Between late 1979 and the end of 1989, there were nearly 500 (real) one-hit wonders of the 80s that reached the BILLBOARD Hot 100 just one time, a list that includes Soft Cell, Gary Numan, Timbuk 3, The Church, Bronski Beat, Nik Kershaw, The Buggles, The Waitresses, Ultravox and two different bands named The Silencers. Once a week or so, I’ll highlight a (real) one-hit wonder for you.
When it comes to music from Denmark, you don’t really hear about Danish acts making much noise here in America. But, it occasionally does happen. In 1997, the Bubblegum Pop band Aqua had a big Top 10 earworm with “Barbie Girl.” In 2003, the Danish Pop-Dance duo who called themselves Junior Senior had a huge European hit with the catchy “Move Your Feet” (which danced its way to a number of American commercials and on the BILLBOARD Dance chart, and quickly onto my music library as well).
The only other act from Denmark that comes to mind for me is Laid Back, a duo from Copenhagen who formed in 1979 and who have a talent for seamlessly moving from one genre to another without missing a beat, going from Electronic and Synthpop to Funk to Post-Disco to New Wave.
Laid Back is John Guldberg (vocals / guitar / bass) and Tim Stahl (vocals / keyboards / drums / bass), and they are still together after 40 years! Their debut single in 1980, “Maybe I’m Crazy,” went straight to No. 1 in their homeland of Denmark, but global success would elude them for awhile. In 1983, their second album, KEEP SMILING, was released. The first single from the album (released in advance of the record) was “Sunshine Reggae.” This time, it not only reached No. 1 in Denmark, but it also reached No. 1 in Austria and spent six weeks at No. 1 in Germany, as well as Top 10 rankings in Belgium, The Netherlands and Switzerland.
Over here in America, however, the global hit single “Sunshine Reggae” was not embraced at all. Radio and club DJs around the U.S.A. instead decided to embrace the Funk-influenced, New Wave Dance-driven B-side of “Sunshine Reggae,” “White Horse,” which led the song to be re-released as its own A-sided single in late 1983.
It didn’t take long for “White Horse” to reach No. 1 on the BILLBOARD Dance chart in February 1984, where it stayed on top for three weeks. Over on the BILLBOARD Hot 100, “White Horse” debuted at No. 85 at the end of February 1984, sandwiched between Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For A Hero” and The Romantics’ “One In A Million.” “White Horse” galloped off to a slow start, but would end up surpassing those two songs on the Hot 100 in the coming weeks.
It took “White Horse” 10 weeks of steadily climbing the BILLBOARD Hot 100 to finally reach the Top 40. The following week, it climbed a fast 10 spots to No. 27 (keeping the pace of Duran Duran’s “The Reflex”), but the next week, in mid-May 1984, it inched up just one spot to No. 26, where it stayed for a couple of weeks before falling out of the Top 40. “White Horse” spent a total of 18 weeks on the Hot 100 before falling out the end of June 1984.
Even though the 5:45 12” and 4:42 album versions (which featured the word “bitch” used about half a dozen times), were trimmed down to a clean three-and-a-half minute single edit, some cite the quick peak of “White Horse” based on the lyrics and the subject matter (which has “the white horse” and “the white pony” as references to heroin and cocaine use). ROLLING STONE once described “White Horse” as prolly “the most unconvincing anti-drug song of all-time.” And co-writer Tim Stahl once said, “Another cute anecdote about the song was when we got a letter from a little girl in Jutland [Denmark] in 1983, thanking us for making a song for her white pony.” Aaaah, youth…
Around the globe, “White Horse” reached No. 15 in the Netherlands, No. 18 in Belgium, No. 28 in Canada, No. 49 in New Zealand, and over on BILLBOARD’s R&B chart, it reached an impressive peak of No. 5. 
NERDY FUN FACT: Perhaps it was that No. 5 R&B peak that piqued Prince’s interest in the song. According to the 2017 book about Prince by author Ben Greenman, DIG IF YOU WILL THE PICTURE: FUNK, SEX, GOD, AND GENIUS IN THE MUSIC OF PRINCE, the synth line in “Erotic City” was “inspired by, if not borrowed from” “White Horse.” I never made the connection before, but I can hear it now.
Though “White Horse” was Laid Back’s only BILLBOARD Hot 100 hit, the duo remains together today and have released many albums and compilations over the years, with 2013’s UPTIMISTIC MUSIC being their most recent album. They even won the Danish equivalent of an Academy Award, a Robert, for composing the 2001 soundtrack for the film, FLYVENDE FARMOR.
I mentioned / half-joked about the word “youth” a few paragraphs ago. That term hits home for me as well. I was 17 years and two weeks old when “White Horse” was a hit here in America. It was actually the No. 1 Dance song in America on my 17th birthday. And, you know, at 17, I didn’t care or think or know anything about the song being drug-related. All I thought was that it was a cool, quirky, kick-ass, Funky-meets-New Wave Dance song that didn’t sound like anything else on the radio at the time. And, 35 years later, I still think it’s a cool, quirky, kick-ass, Funky-meets-New Wave Dance song that doesn’t sound like anything else out there, and somehow managed to be a hit for a little while…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlYJf6CJXV8
FOREVER YOUNG 