'00s One-Hit Wonders

Decades come and go . . . and so do one-hit wonders. This fresh batch of say-hello/wave-goodbye artists all briefly lit up the charts like roman candles, then faded into the landscape of nostalgia, victims of the world's short attention span and pop's disposability. Here, though, you can love them forever — let's hear it for the Baha Men ("Who Let the Dogs Out"), Nizlopi ("The J.C.B. Song" — one of the greatest one-hitters ever), and Las Ketchup (taking a leaf out of Baccara's book with "Aserejé").

Daddy Yankee waves his fast-burning reggaeton sparkler in Next Steps.

When the big book of pop is finally written, these artists will be found not in the chapter headings, but in the footnotes. Bhangra Knights ("Husan") conquered the world on the back of a Peugot 206 commercial, Daddy Yankee went a long way on "Gasolina" — now the Puerto Rican reggaeton star is having a crack at the movie business, with the semi-autobiographical Talento de Barrio — and Khia got hot with "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)" before the limelight shone elsewhere.

There's a multi-hit megastar lurking in the wings — find out who, and why, in Deep Cuts.

Robbie Williams? One-hit wonder? Surely some mistake — well, he earns his place among these ephemeral Essentials by virtue of his guest slot on "My Culture", part of the one-off project 1 Giant Leap, which mashed up artists recorded in many different locations around the world. Cut 'n' paste techniques also went into the production of the ever-clever Lemon Jelly's "Nice Weather for Ducks," while David Hasselhoff tried to parlay his enduring popularity in Germany into U.K. success with "Jump In My Car".

Although there's no single perfect formula for a one-hit wonder, a quick scan of these '00s flashes in the pan of pop reveals a couple of interesting approaches — for example, you can try extracting an iron-lunged rock balladeer from his familiar group surroundings and sticking him on a tent-pole movie soundtrack — check out Nickleback's Chad Kroeger on "Hero" from Spider-Man, and Audioslave's Chris Cornell on "You Know My Name" from Casino Royale; or you can take a familiar tune and give it an fresh spin (G4's "Bohemian Rhapsody", or "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" re-done with added chuckles by Pipkin and Potter). Whichever route these artists took, they're all now immortalised on this playlist of here-today-gone-tomorrow-available-for-download-forever Essentials.