Rupert Holmes is a gifted and versatile writer, an accomplished playwright and author as well as a musician, but to the listening public he is the man behind one irresistibly daft story-song. "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)", released in 1979, told its tale of a bored couple rediscovering each other through a personal ad, and it became the final number-one single of the 1970s on the US Billboard Hot 100.
Holmes had a substantial career beyond it, later creating the Tony-winning musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood and writing acclaimed novels and television, but no other recording of his came close in popularity.
On streaming, "Escape" sits near 741 million plays, while his next most-streamed track, "Him", trails at around 26 million. That puts the ratio near 29, far past our 5.0 line.
By our measure Rupert Holmes is a certified one-hit wonder. It is a label that undersells a genuinely accomplished artist, which is rather the point: a single, sun-soaked novelty about cocktails has outshone a lifetime of serious creative work. There are worse epitaphs, though, than writing the song the whole world can still sing.