Tears for Fears are a case where our measure and common sense pull gently against each other, and it is worth being upfront about that. The English duo, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, are rightly remembered as one of the defining acts of 1980s pop, with a run of songs that soundtracked the decade.
"Everybody Wants to Rule the World", released in 1985, is the giant. Its breezy melody and uneasy lyrics have aged beautifully, and on streaming it sits near 2.5 billion plays. The thing is, they have other genuine classics: "Shout" alone has gathered hundreds of millions of streams.
Even so, the gap is large enough to count. Dividing the hit by their second biggest song gives a ratio of about 5.53, just over our 5.0 line, so by our strict measure Tears for Fears register as a certified one-hit wonder.
We would not call them one in conversation, and neither would most people. This is exactly the kind of borderline result our threshold is meant to surface honestly: an acclaimed band with several hits whose single most-streamed song has simply pulled far enough ahead to tip the maths.