Some hits are tough acts to follow

One-hit wonders often elicit a derisory sneer. Yet the label can bestow on its recipient an almost mythical status.

Ask anyone to name a one-hit wonder and they will likely pipe up with Right Said Fred's I'm too Sexy, or Chesney Hawkes' The One and Only. Ha, they will say, whatever happened to them? As long as there are hits, there will be one-hit wonders - the kind of act whose music is all over the radio one minute, but who has sunk without trace the next, leaving behind only a faint echo. Take, for example, the British band Toploader, who are in the UAE this week for two gigs, one tonight in Abu Dhabi and another tomorrow in Dubai. Their debut hit, Dancing in the Moonlight was, for many, the soundtrack to their Y2K summer (ironically its original version, by the American band King Harvest, was also a one-hit wonder). It was jaunty and upbeat and just what people needed to assure themselves that all was still well; the millennium hadn't wreaked worldwide software havoc after all.

"Everybody's feeling warm and bright," yarped lead singer Joe Washbourn. But then, just as quickly as they had appeared, they vanished. A six-album deal with Sony couldn't prevent them from splitting in 2003 following the release of their second album, Magic Hotel. In fact, Toploader is in esteemed company. One-hit wonders are so good, you see, that it is almost impossible to follow up with anything that compares.

In the US and UK, the term one-hit wonder has different definitions. Stateside, it refers to a song that has featured in the top 40 positions of the Billboard Hot 100 once, while in the UK, it is used to describe a singer or band that has had one hit in the top 75 of the UK Singles Chart. On that basis, the net is spread awfully wide. Hence, the term has come to be applied to anyone who has had a big hit single but done nothing remotely as successful since. This can actually make the title rather controversial; one person's one-hit wonder is another person's niche act with one mainstream hit.

But there will always be those to whom the label sticks. Every decade has its share: in the 1970s, there was Anita Ward's Ring My Bell (1978) and Amii Stewart's Knock on Wood (1979). The 1980s, not surprisingly, are littered with them, starting with the German singer Nena's 99 Red Balloons, through to Falco's Rock Me Amadeus (1986) and Climie Fisher's Love Changes Everything (1988). It's a similar story with the 1990s, from Chesney's The One and Only (1991) to Deep Blue Something's Breakfast at Tiffany's (1995) and the New Radicals' You Get What You Give (1998). And, of course, who can forget Los del Río's Macarena (1995) and Whigfield's Saturday Night (1994).

The noughties had their fair share, too: consider, for example, The Baha Men's Who Let The Dogs Out (2000), Since I Left You by The Avalanches (2000) and of course Tatu's All The Things She Said (2002). Daniel Powter never did much after Bad Day (2006). And neither did Michael Andrews, whose misery-fest Mad World made Christmas No 1 in the UK in 2003. Referring to someone as a one-hit wonder often elicits a derisory sneer. Yet the label can bestow on its recipient an almost mythical status: we never needed to see Vanilla Ice shed his tracksuit, team up with MC Hammer and try his hand at rock. And we were spared more of Limahl's vocal dexterity after he disappeared into the mists of time following his maddeningly catchy 'Never Ending Story' (1984), from the hugely successful film of the same name. These acts are forever preserved, like fossils, in the moment of their greatest popularity. And there are worse ways than that to be remembered.

Toploader plays at the Crowne Plaza, Yas Island, tonight (doors open 7pm) and tomorrow night at Alpha Club, Le Meridien, Dubai (doors open 7pm).