Nu Shooz were an American band from Portland, Oregon, built around the duo of John Smith and Valerie Day, who scored one bright, funky hit in the mid-1980s. "I Can't Wait", released in 1986, is a snappy slice of dance-pop and R&B with a memorable stuttering hook, and it became a top-five hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 and an international success.
The band were unable to follow it with another hit on the same scale, and to the wider world they are defined by that one infectious single.
On streaming, "I Can't Wait" sits near 55 million plays, while their next most-streamed track trails at around seven million. That puts the ratio above 7, past our 5.0 line.
By our measure Nu Shooz are a certified one-hit wonder. Theirs is a classic mid-80s story: a band who caught the bright, danceable spirit of the moment with one snappy, soulful single that became a chart staple, then watched the wider audience move on, leaving that single infectious hit standing far ahead of everything else they recorded. Its stuttering hook and brassy groove still capture the exact feel of mid-80s pop-soul, keeping the song alive long after the rest of their catalogue faded.