3 Next-Level Rock Albums From the 1980s That Were Overshadowed by One-Hit Wonders

There’s nothing wrong with being a one-hit wonder. Hey, one hit is better than zero! Although, you have to wonder how artists feel when people continuously reference the same song over and over again from their catalog. We took a peek at some of those catalogs today. Here are three albums from the 80s that were massively overshadowed by one big hit. Perhaps we didn’t give them a fair chance back in the day.

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‘Hunting High And Low’ by A-ha

When you think of a-ha, you almost automatically think of “Take On Me”. That’s because, unfortunately, “Take On Me” is kind of the group’s main hit, other than maybe “The Sun Always Shines On T.V.” But even then, that’s comparing a billion streams to a hundred million on Spotify. If you listen to Hunting High And Low in full, you’ll get plenty of other songs with that familiar synth-pop flavor, but none stick out quite as much as “Take On Me”. The album did get A-ha nominated for a Grammy in 1986, though (which had never happened to a Norwegian artist before), so I guess that’s something.

‘Walking On Sunshine’ by Katrina & The Waves

Released in 1985, “Walking On Sunshine”, the song, has been used in too many TV shows and movies to count. A few of these include Young Sheldon, The Big Bang Theory, Ella Enchanted, and Ramona & Beezus. As far as Walking On Sunshine, the album, goes, well, I doubt you could name a single track, not counting “Walking On Sunshine”. Ironically, as Katrina herself told The Guardian, the band didn’t even like the song that much. “It wasn’t really us,” she explained to the outlet in 2022.

‘The Final Countdown’ by Europe

The Final Countdown, the album, may not be widely referenced, but its title track is probably one of the most iconic songs of the 80s, simply because of that punchy synth riff at the beginning. Joey Tempest, the lead singer of Europe, admitted that he’d actually had the idea for that song since high school, but couldn’t have predicted how much of a hit it would be. 

On being a “one-hit wonder”, Tempest shared with the BBC that it doesn’t really bother the group. “We’ve gone through such a long journey together. Original bandmembers since the ’80s, and we’ve done eleven albums. And we feel like we’re doing better now on the circuit, on the rock circuit, and we’re very accepted. So we don’t really think about that. But that song did have a crossover thing; it came into the pop world, whereas [we were] a rock band. So, it’s kind of… Yeah… We’re okay with it.”

Photo by: Gina Wetzler/Redferns