The phrase “no homo” (signifying that the user isn’t gay) is used often in music now, especially in heavily auto-tuned rap cameos appearing in otherwise generic pop songs, but it still makes me laugh every time I hear it. Most of the time, the words are used after either the most innocuous of statements (“the light turned green, no homo”) or after the most unabashedly gay statements (“I enjoy having lots of sex with men, no homo”). Either way, the phrase makes no sense.

Cam’ron, Lil’ Wayne, and Kanye can protest all they want, but in my experience, most men don’t worry whether something they say might be misconstrued as sounding gay. And if a man actually said something “gay” inadvertently, most of them would laugh it off and promptly forget about it within two minutes. It’s just not something your average guy, regardless of orientation, worries about.

Let’s be brutally honest, shall we? When someone says “no homo”, it usually translates as “Omigod, did that sound gay? ‘Cause I’m not gay! I have never placed ads on craigslist looking for hot man-to-man loving, those magazines hidden underneath my sweaters in the bottom dresser drawer actually belong to my sister, and I have a girlfriend in Canada that I have major sexual intercourse with all the time!”

My suggestion? If you’re worried something you’re about to say (or rap on a record that will be heard by millions and last forever) could be taken as homosexual in nature, find a different way to say it that doesn’t require you to explain your sexual orientation in a suspiciously defensive manner. And if you ever decide to peek out from behind the door and take baby steps into the open, here are a few one-hit wonders that are, in fact, homo and aren’t obsessed with staying in that narrow closet you prefer.

—Tommy Marx

Alex was a sensitive poet/songwriter who worked in a grocery store by day and sang lead in a rock and roll band at night. He was in love with Rita, a dispatcher for a beer distributor who played saxophone in the band, and along with the others, he dreamed of finding success as a member of the Heights. The group’s hopes were cruelly crushed, however, when Fox canceled The Heights after just three months due to declining ratings.

Jamie Walters, the actor who brought Alex to life, was also the lead vocalist on the show’s theme song, “How Do You Talk to an Angel”. In a rather cruel twist of fate, the song became a smash hit, spending two weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, just as The Heights’ final episodes were airing. At 23, Walters found himself both an unemployed actor and the official face and voice of a one-hit wonder.

Fortunately, his second chance at fame came a couple years later when he was cast as Ray Pruit, a carpenter and the lead singer of the Peach Pit After Dark house band, on Beverly Hills 90210. Walters quickly became a fan favorite, and in 1995, he released a self-titled album. Although it peaked at #70 and fell off the Billboard 200 album after four months, it did produce a Top 20 hit. “Hold On” spent half a year on the Hot 100, eventually peaking at #16.

Then things went bad.

—Tommy Marx

A few years ago, I made a mix CD of some of my favorite songs and gave copies to my friends. One of the songs on the CD, Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up”, is currently being used to advertise the Where the Wild Things Are movie, and most of the other songs I shared hold up equally well, including Bright Eyes’ “First Day of My Life” (one of the best love songs I’ve ever heard), Doves’ “Black and White Town”, Jill Sobule’s “Cinnamon Park”, The Thrills’ “Big Sur”, Stereophonics’ “Dakota”, Keane’s “This Is the Last Time”, Interpol’s “Evil” (which has an awesome video, btw), Deena Carter’s “In a Heartbeat”, and Easyworld’s “How Did It Ever Come to This”. Of course, I also added Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day”, but in my defense, this was before the song got chosen for American Idol and started getting played 14 times every hour on the radio.

I ended the CD with one of my all-time favorite songs, “How to Be Dead” by Snow Patrol.

When I first ran across the video for “Chocolate”, a Snow Patrol single that spent two weeks on the Modern Rock chart, but otherwise didn’t make a major impression in the United States, I was intrigued. The video portrayed hundreds of people reacting to the world ending, from people running frantically and a couple having sex for the last time to a woman holding her crying child, while the band members calmly played their song. Towards the end, the sand in the hourglass runs out, and everywhere, people fall to the ground and shield themselves from the inevitable horror. Except… nothing happens. As they’re beginning to comprehend that fact, Gary Lightbody, the lead singer of Snow Patrol, walks over to the hourglass and turns it over, and the panic begins anew.

Although the song wasn’t bad, I was actually more impressed by the video, so I searched for more. Fortunately, I came across “Run”, a song that peaked at #15 on the Modern Rock chart in America, but was actually a Top 5 hit in the UK. The song was provocative and unforgettable. The last time I’d heard a song that instantly created a mood and a mystique like that was almost 20 years earlier, when “Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)” by Mike + the Mechanics played on the radio. I bought Snow Patrol’s Final Straw CD the next day.

