What band did you hear one song of, check the rest of their music, and find it was a one-off and none of their other music sounds like that?

Steal My Sunshine by LEN disappointed so many people. It’s a bubbly pop song with a hit-making chorus that saw tons of radio play in the 90’s.

The rest of their album is funky hip hop. I feel the opposite though; their hit single was shit and the rest of the album is amazing.

None of their other albums or songs came close to repeating that magic though.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949). The opening ("Sunrise") of Also sprach Zarathustra is an absolute Classic. Even if you are not into classical music, you have probably heard it somewhere.

But only the opening piece is worth listening to, the other eight pieces of Also Sprach Zarathustra are mediocre at best.

Butthole surfers - Pepper

I seem to remember that phenomenon quite a bit in the late 80's/early 90's. Many of my memories from that time are mostly lost to time, I do remember specifically just buying singles for Top 40's as I knew everything else was going to be crap. (MC Hammer comes to mind, but there were many more around that period.)

Ain't No Rest For The Wicked by Cage The Elephant

@felixwhynot

Digital Underground "The Humpty Dance" - the rest of the album Sex Packets is interesting, but very different

the obvious answer, Sugar Ray's ablum Floored. Everyone bought it for Fly, everyone then found out that was the ONLY song on the album that was a catchy pop song. rest of it was like Metal/Nu-Metal. Of course the album sold like hot cakes purely for the song and thus Sugar Ray went from a nu-metalish band to pop.

Sticking with the 90s...I imagine a lot of folks picked up the New Radicals Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too after hearing "Get What You Give" and we're terribly confused and disappointed that it wasn't all up beat, feel good pop songs.

If they stuck with it, they would have found an intelligent and challenging pop album that is still a standout.

Which is all a little bit the opposite side of what you asked. But still.

@felixwhynot Big Sugar

@felixwhynot

The The "Infected"

Anyone who ever buys a Melvins album expecting ~12 tracks of riff-heavy, uptempo shredding, unless your first Melvins record was "A Senile Animal" and you just got lucky.

The entire band's sound can't be Honey Bucket, no, and you wouldn't want it to be, but they usually get back to it eventually. "Working With God" had some really doomy stuff.

Portishead - I remember listening to Glory Box and it was so cool I downloaded the whole album to check the band out.. I felt kinda disappointed with the other songs..not garbage, but not quite as good as glory box.

Not a band but Oliver Francis’ “Dead or Alive Freestyle” is hilarious and a banger, but the rest of his songs kinda fall flat for me.

This instrumental song, one of the last songs Kent ever did, which was the first song of theirs I've heard and the only one of theirs I really like.

I've Been Around Too Long by Marmalade.

https://youtu.be/MNqHE1sPiKI

Uneven Structure - 8

Damn that so g slaps.

Sidi Ifni - Cracker

If you dig that Suburban Legends song, maybe check out the band TWRP. Might dig it.

I answered your actual question in the original post.

I believe the first time, it would have been somewhere in the 3 metre band......

25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago. The rest of their catalog is utter garbage, but 25 or 6 to 4 is an absolute banger