Martika is an American singer and former child actress who scored one haunting, chart-topping hit at the end of the 1980s. "Toy Soldiers", released in 1989, is a dramatic, anthemic pop ballad about addiction, built around a children's-choir chorus, and it reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming her signature song.
She had another notable hit, the Prince-penned "Love...Thy Will Be Done", but the wider audience faded after that, and "Toy Soldiers" remained her defining record, reintroduced to a new generation when Eminem sampled it for his own hit "Like Toy Soldiers".
On streaming, "Toy Soldiers" sits near 86 million plays, while her next most-streamed track trails at around ten million. That sends the ratio above 8, past our 5.0 line.
By our measure Martika is a certified one-hit wonder, with the small caveat that she had a second hit and a lasting afterlife through sampling. It is simply that one dramatic, choir-backed ballad became her defining moment, a song that has echoed down the years through Eminem's hit and stands far ahead of everything else she recorded. Its children's-choir refrain remains instantly recognisable, carried to new generations by that famous sample long after her own chart days had passed.