The La's were an English band from Liverpool, led by the famously perfectionist Lee Mavers, whose influence on Britpop and jangle-pop far outstrips their tiny output. They released just one self-titled album, and from it came one perfect, chiming song. "There She Goes", with its cascading guitar riff and yearning melody, has become an indie standard, covered widely and used endlessly on screen.
Mavers's relentless dissatisfaction meant the band never released a follow-up album, so their recorded legacy is small, but their reputation among musicians is enormous. To the wider world, though, they are entirely defined by that one song.
On streaming, "There She Goes" sits near 504 million plays, while their next track trails at around 11 million. That sends the ratio above 45, many times our 5.0 line.
By our measure The La's are a certified one-hit wonder, and an unusually influential one. Their catalogue, on the numbers, is essentially a single jangling classic, a song so perfectly formed that it inspired a generation of bands while its creators, by choice as much as circumstance, never gave it a companion.