And that’s when I heard “How to Be Dead”. I’m not completely sure what the song is about—it sounds like an argument between a drug addict and the woman who is tired of being hurt by him—but when she says, “You’ve not heard a single word I have said. Oh my god,” there’s something so heartbreaking about the way Gary sings the line (even though everyone’s probably heard and/or said something like that a thousand times in their lives). A clichéd complaint suddenly becomes far more serious than it should be, although it doesn’t hurt that earlier, she asks him, “Why can’t you shoulder the blame? / ‘Cause both my shoulders are heavy from the weight of us both”.

—Tommy Marx

America has never fully embraced what I like to call frat rock – the blend of pop-punk perfection filled with crunchy hooks, lyrics that combine humor and attitude, and a keg-tapping, booty-chasing college guy mentality – even though some of my favorite songs would fit into that category.

Sure, Deadeye Dick’s “New Age Girl” became a Top 40 hit, peaking at #27 and selling half a million singles in the process. And “Flagpole Sitta” – the Harvey Danger song that ruled the summer of ‘98, at least for me – reached #38 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart (although with lyrics like “put me in the hospital for nerves and then they had to commit me, you told them all I was crazy, they cut off my legs, now I’m an amputee, goddamn you” the song should have been a number one smash).

But Blink-182’s arguably definitive frat rock song “What’s My Age Again?”, which stayed on the Billboard Hot 100 for almost five months, never charted higher than #58. The video, featuring Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus, and Travis Barker streaking through town, was both infamous and iconic, but unfortunately, the US didn’t seem to share their sense of humor. And SR-71’s awesome “Right Now”, which was a number two smash on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart, never came close to charting on the mainstream Hot 100.

So it’s not surprising that Bowling for Soup, a pop-rock band from Wichita Falls, Texas, didn’t have much luck with “Girl All the Bad Guys Want”. With a tongue-twisting chorus and hooks that refused to let go for hours or even days, the song should have been one of the bigger hits of 2003. Instead, it barely lasted two months on the chart, peaking at #64.

—Tommy Marx

In some ways, a one-hit wonder is in the eye of the beholder (or more accurately, the memory). A-Ha peaked at #20 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “The Sun Always Shines on TV”, a great song that spent four months on the chart. But most people only remember “Take on Me” (and the phenomenal video that accompanied it), so A-Ha is mistakenly thought to be a one-hit wonder. Vanilla Ice fared no better. “Play That Funky Music” was on the chart for four months and peaked at #4, but the song was overshadowed by the enormous success of “Ice Ice Baby”, so he too is often labeled a one-hit wonder.

This bothers me. The geek part of me cringes when Katrina and the Waves, for instance, is labeled a one-hit wonder. They actually had three Top 40 hits, “Walking on Sunshine”, “Do You Want Crying”, and “That’s the Way”. And my love for music makes me feel sad that radio stations (and as a result, listeners) have completely forgotten that “Real, Real, Real” was almost as huge a hit as “Right Here, Right Now” for Jesus Jones and was, in fact, a great song too.

So today I want to talk about so-called one-hit wonders who actually had more than one hit. There are literally hundreds of singers and groups who are remembered primarily for the one hit among many that lived on, from the Angels (“My Boyfriend’s Back” was just one of four Top 40 hits for the female pop trio) to Spandau Ballet (“True” peaked at #4, but “Gold” and “Only When You Leave” were also Top 40 hits in the US). I thought it would be interesting to talk about “one-hit wonders” who released successful songs I personally liked more than the hits they’re remembered for.

—Tommy Marx

In the summer of 1992, Arrested Development had the first of three top ten hits with “Tennessee”, a song as powerful and hypnotic today as it was seventeen years ago. A quest for spiritual enlightenment hindered by the anger and pain of growing up in a world that often makes no sense, the song ended with the strong, pleading voice of Dionne Farris echoing the song’s search for home.

Dionne, who was more one of the “extended family” than an actual member of Arrested Development, got noticed after the song became such a major hit, and Chrysalis (Arrested Development’s record company) offered her a solo contract. Looking for more creative control than the company was willing to give, Dionne turned down the offer. Fortunately, Sony Music heard a demo she made with David Harris, and they offered her a contract that was more flexible.

The result was one of the best albums of the year, Wild Seed, Wild Flower.

—Tommy Marx