The 50 Best Singles Of The Nineties (Part 1: #50-#21)
There are but four short months until we all officially have to stop glorifying the Eighties and start reminiscing fondly about the Nineties.
I thought I would pre-empt the rush.
50. Wilson Phillips, Hold On, 1990
A key exhibit in my theory that the best harmonies in pop are provided by families. The trio’s first and – by a country mile – best single, Hold On made number 6 in the UK charts in spring of 1990, simultaneously topping the Billboard Hot 100. Hampered somewhat by the ‘kitchen sink’ production and arrangement excesses of late 80s power balladry – I’m surprised Coke didn’t purloin the record for an ad campaign – the single nevertheless showcased an irresistible vocal performance.
49. Chris Isaak, Wicked Game, 1990
The only thing to emerge with much credit from David Lynch’s horrifyingly bad 1990 movie Wild At Heart was Wicked Game. A dreamy, slide guitar-driven charting of the territories of love and hate, Isaak’s self-penned first UK hit (#10 at the tail end of 1990) and only US hit (#6 in January 1991) has since been recycled by dozens of TV dramas. Isaak never sounded better, nor any more like Roy Orbison.
What a wicked game to play,
To make me feel this way…
What a wicked thing to do;
To make me dream of you.
Beautiful. And the video wasn’t too bad, either, as I recall…
48. All Saints, Never Ever, 1997
Initially I dismissed All Saints: their first hit, I Know Where It’s At, suggested they could be safely labelled as wannabe Spice Girls and ignored accordingly. Then, after a flop second single, they released Never Ever. Co-written by the vastly-underestimated Shaznay Lewis about a broken relationship, the song borrows heavily from the hymn Amazing Grace and burrows deep into the listener’s subconscious as a result. Great in every respect, this UK number one in January 1998 reached #4 on the Hot 100 the summer of the same year.
47. The Cranberries, Linger, 1993
For a short while I was in love with Dolores O’Riordan solely on the strength of her accent on this record. The line, “You know, I’m such a fool for you,” teeters right on the edge of being a full blown SMIP while, “If you could get by trying not to lie, things wouldn’t be so confused,” is a simply sublime summary of lost first love. Produced by Stephen Street, I’ve just realised this is another record featuring prominent slide guitar. Is a theme developing? The song reached only number 14 in the UK in early 1994, but cracked the top ten in the States, cresting at #8 that spring. Sadly it was downhill all the way thereafter for this band.
46. The Source featuring Candi Staton, You Got The Love, 1991
A record that won’t die: a hit in 1991 (#4), 1996-1997 (#3) and 2006 (#7), it’s sure to be round again soon (in fact, it was a minor hit for Florence & The Machine earlier this year). I don’t do dance music. I don’t do God. But this – initially a bootleg combining Frankie Knuckles/Jamie Principle’s “Your Love” with a previously unreleased Candi Staton vocal – is just a cracking record.
45. White Town, Your Woman, 1997
Almost inexplicable. Not got a clue what it’s about, not got a clue how it charted (let alone made number one). This is why pop music is so fascinating: nothing about this record works in theory and yet it’s a genuinely superb aural confection. White Town was and is a one-man band, that man being Jyoti Mishra, and never bothered the charts before or after this record topped the charts in February 1997. Even Mishra seems unsure what Your Woman is about:
“The lyrics could mean Being a member of an orthodox Trotskyist/Marxist movement (as I was for three years in the 80s). Being a straight guy in love with a lesbian (ditto). Being a gay guy in love with a straight man (not tried this one yet). Being a straight girl in love with a lying, two-timing, fake-ass Marxist. The hypocrisy that results when love and lust get mixed up with highbrow ideals…”
Forgive the Spanish subtitles:
44. Sleeper, Sale Of The Century, 1996
I will not stand for the orthodox view that Sleeper should be derided as second-tier Britpop chancers: that’s bullshit. Sleeper produced half-a-dozen really good singles. Some were brilliant pop records and we will encounter Louise and her Sleeperblokes more than once more as we ascend this chart. Sale Of The Century was the second single from the band’s second album, The It Girl, and made number 10 in May 1996. Wener was one of the best lyricists in Britpop, as evidenced by a prime example from this song’s bridge – “It’s been too long so it can’t just be something we ate/ I knew we’d go far ‘cos we both share the people we hate.” Great for bouncing around to (and Louise was very good at bouncing around). And that’s pretty much what perfect pop is all about.
