Robbed hit of the week 7/20/20 - The Wonders' "That Thing You Do!"...
from the album That Thing You Do! (Original Soundtrack) (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #41 (three weeks)
This week's "robbed hit" comes from "the Wonders", who were actually a fictional band from the movie That Thing You Do! starring Tom Hanks. Chronicling the rise and fall of one of the so many "one-hit wonders" that graced the charts in the 1960s, the film quite nicely and albeit accurately to the subject matter goes through the whirlwind of success when a local band has a hit song, and the personal and professional tolls it takes on its members. Though the band in the movie was portrayed by Tom Everett Scott, Steve Zahn, Johnathan Schaech, and Ethan Embry, the actual music was written by Adam Schlesinger, who would much later find pop success of his own with his band Fountains Of Wayne ("Stacy's Mom") and sung by Mike Viola (with Adam as backup), and like the Heights from a few years before with "How Do You Talk To An Angel", The Wonders found themselves with a radio and chart hit...
Although "That Thing You Do!" reached #7 on the fictional Billboard chart in the 1964 of the movie, the single actually spent three weeks at the dreaded #41, one notch below the American Top-40, on the official Billboard Hot 100 in November of 1996. The song reached #18 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 radio chart, while getting to #22 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") format list. Internationally, the single did a bit better, reaching the top-40 in the UK (#22) and Canada (#31). "That Thing You Do" was nominated for an Oscar for Best New Song as well as a Golden Globe, losing both to Madonna for her Evita turn in "You Must Love Me". The That Thing You Do! soundtrack ended up going to #21 on the Billboard 200 sales chart in America.
Of course, like the movie, the "Wonders" didn't last beyond that initial hit, but the movie remains one of the best "pop music" films of all time, in my humble opinion. Sadly, Adam Schlesinger died this year, one of the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
At the Kennedy Honors Award for Tom Hanks, a cappella group Pentatonix performed the song...
In 2017, the actors that played the Wonders - Tom Everett Scott, Johnathan Schaech, and Ethan Embry, with Steve Zahn unavailable on the East Coast - along with Josh Adam Meyers, actually performed the song live to a fan audience in L.A....
And this year, in remembrance of Schlesinger, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong covered "That Thing You Do!" for his quaratine "No Fun Mondays" performance...
And lastly, here's an interview from the original "Wonders" actors in 2020 for Rolling Stone...
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