Alannah Myles is a Canadian rock singer whose career crested with one sultry, blues-tinged single. "Black Velvet", released in 1989 and a hit into 1990, was a slow-burning tribute to the spirit of Elvis Presley, and its smoky groove carried it to number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 and earned Myles a Grammy.
She kept recording afterward and remained a respected name in Canadian music, but no later song approached that breakthrough. "Black Velvet" has proved durable in a way most hits never manage, covered by other artists and revived on screen across the decades since.
On streaming, "Black Velvet" sits near 416 million plays, while her next most-streamed track trails at around 12 million. That puts the ratio near 34, far past our 5.0 line.
By our measure Alannah Myles is a certified one-hit wonder. A Grammy-winning number one is a high bar that most artists never clear at all, and yet, on the numbers, it has become the single song that defines her, with the rest of the catalogue resting quietly in its shadow. Few one-hit wonders, though, can say their one hit was a Grammy-winning number one.