Yes, "novelty" is something we have a feel for but can't necessarily define. Family resemblance: not every novelty has the features of *all* novelties. Rolf Harris had only one hit in the U.S. but a lot in Britain, right? But I had the impression that everything he did was a novelty. Ray Stevens, who did "Ahab the Arab" and "The Streak" only hit with novelties early on but then he became a somewhat serious country singer. Shel Silverstein would write novelty songs - Dr. Hook had a couple of hits with his material - but also wrote serious tracks, "One's On The Way" for Loretta Lynn and "The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan" for Marianne Faithfull.