Favorite 80's One-Hit Wonders #1 - "So Alive"

Tweet

As I mentioned yesterday, I had to flip a coin to determine the order of the top three songs of my Favorite 80's One-Hit Wonders series, and this was the victor, so for #1, lets head back to England, home of Love and Rockets. Vocalist/guitarist/saxophonist Daniel Ash, vocalist/bassist David J, and J's brother Kevin Haskins (drums/synthesizers,) were 3/4 of legendary goth pioneers Bauhaus. After reforming in 1985 as Love and Rockets, the trio moved away from their goth roots, establishing a more listener-friendly, alternative rock sound. Thanks to MTV, the group found success with hits on the alternative/modern rock charts, but mainstream success eluded them. They never hit the Top 40 of Billboard's Hot 100 chart. That changed with their sexy 1989 single, "So Alive," which peaked at #3 on the Hot 100. The first time I heard "So Alive," a friend and I were listening to it, with two girls we'd met, on Armed Forces Radio, at the 1989 Reading Festival in Reading, England. We were both a little surprised to learn that "So Alive" was in the Top 5 in the States (the girls didn't really care, but did like the song. ) It's something no Bauhaus-related act had ever done (nor achieved since. ) Which is pretty cool. (I'm using the rules from Wayne Jancik's book The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders: An act can only have appeared on the Top 40 of the Hot 100 once. Any sub-charts don't count, and neither do countries other than the States.)