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One-Hit Wonders You Didn’t Realize Passed Away

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Every one of these artists gave the world a song you can still sing word for word — and every one of them died before most fans ever learned their name.

Nicki Swift’s rundown of “One-Hit Wonders You Didn’t Realize Passed Away” pulls together eight performers who each landed a single inescapable hit — a summer jam, a Eurodance anthem, a soul ballad — before dying young from illness, an accident, or suicide. The list spans LFO’s Rich Cronin to G.R.L.’s Simone Battle, and the causes range from leukemia and Hodgkin lymphoma to a plane crash outside Zurich. It’s the kind of roundup that sits alongside other look-backs at celebrities who died young, but with a specific hook: these are the names behind songs everyone knows and almost nobody can place.

• LFO frontman Rich Cronin died September 8, 2010, at 36, after battling acute myelogenous leukemia and suffering a stroke.
• 2gether’s Michael Cuccione died January 13, 2001, at just 16, from respiratory failure tied to childhood Hodgkin lymphoma.
• La Bouche’s Melanie Thornton, 34, died in the November 24, 2001 crash of Crossair Flight 3597 in Switzerland.

A Pop Frontman Beaten Twice Over

Rich Cronin wrote and sang “Summer Girls,” the 1999 LFO single that turned “New Kids on the Block had a bunch of hits” into a lyric teenagers still quote decades later. Cronin kept working music and TV after LFO’s run faded, but he was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia and spent years fighting the disease. He appeared to be recovering when a stroke hit him on top of the leukemia, and he died on September 8, 2010, at age 36.

Michael Cuccione’s story is even harder to square with the giddy novelty of his hit. He played a member of 2gether, MTV’s satirical boy band created to spoof the late-’90s Backstreet Boys and NSYNC era, and sang lead on “U + Me = Us (Calculus).” Cuccione had survived childhood Hodgkin lymphoma once already, and when complications from the disease returned, they led to respiratory failure. He died on January 13, 2001, at just 16.

Eurodance and R&B Voices Lost Too Soon

Melanie Thornton fronted La Bouche, the German Eurodance act behind “Sweet Dreams” and “Be My Lover,” two songs that dominated club playlists and pop radio in the mid-’90s. She was 34 and building a solo career when she boarded Crossair Flight 3597, which crashed near Zurich on November 24, 2001, killing her along with 23 others on board.

Natina Reed’s résumé is a distinctly late-’90s time capsule: she rapped and sang with the girl group Blaque, whose hits “808” and “Bring It All to Me” got MTV rotation, and she co-starred as Lava in 2000’s “Bring It On” alongside Kirsten Dunst and Gabrielle Union. On October 26, 2012, Reed was struck and killed by a car near Atlanta. She was 32.

The Songwriters and Vocalists Behind the Hits

Dan Hartman wrote and sang “Instant Replay” and “I Can Dream About You,” two songs that defined the disco-into-pop crossover sound of their eras and kept turning up on soundtracks and compilations for years afterward. Hartman died on March 22, 1994, at age 43, from complications related to AIDS.

Minnie Riperton’s five-octave range is still the reference point people use when describing a truly rare voice, and it’s what carried “Lovin’ You” to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975. She was diagnosed with breast cancer not long after and died on July 12, 1979, at just 31.

Minnie Riperton’s five-octave range powered 1975’s chart-topping “Lovin’ You” — she was dead from breast cancer four years later, at 31.

Rock and Pop Stars Lost to Suicide

Stuart Adamson led Big Country, the Scottish rock band whose 1983 single “In a Big Country” became an MTV and radio staple with its distinctive, bagpipe-mimicking guitar sound. Adamson struggled with alcoholism and depression in his later years, and he died by suicide in Honolulu on December 16, 2001, at age 43.

Simone Battle’s path ran through reality TV first — she was a finalist on “The X Factor” — before she joined the girl group G.R.L., which scored a hit with “Ugly Heart.” Battle died by suicide on September 5, 2014, at just 25, cutting short a career that seemed to be building toward more than one hit.

Roundups like this one, and companion pieces such as the look at “All in the Family” cast members fans didn’t know had died or the rundown of “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” stars fans might not realize are gone, keep drawing views because the format hits a nerve: these were faces and voices people grew up with, and the news of their deaths never got the coverage the songs themselves did. “Summer Girls” still plays at every 2000s-themed party in the country — Rich Cronin just isn’t there to hear it.