The One-Hit Wonder with an OAM
Looking into the career of John Paul Young OAM is a fascinating case study. It proves just how much a single hit can change everything.
Sure, Young is often labelled a one-hit wonder, but I’m sure he’d rather take that than be remembered for no hit at all.
And when you look at his career before and after Love Is in the Air, the difference is remarkable.
Before Love Is in the Air
Before his international breakthrough, Young had already released three albums, in 1975, 1976 and 1977. None made a huge international impact, although they helped lay the groundwork for what was to come.
He had already enjoyed some impressive regional success. Yesterday’s Hero and I Hate the Music both reached #1 in South Africa, while in Australia those tunes, along with The Love Game and I Wanna Do It With You, all reached the top 10. Then there was Standing in the Rain, which reached #4 in Germany and #3 in Holland.
Young was also a regular on Countdown, Australia’s answer to Top of the Pops, keeping him firmly in the public eye.
So perhaps calling him a complete unknown before Love Is in the Air isn’t quite fair. He had a career. What he didn’t yet have was the song that changed everything.
The Accidental Global Smash
By this point, Young and his team—producers, songwriters, manager and everyone else involved—had plenty of information to work with.
One particularly promising clue was the unexpected success of Standing in the Rain in Germany. It reached #4 there, so Germany became the obvious market to target. The plan was simple enough: Write something specifically for Germany.
What they came up with was Love Is in the Air. And then something rather unexpected happened. Instead of simply continuing Young’s momentum in Germany, the song exploded internationally.
It reached the top 10 in thirteen countries and even hit #1 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart.
Suddenly, John Paul Young wasn’t just an Australian pop singer. He had a worldwide hit.
The One-Hit Wonder Problem
Here’s where the story gets interesting. After the enormous success of Love Is in the Air, none of Young’s subsequent releases managed to repeat that level of chart success. In fact, some of the follow-up singles performed worse than his earlier material.
So, in purely chart terms, the one-hit-wonder label is understandable. But here’s the irony: This was the point when his career really took off.
The song opened doors that a string of moderately successful singles never would. He became an internationally recognised performer, and Love Is in the Air became the song people associated with him.
That’s a fascinating lesson for anyone writing or recording music. Imagine being the songwriter or producer who has just created a worldwide hit.
Naturally, you’d want to know exactly what made it work so you could do it again. But can you? That’s the mystery of the hit song.
You can analyse the chords, melody, lyrics, arrangement, production and performance—but there’s always something impossible to completely reproduce.
What Makes Love Is in the Air Work?
This is where studying the tune becomes interesting for a guitarist. A huge hit doesn’t necessarily need complicated chords or technically difficult guitar parts. Sometimes the magic is in the combination.
The right melody. The right rhythm. The right arrangement. The right production. And, perhaps most importantly, the right moment.
Love Is in the Air is therefore more than just another easy pop tune to add to your repertoire. It’s a case study in how an arrangement can turn a relatively simple song into something instantly recognisable.
And once you know the song, it’s a great one to have ready for an acoustic set or working-band repertoire.
The Australian One-Hit Wonder Club?
Perhaps there’s something in the Australian air. Young’s story brings to mind other Australian bands and artists whose songs became far bigger than anything else in their catalogue.
Take Jet and Are You Gonna Be My Girl. Or Men at Work and Down Under. Or Vance Joy and his Riptide.
Different artists, different eras and very different songs—but the same basic phenomenon. One tune becomes so recognisable that it takes on a life of its own.
For a working guitarist, that’s actually a good thing. You don’t necessarily need an artist’s entire catalogue. Sometimes knowing the one song everybody wants is enough.
The Canadian Competition
There was even some competition for Love Is in the Air. In Canada, Martin Stevens released his own rendition, briefly getting in the way of the original’s progress before Young’s version followed and established itself.
It didn’t stop the song. If anything, the various versions helped demonstrate just how strong the underlying composition was.
We’ve seen similar situations elsewhere in pop history. A few months later, The Jacksons became involved in their own version of a chart battle surrounding Blame It on the Boogie.
That particular “battle of the boogie” ultimately helped spread the song rather than destroy it. Competition between versions can sometimes have the strangest consequences.
For John Paul Young, who was born in Scotland but raised in Australia, Love Is in the Air ultimately didn’t just climb the charts. In 2012, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his services to the performing arts. There is no way this would have happened without his hit.
John Paul Young: One Song Can Change Everything
John Paul Young’s career is a great reminder that musicians don’t get to choose which song becomes the big one. You can release album after album, write dozens of songs and build a solid career—and then one tune can suddenly take on a life of its own.
For Young, that song was Love Is in the Air. It changed his career, travelled around the world and eventually became one of those songs that musicians are expected to know.
That’s not a bad legacy for a so-called one-hit wonder. Sometimes, you only need one great tune.
John Paul Young Tunes | Related Pages
Love Is In The Air | Chords + TAB
You can learn how to play Love Is In The Air by John Paul Young using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| C | C C6 | Fmaj7 | Fmaj7 |
Love is in the air, everywhere I look around…
John Paul Young on the web
