5 One-Hit Wonder Love Songs From The '80s That Still Have Us Head Over Heels

The 1980s birthed so many enduring and affecting love songs, and some of them became classics — and of those, a few were delivered by one-hit wonders. Inspiration struck, and the melodies, harmonies, and lyrics came together to honestly express profound feelings of human romantic connection, and yet it would only ever happen once for those charting-now, gone-tomorrow bands and solo acts. These '80s musicians we completely forgot about only needed that one shot to make an anthem concerning love, romance, and devotion.

A one-hit wonder is an act that only ever landed one single inside the Top 40 section of Billboard's general pop chart of record, the Hot 100. For the artists on this list, that song just happened to be an emotionally gushing exploration of some aspect of love, or an ode to one particular person. These songs resonated with an audience to such a degree that their power and popularity far outlasted the careers of the musicians who originated them. Here are five classic love songs from the '80s performed by one-hit wonders.

As the respective drummer and bass player in Talking Heads, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth had a bandmate romance that helped shape rock history. The artsy, quirky, alternative rock hitmakers from the 1980s launched a spinoff project called Tom Tom Club. Frantz and Weymouth debuted the side project with a self-titled album in 1981. While Tom Tom Club utilized dance beats and pop hooks to attain a more mainstream sound than Talking Heads, the group generated just one Top 40 hit, when "Genius of Love" made it up to No. 31 in 1982.

It's a love song co-composed and performed by a married couple, so "Genius of Love" comes from a place of romantic experience. The song is a reminder that while love is a novelty to behold, it's also supposed to be fun, or rather "natural fun," per the lyrics. Weymouth sings about how it's heavenly to just be with her guy, walking around and being intimate, where time and space don't seem to exist. "Genius of Love" expresses the surreality of a new romance and all its attendant dizziness and giddiness. Later artists tried to tap into those palpable emotions by sampling "Genius of Love" — it's a big part of '90s hits like "Return of the Mack" by Mark Morrison and "Fantasy" by Mariah Carey.

Not counting various reunions, the story of the Go-Go's came to an abrupt end in 1985. While lead singer Belinda Carlisle would go on to a long career as a pop singer, the first member to break out of the band was Jane Wiedlin. The guitarist put out her first solo LP the same year the Go-Go's split, but she didn't have a hit until 1988, with the song "Rush Hour" from her second album, "Fur." The bubbly, joyous synth-pop single hit No. 9 on the pop chart.

Associated with dense traffic, "rush hour" generally conveys displeasure and stress, but Wiedlin uses wordplay to reframe it to be about the glorious and energizing physical sensation that comes from being in love and being loved. "Rush Hour" is full of allusions to driving, all the better to remark upon the speediness and thrills of romance. The subject of the song is making her disoriented, overheated, and delightfully overwhelmed with just their presence. The '80s instrumentation of synthesizers and over-processed guitars matches the lyrical content and really sends "Rush Hour" into the realm of well-crafted love songs.

The Canadian rock band Sheriff was a one-hit wonder, and it took about six years for their only hit song to get to that point. "When I'm With You" was released as a single in the U.S. in 1983 and only got as high as No. 61. In 1989, after a Las Vegas radio station re-discovered the song, it climbed the charts again and made it all the way to No. 1.

"When I'm With You" is a sweet song about the transformative power of real love. It's from the point of view of a person who claimed to never even need love until he needed it from one particular individual. (Sheriff member Arnold Lanni wrote it about the woman he'd later marry.) "When I'm With You" is the kind of sweeping, unabashedly gooey and emotional power ballad that was big in the '80s, the kind that got played at plenty of proms, high school reunions, and wedding receptions. It's a song that sounds very much of its time but is ultimately timeless with its unabashed sentimentality.

In the 1980s, actor Jack Wagner was a breakout star of the popular daytime soap opera "General Hospital" alongside another actor-turned-pop sensation, Rick Springfield. While Springfield, best known for "Jessie's Girl," was more of a rocker, Wagner embraced an adult contemporary sound, singing treacly and declarative love songs, essentially musical equivalents of sappy soap opera plots. And he was successful at it too, however briefly: "All I Need" was Wagner's only Top 40 entry, and it went all the way to No. 2 in 1985.

Love can arrive so swiftly and with such surprise that a person can't help but wonder if what they're feeling really is that thing they've only heard about and watched others enjoy. That's the gist of "All I Need." The soft-rock radio standard struck a nerve with a large number of listeners because it expresses that common feeling so well. All Wagner needs is some time to think and reflect, and this song likely became a contemplation tool for many others going through a similar situation.

Karla Bonoff was an important but fringe character in the Los Angeles music industry in the '70s and '80s, a singer-songwriter who played to local crowds and wrote songs for the likes of Linda Ronstadt. While Bonoff's soulful and plaintive voice could be regularly heard on the soundtracks of '80s media such as "Footloose" and "Miami Vice," she was well suited for "Personally." It's Bonoff's only single that climbed high on the Hot 100, slipping into the top 20 in 1982. 

"Personally" is a love song on the very specific emotions that surround a long-distance relationship. Bonoff's character grows tired of waiting to see a lover, no longer satisfied with exchanging letters or regular telephone conversations. There aren't all that many songs about lovers separated by distance, or at least ones that offer a proactive solution to the inherent problems: a surprise, intense, and intimate visit. "Personally" is a theme song for couples living separately, and it runs the emotional gauntlet, from frustration to anticipation to the relief of reunion.