There's plenty of one hit wonders who have no chance of another hit, but which ones deserved better? As in, their discography is great but not many people know them outside of one song?
Semisonic absolutely deserved more than just being the "Closing Time" band - "Chemistry", "DND", "FNT" are great tunes. Not sure why they were never more popular, they deserved tons of pop hits.
It's worth mentioning that some bands/artists may still qualify even if they had other hits.
For example: Kris Kross is only known for "Jump" and nothing else, but they had three additional top 20 hits, and almost nobody remembers any of them.
Even though they had multiple pop hits (four top 20 hits), Third Eye Blind seems to be only known for Semi Charmed Life by most people (well, maybe Jumper too). Their entire debut album - as well as the follow up Blue - are both 10/10 records. "Anything" is an incredible opener.
For reference I was born in '92 so the song is a little before my time but honestly the melody, lyrics and tune are banging. I started listening to it recently and I love it. I heard it as a kid but it didn't have an effect on me, but now as an adult I think it's amazing.
These are bands/artists that, had ONE good album and then the rest of their albums are bad or mediocre?
Maybe it could be a singles band/artist who had a particularly strong album with tons of good songs, or a band/artist that didn't even make good singles and were just flat out terrible all around?
Songs About Jane by Maroon 5 would probably be the easiest and most obvious choice for most of you guys.
In my opinion, Move Along by The All-American Rejects... I wouldn't call AAR a "bad" band but they are a singles band for the most part.
But I like a good chunk of the deep cuts on Move Along - songs like Stab My Back, I'm Waiting, Night Drive, 11:11PM and Top Of The World are actually pretty solid tracks.