Charlene is an American singer signed to Motown who scored one lush, dramatic hit, and an unusual one at that. "I've Never Been to Me", a sweeping orchestral ballad with a famous spoken-word passage, initially flopped on its 1977 release, but a reissue in 1982 turned it into a worldwide hit, reaching the top of charts across the globe.
By the time success arrived Charlene had largely stepped away from music, and nothing else she recorded came close to the reach of that one belatedly-discovered ballad.
On streaming, "I've Never Been to Me" sits near 63 million plays, while her next most-streamed track trails at around four million. That sends the ratio above 15, far past our 5.0 line.
By our measure Charlene is a certified one-hit wonder. Hers is a singular story: a dramatic, divisive ballad that failed on first release, then found a vast audience years later on reissue, becoming a guilty-pleasure standard ever since while the rest of her catalogue slipped almost entirely from view far behind it. Few songs have travelled such an odd path from flop to belated worldwide hit, and on streams that one lavish ballad still carries her name almost single-handedly.