Ah, the one hit wonder - such an interesting phenomena. The category is comprised of major bands where only one single hit the Top 40 (such as Roxy Music), talented underappreciated artists who never quite caught on (Marshall Crenshaw), and acts who just caught lightning in a bottle (T'Pau).
Hipsway is mostly the latter, but there was definitely talent in the band, as well. The group formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 1984 and was led by Johnny McElhone (fomerly of Altered Images) on bass. Singer Grahame Skinner, guitarist Pim Jones, and drummer Harry Travers rounded out the lineup.
The group's self-titled debut album came out in 1986, and had a seriously catchy song on it, "The Honeythief," which became a hit. Interestingly, "The Honeythief" was the third single released from the LP, which is kind of hard to understand. At any rate, the song reached #19 in the U.S. and #17 in the UK, and helped the album to chart, too (#55 U.S., #42 UK).
Unfortunately, follow up success was elusive, thought Hipsway did have a few charting songs in the UK. However, after the poor performance of their second LP (1989's Scratch the Surface), they broke up. Noteably, Johnny McElhone would go on to have continued success in the UK with his next band, Texas (a definite candidate to show up on this blog down the line).
Hipswap did re-form in 2016, and even released a new album in 2018.
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