Macy Gray has one of the most distinctive voices in modern soul, a cracked, raspy instrument you recognise in a second. It carried "I Try", her 1999 breakthrough from the album On How Life Is, to the top five of the US charts and to a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 2001.
Gray has stayed busy ever since, releasing many albums, collaborating widely, and acting on screen. But "I Try" remains the song the wider world knows, and the streaming numbers show just how far ahead it sits.
On streaming, "I Try" has gathered near 473 million plays, while her next most-streamed track, a collaboration with Erykah Badu, trails at around 30 million. The ratio lands near 15, comfortably past our 5.0 line.
By our measure Macy Gray is a certified one-hit wonder, which sits oddly next to a career as long and varied as hers. It is a reminder that the label is about streaming shape, not output. Plenty of working, respected artists have a single song the public keeps returning to far more than any other.