What was the first number one single of the 1990s?
The 1990s was no doubt a pivotal time in the history of music, but it was also eclectic, to say the least.
On one hand, the nuclear bomb of Britpop blew up, destroying any preconditions of what rock and indie may have been before, and replacing it with that one very solid, blistering brand. On the other hand, there were the likes of Gary Barlow and Justin Timberlake, who were busting moves in precariously tight white outfits, as the height of the boyband battles rose to prominence.
All of that made for a sonic canon of a decade which very much swung between one extreme and the other, with the charts acting as the only definitive means to cut through all the noise. In this sense, the first number one of the decade is always going to set a precedent for the ten years to follow. But in the case of the ‘90s, it also signified so much more.
Yet when looking at the first year of 1990 itself, it didn’t exactly speak great volumes about putting the best foot forward. Over the course of those 12 months, 17 singles went to number one, which was particularly low by standards at the time. The decline in vinyl sales at the end of the ‘80s, and with the digital era not yet in full grasp, meant that music was in a bit of a sticky situation.
In the UK, it was New Kids on the Block who swooped in to save the day, shooting – or more like spluttering – their way to have the first chart topper of the decade with their song ‘Hangin’ Tough’, which had also reached number one in their native US when it was released there the previous summer. But despite the feat, it doesn’t exactly make as impressive reading as you’d think. With only 28,000 copies sold, ‘Hangin’ Tough’ also became the lowest-selling number one in history.
What was the first number one of the 1990s in the US?
The vinyl slump, coupled with the slog of a month that January is within the world of new music, the sights were never set all that firmly in New Kids on the Block’s favour. After a two-week stint at the top, the band slipped from chart view, being replaced for one week by ‘Tears on My Pillow’ by Kylie Minogue, followed by a massive four-week reign in the form of Sinéad O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’.
The 1990 charts in the US also started out on a similarly pretty non-effusive note, with Michael Bolton’s version of the Laura Branigan song ‘How Am I Supposed to Live Without You’ topping the charts for the first three weeks of the year. It’s fair to say that both across the pond and at home, the first number ones of the decades were no indicators of any massive greatness.
But nevertheless, it’s a lesson for us all in learning not to judge a book by its cover, because we all know how seismic the ‘90s went on to be despite its slightly faltered start. Oasis, The Backstreet Boys, Nirvana, and Whitney Houston all went on to form some of their biggest hits over the span of that decade – but New Kids on the Block was where it all began.
That was a credit to the band, who went through their first initial rupture only five years later, but still managed to pave the way for so many other boy bands who followed in their shiny footsteps. Their chart-topping success may have been lumped with a pretty sour addendum, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that they won their place, fair and square. It just spoke to the entire early ‘90s musical landscape: that until the next big thing came along, it was ‘Hangin’ Tough’.
