicate with them. And when you realize who you are and what people’s perception is of you, then you have to accept that and work within those parameters…You have to treat it like a job because that’s what it is. It’s a career. We’re a band that’s had the same guys for three decades, and we’ve been able to find ourselves on the same page.” - Tony Scalzo

Fastball - “Fire Escape”

I never liked “The Way,” Fastball’s big cross-over hit from 1998. Something about the sound and melody of the verse rubs me the wrong way to this day. But in my memory people loved this song. I feel the same way about their other hit “Out of My Head”—kind of annoying, but everywhere—but I had entirely forgotten about “Out of My Head,” which is why they’re on this list. “The Way” was one of those songs that would play on nearly every type of radio station and Vh1 had it on Pop-Up Video. They were one of those bands that aimed for the mid-20s crowd, but landed with the late-30s crowd. Maybe because they wore suits all the time. But isn’t that one guy in sunglasses all the time? So they’re supposed to be cool…maybe? (as of 2025, he’s still in the sunglasses). For my money, I’d rather have “Fire Escape.” Perfect, driving power pop. And here I am again, pointing out the bass playing: melodic, punchy, and not afraid to explore around the pocket. The chorus is just as catchy as anything “The Way” has to offer, including a simpler lyrical structure. It’s melodic, has tight harmonies, and a memorable guitar line, but no defining riff. It wouldn’t be out of place in Tom Petty’s catalogue, particularly the closing of the refrain:

And I may not be the man you want me to
I can be myself, how 'bout you?

Thanks for reading. Enjoy listening.

Full playlists of songs featured in 5 Songs:

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