43. Blur, Tender, 1999
When Blur reformed earlier this year, the song that dominated their Glastonbury set was not Girls And Boys or Parklife, but Tender. When the band ended their rendition, the crowd carried on singing the chorus of Albarn’s (and Coxon’s) anti-paean to his relationship with Justine Frischmann. It was a fitting tribute to one of the best singles of the decade, kept from the chart summit in March 1999 only by the pop genius that is …Baby One More Time.
42. Pulp, Something Changed, 1996
Pulp’s Mercury Prize-winning album Different Class was so strong that Something Changed, it’s fifth single, still cracked the Top Ten when it was released in April 1996. Frankly, it’s only this low on the list because probity means I had to spread out the Pulp tracks. Underscored by a quintessentially understated Anne Dudley orchestration, Something Changed is an atypical Pulp record for the reason that it’s a simple, straightforward love song. No stickiness, no perversion, no dark recesses, no side, no sneering – just a lovely song about love and fate.
41. Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit, 1991
I never bought into Nirvana but nor can I fail to acknowledge a record this compelling. Like a number of tracks on this list, its impact has been slightly dulled by overexposure since its release but its guitar and drums introduction remains one of the most powerful in pop. Cobain’s primal scream never sounded better. Smells Like Teen Spirit made #7 in the UK and #6 on the Hot 100 in late 1991.
40. Oasis, Live Forever, 1994
Whatever may have happened after 1996, Oasis were a genuinely great band for the three years leading up to the point when Herculean substance ingestion disastrously skewed Noel’s perception of reality. To some, Oasis may have been little more than a cover band devoted to the Beatles’ 1966 catalogue, but a string of fantastic singles from Definitely Maybe and (What’s The Story) Morning Glory mean that Noel Gallagher has to be recognised as a genuinely gifted writer (and a genuinely funny bloke). Live Forever was Gallagher’s conscious response to the miserablism of grunge:
“It was written in the middle of grunge and all that, and I remember Nirvana had a tune called ‘I Hate Myself and I Want to Die’, and I was like: ‘Well, I’m not fucking having that.’ As much as I fucking like [Kurt Cobain] and all that shit, I’m not having that. I can’t have people like that coming over here, on smack, fucking saying that they hate themselves and they wanna die. That’s fucking rubbish. Kids don’t need to be hearing that nonsense.”
A UK #10 in the summer of 1994, Live Forever is Oasis at their peak – it’s certainly Liam’s best vocal – and it doesn’t matter one jot that Noel wrote it in part about his mam.
39. Deep Blue Something, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, 1996
It took two attempts for this record to become a hit (though some of us bought it the first time around…), but when it did – in the autumn of 1996 – it deservedly made it to the top of the UK charts and #5 in the USA. I’m a sucker for well-executed Adult Oriented Rock and this tale of a disintegrating relationship is executed brilliantly.
38. Soul Asylum, Runaway Train, 1994
Did I mention I was a sucker for well-executed Adult Oriented Rock? This Grammy-winner is so well-executed that for the few minutes it lasts it can even make me forget that Dave Pirner has had a relationship with Winona Ryder and I haven’t. Another song that needed two bites of the cherry (in Britain, at least) – the #37 showing in June 1993 became a #7 hit five months later; across the Atlantic the song reached #6. Nobody heard of Soul Asylum much after Noni dumped Dave: serves him right.
37. Madonna, Beautiful Stranger, 1999
For a couple of years at the end of the Nineties when she hooked up with producer du jour William Orbit, Madonna again became a creative hot property after a barren patch that had begun with her ill-advised decision to publish a book containing (inter alia) photographs of Vanilla Ice fingering her. This reverb-heavy Sixties pastiche, recorded for the Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me soundtrack, was never released as a single in the USA yet still made #19 in the Hot 100 in the summer of 1999 on the strength of radio airplay alone. In the UK, it made #2. Amazingly, Arthur Lee didn’t sue.
36. Gabrielle, Give Me A Little More Time, 1996
I love Gabrielle’s voice. I love Sixties soul. I love Gabrielle paying homage to Sixties soul. Ergo, I love this record almost more than words can say. Spending ten weeks in the British top 20, Give Me A Little More Time peaked at #5 in the summer of 1996.
35. Garbage, Only Happy When It Rains, 1995
The first Garbage album was excellent, and this was the best track on the first Garbage album. Queer, Stupid Girl and Milk were all great singles but this was the band’s finest moment. For those of us who sometimes struggle to get out bed thanks to dark moods, this can be quite an empowering listen. Only Happy When It Rains reached number 29 in the UK chart in September 1995 and #55 in the Billboard Hot 100 the following year, proof that the record-buying public are a bunch of tasteless pricks.
