“Another Brick in the Wall, pt 2” was the one hit I was referring to, going to #1, although a highly edited version of “Money” was also a minor hit (#13). In the U.K., they had a couple early significant Beatlesque hits with “Arnold Layne” (#10) and “See Emily Play,” (#6) two songs which could easily have fit in with Sargeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Neither was released in the U.S.
Of course, the whole point was to note how sometimes the notion of “hit” is absurd. Pink Floyd simply didn’t release their songs as singles, as they rarely fit the singles format (2 to 4 1/2 minutes long). Instead, they were “Album-Oriented Rock,” (AOR) meaning that they were marketed in ways that fans were expected to buy the album, not just a single.
With the advent of CD singles, record companies began specific marketing album tracks to radio stations, and Pink Floyd had several radio-play hits on stations that had been considered AOR, including Learning to Fly, On the Turning Away, Take it Back, One Slip, Keep Talking and High Hopes. None of these were major hits on pop-music stations. They were not, however, marketed as singles to the public, instead to build interest in the albums, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell.
Related note: I've always considered a "One-Hit Wonder" band to have two characteristics: