One-Hit Wonders Who Vanished After Winning The Grammy Award For Best New Artist

The Grammy Awards usually get it right with the Best New Artist prize. It's one of the four most prestigious categories in the music-honoring event, along with Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year. It's a nice way to acknowledge an act that had an impactful and breakthrough year and the Grammy voting body has accurately predicted the rise of superstars, giving the Best New Artist award to the likes of Mariah Carey and Maroon 5, and future members of the historically controversial Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, such as the Beatles and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

But sometimes the Grammys really drop the ball. Not seeing flash-in-the-pan bands or fad-chasing acts for what they are, voters have repeatedly checked the box next to the names of emerging talents who ultimately don't go on to live up to the potential associated with the Best New Artist Grammy. Call it a curse or just a bad prediction, but either way, there are many Grammy wins from long ago that are still controversial to this day. Grammy voters just love to give the Best New Artist prize to one-hit wonders who maybe deserved more than 15 minutes of fame who quickly  disappeared from the musical mainstream.

When smooth, quiet, and mature soft rock ruled the music in the 1970s, about the same time that the Sexual Revolution took hold, the Starland Vocal Band benefited greatly. An expansion of the '60s Washington, D.C. married folk duo Bill and Taffy, the Starland Vocal Band would eventually feature two teams of spouses. In 1976, the four-voice act signed to Windsong Records, operated by soft rock king John Denver, and released an eponymous album. The first single was "Afternoon Delight," which explicitly compared eating lunch to making love in the daytime, went to no. 1 on the pop chart, no. 5 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and snuck onto the country chart, too.

When the nominations for the 19th Grammy Awards were released, the Starland Vocal Band received four nods, including for Record of the Year for what was still its only hit ("California Day" stalled at no. 66 in late 1976) and Best New Artist. It took home the latter prize, defeating disco one-hit wonder Wild Cherry ("Play That Funky Music") and multi-platinum-selling arena rock sensation Boston. Not even its own TV variety program, "The Starland Vocal Band Show," which aired in the summer of 1977, could keep the success going. Starland Vocal Band made just one more appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 — "Loving You with My Eyes" hit no. 71 in 1980. The single came from the group's final album, "4 x 4."

When Shelby Lynne won Best New Artist at the 43rd Grammy Awards — over soul singer Jill Scott, country star Brad Paisley, and pop-metal band Papa Roach — it wasn't as if some just-emergent talent took home that coveted prize. Lynne's critically acclaimed, tough to categorize Americana-meets-pop-meets-country-meets-soul record "I Am Shelby Lynne" was her sixth full-length release. In the early 1990s, Epic Records released a few albums by the singer when she was in her early twenties, which included gritty, authentic country as well as more produced, pop-oriented fare. After a few image and sound makeovers and label changes, "I Am Shelby Lynne" hit stores in 2000.

Quickly after her Grammy triumph, Lynne recorded and released a follow-up, "Love, Shelby," made with writer-producer Glen Ballard, the architect of former teen pop star Alanis Morissette's pop-rock mega-seller "Jagged Little Pill." But throughout the '90s, and after her Best New Artist win, Lynne never landed any songs on the pop chart. "Gotta Get Back" and "Wall in Your Heart," singles from "I Am Shelby Lynne" and "Love, Shelby," respectively, reached the lower rungs of the Adult Contemporary chart in 2000 and 2001. She's been absent from the charts ever since.

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences started handing out Grammy Awards in the late 1950s to award music its members found to be pretty and sophisticated. In its early years, the Grammys were decidedly out of sync with what was actually popular, particularly with youthful audiences. At the 6th Grammy Awards, an act called the Swingle Singers won the Best New Artist of 1963 prize. Also under the name of leader and creator Ward Swingle, the collective beat nominees Trini Lopez and Vikki Carr (and eligible non-nominees the Rolling Stones and Neil Diamond) for its novel performance style: It was an eight-part choir that scatted, or sang in a nonsensical, jazzy way, and without instrumentation, well-known classical compositions.

In addition to Best New Artist, the Grammys also nominated the Swingle Singers for Album of the Year for "Bach's Greatest Hits," sold in some territories as "Jazz Sebastian Bach." The record sold moderately well in the U.S., but didn't reach the top 10 nor spawn any hit singles at all. The act continues to record and tour into the 21st century, albeit without the long-dead Ward Swingle and with many new members coming in and out over the decades.