34. No Doubt, Don’t Speak, 1997
In January 1997 one of my then housemates holidayed in America and came home rhapsodizing about a song sung by a blond woman (who’s name she helpfully couldn’t remember) that she kept hearing on the radio and seeing on the TV during her trip. Six weeks later Don’t Speak hit the top of the British charts. (Don’t Speak was not issued as a single in the USA, but sat atop the Hot 100 Airplay chart for 16 weeks in late 1996 and early 1997.) Like some of Sleeper’s best tunes, Don’t Speak chronicles the demise of an intra-band relationship between singer Gwen Stefani and bassist Tony Kanal. (Useless fact: Don’t Speak was produced by Matthew Wilder, one of the ultimate one-hit wonders who inflicted the unspeakable Break My Stride on the world in 1984.)
33. The Verve, Bitter Sweet Symphony, 1997
Thinking about Bitter Sweet Symphony is yet another reason to despise the despicable Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Listening to Bitter Sweet Symphony is a much more rewarding experience. I have listened to Bitter Sweet Symphony an awful lot, as it was the most-played video on MTV Europe during the six months in which I lived in France in 1997, seemingly being rotated at least once every hour. Towards the end of that time I could watch the video and pretend to be its director, clicking my fingers where shot edits occurred. The funny thing is that I didn’t get sick of it then and I’m still not sick of this ode to ennui now. The song hit number two in the UK in June 1997 and #12 in the USA. Mick and Keef are still cunts, though. (Useless fact: Richard Ashcroft does not actually walk down a single pavement in the video. He walks down one side and then back up the other side of a road in Hoxton. My thanks to VH-1′s Pop-Up Video.)
32. Sleeper, Inbetweener, 1994
I can even forgive Dale Winton’s cameo appearance in this song’s video. A number 16 hit (the band’s first) in January 1995.
31. Republica, Ready To Go, 1997
Another track to feature prominently on MTV Europe through the spring and summer of 1997, Republica’s Ready To Go subsequently found a new life as the music to which the teams used to take the field at Sunderland’s Stadium Of Light. The single originally reached #43 in April 1996, and #13 on its re-release in February 1997. Did you notice I have a thing for bouncy-sounding guitar-driven songs featuring nubile female singers? (Just be grateful Echobelly didn’t make this list.)
30. Depeche Mode, Enjoy The Silence, 1990
In one of the rare examples of a public vote going in favour of the most deserving candidate, this song was voted Best Single of 1990 at the 1991 Brits. Successfully fusing the band’s early synth-led work with its later guitar-led releases, in rising to number six in February 1990, Enjoy The Silence became Depeche Mode’s biggest hit in six years. By making #8 on the Hot 100, the record is the band’s only American Top 10 hit. My vertigo is so acute that this promo genuinely makes me feel nauseous just looking at it:
29. New Order, Regret, 1993
The lead single from New Order’s 1993 album Republic was the band’s first release following the demise of Factory Records. that felt wrong, but the music more than made up for it. Regret reached number four in the UK in spring 1993 and #28 in the US a short while later (it would prove to be their best performing release in the States). The single was the second collaboration between the band and producer Stephen Hague (following 1987′s True Faith, also a UK #4) and featured a very memorable Top Of The Pops performance by the group. New Order and The Hoff: together at last!
28. James, Sit Down, 1991
The anthemic Sit Down spent three weeks at number two in the spring of 1991, prevented from reaching the summit by Chesney Fucking-Hawkes. Sit Down is fucking brilliant. That is all.
Interesting to see how the band and song evolved in the two years since the first release of Sit Down on Rough Trade (when it only reached #77):
27. Massive Attack, Unfinished Sympathy, 1991
This magnificent single of desolate desertion – “How can you have a day without a night? Like a soul without a mind in a body without a heart…” – is officially credited to Massive. The BBC’s pusillanimity meant that it felt it could no longer say the word “Attack” on its networks while the first Gulf War raged: stupid cunts. I have spoken before of my weakness for cellos in pop music; the swoops of the cellist’s bow in this single are simply transcendental. My tastes are too simplistic to have understood the appeal of trip-hop, but every time I hear this single I dearly wish Massive Attack had focused on songwriting rather than beat-making. The legendary one-shot video, featuring Shara Nelson wandering the streets of Los Angeles – aped in the promos for Bitter Sweet Symphony and Springsteen’s Streets Of Philadelphia – was directed by Baillie Walsh; the director of photography, John Mathieson, went on to shoot Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.
