10 Greatest UK No.1 Singles Of The 1990s
Which chart-toppers were top notch in the 1990s?
Ah, the 90s.
A decade of bad sweaters, Britpop, and Boris Yeltsin. Political Correctness had yet to go mad and people had forgotten everything they learned in the 80s about style.
As for the music, well, that was something else.
New genres were emerging, old ones were resurging and Cliff Richard was, somehow, still going. Don't worry, there's no Cliff on this list. We're not monsters.
As the charts in Britain became more diverse, indie bands and boys from the North with bad hair were suddenly Platinum-selling artists with numerous number ones under their belt.
The following ten tracks all topped the UK charts during the 1990s and, for our money, they're the best the decade had to offer. Some are upbeat rock classics, some are weepy ballads, and some have gone onto become pop music standards.
Grab your skateboards and put on an episode of Dawson's Creek, cos we're heading back to the 90s.
God help us all.
10. No Doubt - Don't Speak
It's been twenty years, but we still can't believe that Gwen Stefani used to be in a ska punk band.
No Doubt were formed in 1986 by Stefani and her brother, Eric. After initially struggling for success, the band hit it big with their third studio album, Tragic Kingdom.
Singles from this album included singles "Just A Girl" and "Spiderwebs", both of which were UK top twenty hits, but it would be the album's third single that finally put No Doubt at the top of the mountain.
"Don't Speak" was as angsty as the nineties itself - starting off slow before plunging into an emotional chorus about an unspoken truth that would rip the protagonist apart if they were to ever hear it.
Stefani's excellent vocals and the song's interesting instrumentation set it out from the crowd when it eventually topped the UK charts for 3 weeks in 1997. Considering it was sandwiched between a U2 track and a Spice Girls' song, you can see why teenagers were keen to give No Doubt their hard-earned pocket money.
One of the absolute quintessential nineties tunes and, with the context of Stefani's solo career, "Don't Speak" is as interesting now as it was in '97.