The winner of the Best New Artist category at the 20th Grammy Awards, recognizing music released in 1977, wasn't a complete unknown. Debby Boone is the daughter of Pat Boone, the 1950s pop singer turned country singer best known for singing sanitized versions of raunchy early rock records. In the fall of 1977, the younger Boone's first single, the inspirational if schmaltzy love ballad "You Light Up My Life" jumped off of the soundtrack of a flop movie of the same name and went all the way to no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, a position it held for 10 weeks, which was a record for chart-topping longevity at the time. It's one of the few Christian pop crossover success stories; Boone said that her interpretation of "You Light Up My Life" wasn't a romantic love song, but a hymn of praise.

The song was such a juggernaut that it propelled Boone to a Best New Artist award, defeating fellow famous-musician-relative Andy Gibb (brother of the Bee Gees) and popular rock band Foreigner. While those acts kept the hits coming for many more years, Boone made it to the lower part of the Hot 100 twice in 1978, and then never again. Looking to join the musicians who became huge stars after switching genres, Boone reinvented herself as a country singer and had a few successes, notably the 1980 no. 1 country hit "Are You on the Road to Lovin' Me Again?"

One major musical fad in the 2000s: a revival of '60s soul-style singing with lyrics about modern concerns, as performed by British female vocalists. More omnipresent and successful than even Duffy, or Adele in her early days, was the singer who ignited the craze, Amy Winehouse. Sporting a retro beehive hairdo and vintage stage outfits, the prodigiously talented Winehouse made audiences feel things when she belted out bops and ballads about love and heartbreak. Her 2003 debut album "Frank" only produced some minor hit singles in the U.K., so the U.S.-based Grammy Awards deemed it acceptable for Winehouse to contend for Best New Artist at the 2008 ceremony. "Rehab," her single from "Back to Black," which hinted at the singer's issues with substance abuse, had recently crossed into the top 10 of the pop chart while also faring respectably on the R&B and alternative rock lists.

Winehouse's next single, "You Know I'm No Good" flopped, peaking at no. 76, but Grammy voters didn't seem to care about that. "Rehab" won the prizes for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, and Winehouse was declared Best New Artist over Paramore and Taylor Swift. None of the singer's subsequent releases made an impact on American radio or record sales, and Winehouse would never get a chance to stage a comeback. She died at her home in London from alcohol poisoning at the age of 27 in 2011.

Folk-inspired singer-songwriters had a big cultural moment in the 1970s. Joining the likes of James Taylor, Cat Stevens, and Carole King came Rickie Lee Jones. Inflecting her compositions and recordings with jazz and beat poetry elements, Jones released her first, self-titled album in 1979. Her first song was a hit across genres, making Billboard's R&B and Adult Contemporary charts in addition to the pop-based Hot 100 — the playful, soulful "Chuck E.'s in Love" reached no 4 on that list. In the summer of 1979, Jones' follow-up single "Young Blood" could only get as far as no. 40 on the Hot 100.

That's the last time Jones would come anywhere close to releasing a hit song, but that didn't matter to Grammy voters. "Chuck E.'s in Love" landed nominations for Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, and it was a big part of why Jones received a Best New Artist nomination. In early 1980, she won that Grammy for most promising new recording artist, beating comedian Robin Williams and Dire Straits. All of Jones' biggest commercial successes came before that Grammys ceremony. She'd eke a couple of singles into the Hot 100 in the early 1980s and build a respectable, Grammy-winning career (her cover of the old standard "Makin' Whoopee" won the prize for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Duo or Group in 1990), but Jones was never a chart-buster.

Virtually any of the acts nominated for Best New Artist at the 2011 Grammy Awards had a reasonable shot at winning. Voters gave nods to future stars Mumford and Sons, Florence and the Machine, Justin Bieber, and Drake. But the in-person audience erupted in cheers when presenter John Legend opened the envelope and read out the name of the winner, the act least likely to claim victory: Esperanza Spalding. A progressive jazz artist and faculty member of the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Spalding sings while accompanying herself on the stand-up bass.

Experimental jazz musicians don't often win major Grammys, nor do they typically sell a lot of records. Spalding's first two albums from the 2000s, "Junjo" and "Esperanza," sold moderately well in jazz circles, while "Chamber Music Society," the musician's third LP and the one that actually won her the Best New Artist award, enjoyed a brief sales surge from curious Grammys followers. It sold 18,000 copies in the week after the ceremony, a boost of 476%. Enduring goodwill also helped Spalding's next album, "Radio Music Society," to a top 10 debut in 2012. Spalding keeps making music, and she's won a few more Grammys, but she's never had a hit single, although her cover of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (a duet with Legend) made it to no. 23 on the R&B chart in early 2019.

