Starland Vocal Band were an American group who recorded one of the most famous, and most knowingly suggestive, soft-pop hits of the 1970s. "Afternoon Delight", released in 1976, is a sunny, tightly harmonised song whose innocent sound belies its winking lyric, and it became a US number-one smash, even winning the band a Grammy.
The group were unable to follow it, and despite that early acclaim they faded quickly, leaving them defined entirely by their one breezy, double-entendre hit.
On streaming, "Afternoon Delight" sits near 90 million plays, while their next most-streamed track trails at well under one million. That sends the ratio above 300, one of the most extreme figures in our entire database.
By our measure Starland Vocal Band are a certified one-hit wonder of the very starkest kind. Their catalogue, on the numbers, is essentially one impossibly sunny piece of harmony pop, a song whose cheerful melody and cheeky lyric made it inescapable in its moment and a knowing cultural reference ever since, standing now almost completely alone above the rest of their work. Its winking innuendo has kept it a comedy-soundtrack favourite for decades, far better remembered than the group that recorded it.