Mountain were an American hard-rock band, built around the powerhouse guitarist Leslie West, who left a permanent mark on rock with one thunderous song. "Mississippi Queen", released in 1970 and announced by a cowbell count-in, is a heavy, riff-driven anthem that became a cornerstone of hard rock and a staple of classic-rock radio and guitar lessons ever since.
The band were respected players of the era, with a place in the early heavy-rock story, but no other song of theirs reached anything like the same audience.
On streaming, "Mississippi Queen" sits near 296 million plays, while their next most-streamed track trails at under five million. That sends the ratio above 60, far past our 5.0 line.
By our measure Mountain are a certified one-hit wonder, with the caveat that they were a genuinely influential hard-rock band admired by musicians. It is simply that one cowbell-driven anthem became so much larger than the rest of their work, a song every aspiring guitarist learns to play, that on streams it now stands almost completely alone above their catalogue. Its riff and famous cowbell have outlived the band itself, passed down through generations of rock fans who may never know another Mountain song.