In 1991, Marc Cohn released his first album, debuting a sophisticated adult pop sound suited to his throaty voice, yearning lyrics, and soulful piano work. Cohn demonstrated a knowledge and appreciation for American musical forms, emphatically and joyously on the gospel-infused single "Walking in Memphis." Garnering airplay on adult contemporary, rock, country, and pop stations, "Walking in Memphis" reached no. 13 on the Billboard pop chart. Cohn went into the 34th Grammy Awards with nominations for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male; Song of the Year; and Best New Artist. He won the latter, a stacked category that also included Boyz II Men, Seal, and Color Me Badd.

Cohn struggled to repeat the success of "Walking in Memphis." He's since released five more albums, with only the first one garnering a platinum album award from the Recording Industry Association of America five years after its release. Two other singles from 1991, before Cohn won the Grammy, are the musician's only other Hot 100 placements, with "Silver Thunderbird" petering out at no. 63 and "True Companion" getting up to no. 80.

In the 1960s, a singer could become a household name by appearing in a prominent Broadway musical or singing on a TV variety show. This was the path to stardom for entertainers like Robert Goulet. After landing some roles on Canadian TV in the 1950s, Goulet portrayed Sir Lancelot in the original, 1960 Broadway production of the King Arthur musical "Camelot." The young, classically handsome actor and singer was the breakout star of the musical so long-running and culturally significant that its name was used as a nickname for President John F. Kennedy's administration, and after singing on "The Ed Sullivan Show," Columbia signed Goulet to a recording contract. 

Goulet's initial single, "What Kind of Fool Am I," wasn't a hit, reaching no. 89 on the Billboard pop chart. Nevertheless, the persistent power of "Camelot" helped Goulet with the Grammy Award for Best New Artist of 1962 over the Four Seasons and Peter, Paul & Mary. Those groups would go on to place many singles in the top 40, while Goulet would do it once — "My Love, Forgive Me" made it to no. 16 in late 1964. Goulet would go on to a long career as a film actor and a theatrical and nightclub performer, but he'd never live up to his Best New Artist Grammy win that promised recording industry superstardom. A one-hit wonder you may not know passed away, Goulet died in 2007.

The mid-1970s was a particularly creatively explosive era. Arena rock, disco, folk-pop, soul, soft rock, and punk artists broke through and vied for attention and chart space, and that variety was represented in the Best New Artist category at the 17th Grammy Awards, held in 1975. Multi-genre singer-songwriter Phoebe Snow, hard rock supergroup Bad Company, and Motown singer Johnny Bristol were all nominated, but they all lost to a man best known for writing ballads for others, composing film scores, and re-creating the ragtime hits of the early 1900s.

Marvin Hamlisch had a productive and successful 1974 and 1975, and the Grammys honored his achievements. Not only did he win Best New Artist, he won in Best Original Score for his musical work on the movie "The Way We Were," secured Song of the Year for writing that film's Barbra Streisand-sung theme song of the same name, and Best Pop Instrumental Performance for "The Entertainer." That instrumental piano rag was written in 1902 by Scott Joplin, and Hamlisch's recording for the period movie "The Sting" became an unlikely smash, topping the soft rock chart and peaking at no. 3 on the pop chart. Hamlisch would never make another singles chart of any kind, making his Best New Artist win all the more inexplicable.

Some quintessentially early 2000s talents competed for the Best New Artist prize at the 45th Grammy Awards in 2003. Ashanti, Michelle Branch, Avril Lavigne, and John Mayer all lost the award to the act who sold more albums than all of them in the previous year: Norah Jones. Is Jones a musician only famous because of her parents? Probably not. Her father was sitar legend and Beatles/George Harrison collaborator Ravi Shankar, while Jones carved out a much different niche as an old-fashioned, husky-voiced jazz singer like one would find in a smoky piano bar in the mid-20th century. An album so soothing that it could often be found for sale or playing in a Starbucks, Jones' "Come Away With Me" sold a staggering 27 million copies. One single from the album, "Don't Know Why," received major radio airplay, and it reached no. 30 and no. 4 on Billboard's pop and adult contemporary charts, respectively. That same tune won Jones Record of the Year at the Grammys the same night she took home Best New Artist as well as Album of the Year for "Come Away with Me."

Jones' subsequent releases have sold less and less, and she's yet to make a return to the top part of the pop chart. But the huge sales figures for "Come Away With Me" make Jones one of the most successful recording artists in history who is also technically a one-hit wonder.