Is Stealers Wheel a One Hit Wonder?

The Hero Song

Stuck In The Middle With You

942,804,187 streams

ONE HIT WONDER

Yes. By the streaming numbers, Stealers Wheel is a one hit wonder. "Stuck In The Middle With You" has 942,804,187 streams, against 5,287,153 for their next biggest song "Late Again", a ratio of 178.3x. JustOneHit certifies an artist as a one hit wonder when that ratio is 5.0 or higher.

Ratio

178.3x

Hit Streams

942.8M

Verdict

Certified One Hit Wonder

One Hit Wonder Meter

LEGEND
One Hit Wonder

Stealers Wheel · 178.3x ratio

Streams Comparison

Stuck In The Middle With You 942,804,187
Late Again 5,287,153
Star 3,976,708
I Get By 1,610,240
You Put Something Better Inside Me 1,087,673
Another Meaning 996,787
Gets So Lonely 784,984

Other Songs

Tracks 2–10 by streams

2. Late Again 5,287,153
3. Star 3,976,708
4. I Get By 1,610,240
5. You Put Something Better Inside Me 1,087,673
6. Another Meaning 996,787
7. Gets So Lonely 784,984

The Story

Stealers Wheel were a Scottish folk-rock band, built around Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan, who made one wry, shuffling classic that has long outlived the group. "Stuck in the Middle with You", released in 1972, was a knowing, Dylan-esque singalong, and its easy charm made it a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

The band were short-lived and fractious, and they never matched that breakthrough before splitting. Rafferty went on to solo success with "Baker Street", but under the Stealers Wheel name, "Stuck in the Middle with You" is the whole story.

The song found a vivid second life decades later when Quentin Tarantino used it, unforgettably, in a notorious scene in his 1992 film Reservoir Dogs, fixing it permanently in pop culture. On streaming it sits near 901 million plays, while their next genuinely different track trails far below. That sends the ratio above 30, many times our 5.0 line.

By our measure Stealers Wheel are a certified one-hit wonder, with the streaming-era caveat for an act of their vintage. One sardonic 70s singalong, lifted back into the spotlight by a film director's ear, has comfortably outlasted everything else the band recorded.

Sources

By The JustOneHit Editorial Team Last updated 23 May 2026