26. The La’s, There She Goes, 1990
It’s about heroin: unless and until Lee Mavers himself tells me otherwise, this song is about heroin. Mavers reportedly hated the Steve Lilywhite remix of this song that finally became a hit – at the third time of asking – in the autumn of 1990. The song made number 13 in the UK and, the next year, #49 in the States. It has since featured repeatedly in ‘best single’ polls and has been covered numerous times. It’s Byrds-like guitar hook and layered vocals would have sounded right at home on Ready, Steady, Go, yet it still sounds fresh today. It’s a serious contender for inclusion in my Perfect Pop Singles series.
25. Radiohead, Creep, 1993
Like There She Goes, Creep has become so ubiquitous that has become too easy to dismiss its quality – Radiohead themselves have all but disowned the song (though it’s surprising how often they play it live if they loathe it). I intend to write further about this record on another occasion. For now, the stats will do. Released from the band’s debut Pablo Honey album in September 1992, Creep reached number 78 in the UK charts. After becoming a hit overseas – including reaching #34 on the Hot 100 – the UK reissue made it to number 7 in 1993. In 2008 the song made #37 again, on the strength of digital downloads.
24. Kylie Minogue, Breathe, 1997
God, I love this single. I listen to this more often than most of the records above it on this chart – records that I admire more, songs that are better – because for some reason this just doesn’t get old. I think it probably has something to do with my desire to marry the singer. Her “indie” (sic) output on Deconstruction Records between 1994 and 1998 was generally superb, even if it largely struggled commercially. Her second Deconstruction album, Impossible Princess, yielded three singles, of which Breathe was the last. Peaking at number 14 in March 1998, Breathe became Minogue’s 28th consecutive Top 40 UK hit. Minogue co-wrote Breathe with former Soft Cell member Dave Ball.
Don’t blame me just because I am bored:
I’m needy, I need to taste it all.
Love it.
23. Madonna, Frozen, 1998
Where the Hell did this come from? Well, it came from William Orbit’s bag of tricks, but it came off the back of years of creative sterility from Madonna. Before Frozen, released in February 1998, Madonna hadn’t released a crucial or relevant single since 1990′s Justify My Love, despite still regularly scaling the upper reaches of the charts. For Frozen, Madonna co-opted electronica and Middle Eastern strings and percussion to her undeniable pop genius in a song she wrote with long-time collaborator Patrick Leonard, produced by the pair in conjunction with Orbit. The result was a global chart-topper; Frozen made number one in the UK in March 1998 and #2 in the States shortly thereafter.
22. Jeff Buckley, Grace, 1995
Grace is the only song in this list that did not make it to the UK Top 75 singles chart. What’s the point in buying this when you can have Robson & Jerome, eh?
Grace, the song, taken from the iconic album of the same name, is about “not feeling so bad about your own mortality when you have true love,” according to Buckley and was based on an existing instrumental track written by Buckley’s co-writer Gary Lucas. Buckley put lyrics to the track one rainy day after saying goodbye to his girlfriend at the airport:
My fading voice sings of love
But she cries to the clicking of time…
And she weeps on my arm,
Walking to the bright lights in sorrow.
You either “get” Grace – the single and the album – and submit to its charms, or you don’t. I’m very glad I do.
21. Sleeper, What Do I Do Now?, 1995
OK, I promise this is the last Sleeper on the list: the top 20 is a Sleeperbloke Free Zone. This single was Sleeper’s pinnacle. And if you don’t believe me, ask Elvis Costello why he covered it.
What Do I Do Now? was the lead single from The It Girl and reached number 14 on its release in October 1995. It was this song that perhaps most hinted towards Louise Wener’s future career as a writer. Alongside Jarvis Cocker and Damon Albarn, Wener was one of Britpop’s best lyricists, chronicling the minutiae of everyday life. The opening verse of What Do I Do Now? paints a picture of a relationship every bit as vivid as those painted by the likes of Ray Davies:
Quickly she came, dressed up for fame,
Riding her perfume downstairs.
Make up like glue, she danced round the room
To the sound of her corduroy flares.
‘Let’s go to town, taxis all round,
We could stop for a couple of beers.’
He looks at it all, stifles a yawn:
She tries not to look like she cares.
And a couplet in the final chorus is among the best lyrics penned in British pop history:
Tore up all your photos; didn’t feel too clever:
Spent the whole of Sunday sticking you together.
Wener may not have been the world’s best singer – though I saw Sleeper live when they supported Blur at Brixton Academy and she was at least the match of Albarn – and Sleeper may not have been the world’s best band, but they made a significant contribution to the mid-90s Britpop movement and left us some of its best records to treasure.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this little nostalgic romp through my 20s. The Top 20 will follow soon.
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