3 One-Hit Wonders From 90s-Era Seattle That Aren’t Grunge

The Pacific Northwest city of Seattle, Washington, is known for grunge music. But the region boasts a much more eclectic and rich tapestry of music outside of the sludgy, brooding rock. There’s Jimi Hendrix, Quincy Jones, Heart, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse, and much, much more. But the city, along with those big-name artists, also boasts a number of well-known one-hit wonders. That’s what we wanted to highlight below. Indeed, these are three 90s one-hit wonders from Seattle that are not from the grunge music catalog.

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“Silent Lucidity” by Queensrÿche from ‘Empire’ (1991)

While grunge bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains were dominating the landscape both in Seattle and on the Billboard rock charts, there was another group in the early 1990s from the region that was making waves. Indeed, the progressive metal band Queensrÿche boasted a major hit in 1991 with their emotive, guitar-driven tune “Silent Lucidity” from their album that year, Empire. With soaring vocals, the song written by lead guitarist Chris DeGarmo ended up being the group’s highest-charting song. It hit No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-A-Lot from ‘Mack Daddy’ (1992)

Switching from heavy rock to fun hip-hop music, this song from Seattle’s Sir Mix-A-Lot helped both to popularize curves amongst the music-loving world, and it also provided a song that has since lasted on karaoke playlists. Indeed, Mix’s song about butts has persisted in the culture ever since its release in the early 1990s. It can still be heard on television commercials and in karaoke bars from near and far. It also garnered the rapper a No. 1 track on the Billboard Hot 100 and a Grammy Award.

“Flagpole Sitta” by Harvey Danger from ‘Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?’ (1998)

These Seattle one-hit wonders put together a song that talked about paranoia, ‘zines, tongue-piercing, and flagpoles was a giant hit in the late 1990s. It was all the rage on alt-rock radio, and the music video for the tune was all over the Billboard charts, as well as MTV and their popular after-school program, Total Request Live. The tune from the Seattle band Harvey Danger remains not only a fun, nostalgic song to listen back to today, but it also somehow sums up the late 1990s perhaps better than any track from its era.

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