Not all one hit wonders are like Lou Bega. Sometimes, you can remember an artist’s lone popular single without retching. You can wistfully wonder what might have been… if only they’d had a comeback, a follow-up, or a reality series.

And if VH-1 specials have taught us anything, it’s that this brand of one-hit wonder doesn’t just disappear. Instead, these artists keep making music for a smaller group of fans.

I tell you this, my friends: A couple of these persevering musicians are still worth our time. If you want to enjoy the work of one-hit wonders who deserved more days in the spotlight, then crank the following hits!

(1) “Summer Moved On” by a-ha

a-ha is the entire reason I’m writing this post. Last week’s Entertainment Weekly praised this YouTube video that brilliantly parodies the video for “Take On Me,” the group’s timeless chart-topper from 1985. After watching the parody, I had to watch the original, since it’s one of the greatest cultural achievements of the eighties (I’m only sort of kidding.)

And seeing the original made me remember that a-ha did reach the top twenty with their follow-up single, the roundly forgotten “The Sun Always Shines on T.V.” I searched for the video on YouTube and… there it was! Apparently, just because I don’t remember a song, that doesn’t mean no one remembers it.

And you guys… what have we been missing?  “The Sun Always Shines on T.V.” is fantastic. It was even a number one single in Britain. And brace yourselves for this: The first minute of the video continues the story from “Take on Me.”

What?!?! What?!?! You mean there was more?!? Why has history forgotten this?

You know what else I discovered? In Europe, these guys are still huge. They had a top-ten single in the U.K. in 2006, and in their native Norway, they’ve had nineteen top tens, including eight number ones. One of those chart toppers is “Summer Moved On,” from a-ha’s 2000 album Minor Earth Major Sky. (The video is at the top of this entry.) It’s a sweet techno-pop anthem.

Honestly, this is blowing my mind. Have Americans been denied two decades of great a-ha jams?

(2) “Hallelujah in the City” by Joan Osborne

Listen, y’all. “One of Us” is not the real Joan Osborne. Even on Relish, the song sounds like it was grafted on at the last minute. My girl Joan has always been a bluesy, sexy, soulful rocker, not a twee crooner of quasi-religious pap. And she releases about six albums a year, so there’s ample proof of that statement.

Her most recent disc is last year’s Little Wild One, which includes the transcendent “Hallelujah in the City.” Now this is a religious-themed track that is worthy of her talents. I swear, you can tell it’s brilliant after three seconds, and it just keeps building from there.

(3) “Nocturnal” by Young MC

“Bust a Move?” Total masterpiece. But Young MC hasn’t stopped kicking ass. Check out “Nocturnal,” from his new album Adrenaline Flow. His flow is sick, and his lyrics are socially conscious, reflecting on the crazy shit that people do after dark.

And is that Nate Dogg on the hook? Even better!

(4) “No Man’s Woman” by Sinead O’Connor

I know that Sinead did this to herself. After “Nothing Compares 2 U,” all the Pope ripping and Sinatra angering guaranteed she wasn’t going to get another hit. And her weirdness and whininess make her seem insufferable to this day.

But!  Her music has continued to be amazing. Sinead has at least 30 genius songs, and many of them were released in this decade. “No Man’s Woman,” from her 2000 album Faith and Courage, is but one fine example of a catalogue worth exploring.

(5) Your turn! Which one-hit wonders do you think have continued to make great music?