No-one has ever suggested that building a durable recording career is a piece of cake. But recent research has shown that reaching the charts and then staying there is very difficult indeed.

As Digital Music News reports, academic investigation has demonstrated that 47.5% of all songs ever to appear on the US Billboard Charts came from artists who went on to never chart again. University Of Colorado Denver assistant professor (and, we’re guessing from the name, retired superhero) Storm Gloor looked at data from charts ranging from 1955 through to 2005.

Gloor’s findings show that of the 5,745 artists who clocked up hits for the first time, 2,732 weren’t heard from again. Interestingly, the percentage of one-hit wonders is pretty regular year-by-year. 1998 – the year of Cleopatra, K.P. and Envyi, and Tatyana Ali‘s ‘Daydreamin” – is statistically the year with the most meagre return rate.