Chris Rainbow never appeared on a Billboard chart during his lifetime as a solo artist and didn’t make much impact in the U.S. with his own releases. But more than a decade after his death, he makes his debut on the Billboard Hot 100 with a nearly 50-year-old deep-cut, “Be Like a Woman.”
Released on his lone solo studio album, White Trails, in 1979, the song enters at No. 94 led by 3.4 million official U.S. streams earned in the April 3-9 tracking week, according to Luminate.
A Scottish, prog-leaning pop-rock artist, Rainbow is perhaps best known in the U.S. for his long association with ‘70s and ‘80s hitmaking band the Alan Parsons Project. While he never scored a solo hit stateside, “Be Like a Woman” has recently surged thanks to TikTok and other short-form video platforms, where its retro chillwave-adjacent sound has become a go-to backdrop for a wide range of content. One trend finds users posting photos of used glasses or candles, each overlaid with phrases describing things that they enthusiastically consume.
Billboard first noted the song’s viral momentum in March, after its weekly official on-demand U.S. streams had climbed from 18,000 in November to 66,000 in the final full chart week of 2025. The track then exploded early this year to 2.5 million in the Feb. 20-26 tracking week — a 13,538% increase from three months earlier.
Those gains helped the song debut on at No. 22 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart dated March 7, marking the first-ever Billboard chart appearance for Rainbow on his own. It has charted every week since and currently places at No. 19.
The artist, born Christopher James Harley, died in 2015 at age 68 from Parkinson’s disease. In addition to his work with the Alan Parsons Project, he also contributed to recordings by Camel and the Alan Parsons-affiliated act the Wild Bunch.
The Alan Parsons Project charted 17 songs on the Hot 100 in the ‘70s and ‘80s, including eight top 40 hits and one top 10: “Eye In the Sky,” which reached No. 3 in 1982. Rainbow sang backing vocals on the track.
After his death in 2015, Parsons released a statement calling Rainbow “an amazing talent and an integral part of The Project sound,” adding that bandmate Eric Woolfson “and I used to call him the ‘One Man Beach Boys’.”
