Thelma Houston is a respected American soul singer whose place on this list rests on one definitive disco recording. A gifted, long-serving vocalist, she turned a Philadelphia soul song into a dancefloor landmark with her 1976 version of "Don't Leave Me This Way", a soaring, gospel-powered performance that became a number-one hit and won her a Grammy.
Houston had a long career in soul and gospel, but no other recording approached the reach of that one electrifying disco anthem.
On streaming, "Don't Leave Me This Way" sits near 95 million plays, while her next most-streamed track trails at around seven million. That sends the ratio above 14, far past our 5.0 line.
By our measure Thelma Houston is a certified one-hit wonder, with the caveat that she is a serious, accomplished singer with a deep catalogue. The same song later became a hit again for The Communards, but Houston's blazing original remains the definitive version. It is simply that this one explosive disco record has gathered the streaming crowd far ahead of the rest of her work. Few one-hit wonders can claim a hit so definitive that later artists scored their own success simply by covering it, and on streams her original still stands far ahead.