A one-hit wonder is a music-industry term to describe an artist generally known for only one hit single. Think of Bobby Bloom’s “Montego Bay” or Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Why couldn’t they sustain success? Was it a lack of talent, focus, or some other cause?
There are also literary one-hit wonders such as Anna Sewell who wrote Black Beauty, Margaret Mitchell with Gone with the Wind, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, or J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. Why on earth couldn’t these brilliant writers retain their success and create more than one best-selling novel? Let’s look at each of their personal stories:
• At the age of 14, Anna Sewell fell while walking home from school in the rain, injuring both her ankles. She was improperly tended to and became crippled for the rest of her life. Black Beauty was written during her later years as an invalid confined to her home.
• Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her book Gone with the Wind. She wrote for her own pleasure and kept the novel secret from her friends.
• Emily Brontë was the second eldest of the Brontë sisters. She originally published Wuthering Heights under the masculine-sounding pen name Ellis Bell. She caught a chill and, having refused all medical help, died on December 19, 1848, of tuberculosis at the age of 30.
• J. D. Salinger is an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye. He hasn’t published a new work since 1965 and hasn’t been interviewed since 1980.
In my opinion, the lack of subsequent success of these authors had nothing to do with a lack of talent or even focus. There were other variables that easily explain their inability to sustain success.
Anna Sewell didn’t begin writing until her later years and died before writing another book. Margaret Mitchell lacked the necessary desire to publish books. Her second novel Lost Laysen wasn’t even found until after her death. Emily Brontë died when she was just 30 years old—the beginning of her writing life. J. D. Salinger’s novel caused so much scrutiny that he became a recluse and refused interviews. The controversy clearly scared him.
We can look at the incredibly talented but extremely angry musician Sinéad O’Connor and easily make sense of her fall from grace as well. In 1990, Sinéad’s album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, containing the song “Nothing Compares 2 U” (which was written by Prince), became a massive international hit and spent several weeks as the number one single in several countries. The music video also garnered huge accolades. Sinéad was nominated for a few Grammy Awards and won the “Best Alternative Musical Performance Award,” but she boycotted the award show.
Her career took a big spiral on October 3, 1992, when the star appeared on Saturday Night Live. While singing an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s “War” (a performance she’d planned as a protest over the sexual-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church), she held up a picture of Pope John Paul II, tore it up after singing the word evil, and roared, “Fight the real enemy!” NBC was immediately inundated with complaints. Her records were destroyed and radio stations refused to play her songs. Since then, she’s been trying to recover and recapture her massive mainstream following, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Now let’s compare this to the commotion caused by the Dixie Chicks in 2003. Just days before President Bush invaded Iraq, lead singer Natalie Maines told a sold-out audience in London, England: “We do not want this war . . . this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas” (the Dixie Chicks’ home state). The backlash was as bad as that of O’Connor’s, with Natalie Maines receiving death threats, their records were burned, concerts were boycotted, and country radio stations refused to play their songs.
Such similar scenarios but with outcomes poles apart. In 2007, the Dixie Chicks came back to win seven Grammy Awards, including “Album of the Year,” and then picked up another six Grammys in 2008. As of March 2009, they’d sold over 36 million albums, making them the highest-grossing female band in the U.S.
Why such a different ending—from Sinéad O’Connor’s fall into a dark abyss to the phenomenal success of the Dixie Chicks? Again, it had nothing to do with a lack of talent or even focus. The lack of success had to do with other variables that easily explain O’Connor’s inability to sustain success.
Don’t Be a One-Hit Wonder!
As outlined in my new book Simply…EMPOWERED! (coming out March 1, 2010), in order to create success, we must first Clean up the mess we’ve made; Reinvent, rewrite, reprogram, and rebuild our future; Execute a plan; Assume accountability; Take immediate action; and Eliminate negativity. The Dixie Chicks did all these things. They immediately faced the public and began doing as much damage control as possible, saying that although they didn’t support the war, they did support the troops. They then went on to redefine themselves and reinvent their style by creating new sounds that would appeal to a different audience—if country-music stations wouldn’t play their songs, they’d make new ones for the mainstream stations.
If the Dixie Chicks buried their heads in the sand, cried and blamed others, and became victims who were waiting for their fans to take them back, I don’t believe they would have experienced their comeback. Likewise, if they would have remained angry, defensive, evasive, or confrontational, the public would have also rejected them. Instead, these gutsy, courageous women rebuilt their career and waited for no one to come and save them. Their brilliant manager stepped in and helped them map out a precise plan of action. They assumed complete accountability for what they said and the responsibility for rebuilding their group. They went on to eliminate as much negativity as they could by staying committed to each other, their families, their passions, and their dreams. They stayed focused on solutions, while continually uncovering any flaws in their plan. They slowly but surely swayed their fans with dignity, eloquence, and grace; they trusted in the process, asked for help, invested in what truly mattered to them, and never gave up. These ladies took the high road! When you do that, you are guaranteed success!
Sinéad O’Connor, on the other hand, took seven years to face her situation. In an interview with an Italian magazine, she blamed her action on “a rebellious girl,” and although she asked the Pope for forgiveness, nothing was ever formally sent to the Pope. Five years after that, she told another interviewer that she wouldn’t have changed a thing if she could go back.
Well, no need to worry, Sinéad. Saturday Night Live would never take you back!
Sinéad never took accountability for her actions and never got past the first step in creating an empowered life: You must clean up the mess—all of your unfinished business. The rest was predictable. If she would have conducted some damage control (like the Dixie Chicks did), explaining her own personal experience of enduring abuse and her outrage over the sexual-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, the outcome would have been much different . . . but no one knew her story.
Sinéad’s parents separated when she was eight; she claims her mother frequently physically abused her and her siblings. In Ireland, a country that at the time forbade divorce, her father fought to turn over the court’s decision to leave the children in their mother’s care. By the age of 15, Sinéad, a time bomb just waiting to explode, was in reform school for shoplifting and truancy. She’s been quoted in more recent times as saying that during her time at the reform school she “has never—and probably will never—experience such panic and terror and agony over anything.”
A few years before the SNL incident, Sinéad’s mother was killed in a car accident, leaving the angry 19-year-old young woman devastated. Her song “Fire on Babylon” tells about the effects of her own child abuse.
Had Sinéad done things differently, she just may have won back the public and become an incredible advocate, a hero, for abused children around the world. My heart aches for this incredibly gifted but wounded woman who has the voice of an angel . . . but talent has little to do with sustaining success. Like it or not, you must know and play by the rules!
