The nine UK singles that outsold ‘Wonderwall’ in 1995
With the Oasis reunion tour effectively minting 1995 as retrospectively the “best year ever,” it’s probably worth subjecting our collective, rose-coloured nostalgia to a bit of a reality check.
Whether you were part of the record-buying public in the ‘90s or not, you probably think of 1995 as the peak of Britpop, when the whole country was caught up in the wave of anthemic guitar rock hysteria, culminating in the Oasis vs. Blur showdown on August 20th, 1995, aka “The Battle of Britpop.”
Blur famously won the battle that day, as the ‘Country House’ single edged out ‘Roll With It’ on the charts. What we’re less likely to remember is that, by the end of the year, ‘Country House’ didn’t even finish among the Top Ten best-selling singles in the UK. Instead, it ranked Number 12, nestled behind Boyzone’s ‘Father and Son’ and just above Shaggy’s ‘Boombastic.’
‘Roll With It’ performed no better, ultimately landing as the 21st best-selling single of ‘95, behind the likes of Rednex’s ‘Cotton Eye Joe’ and Outhere Brothers’ ‘Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle).’
But, of course, Oasis released a few other singles in 1995, and one of them was a little ditty called ‘Wonderwall’—arguably the most impactful British pop song of the decade, immortalised by legions of dorm room troubadours, hen-do karaoke troupes, and shopping mall buskers. Surely, regardless of its somewhat late October release, ‘Wonderwall’ must have been the best-selling UK single of ‘95—or else, only beaten by some song or two of equal cultural import, like Pulp’s ‘Common People’ or the first new Beatles track in 25 years, ‘Free as a Bird.’
Well, for starters, ‘Common People’ was the 37th best seller of the year, and the Beatles landed at 38, so that ought to prepare you for the harsh truth of how things actually played out.
Despite an uptick in sales around the Christmas season, ‘Wonderwall’ finished 1995 as the UK’s 10th favourite single of the year, in terms of units moved. It famously never even reached the coveted number one spot at any point, held back by Robson & Jerome’s double A-side of ‘I Believe’ and ‘Up on the Roof.’ More incredibly still, that Robson & Jerome single wasn’t even their best performer of the year. The duo’s exceedingly unnecessary cover of ‘Unchained Melody’—sung in the Righteous Brothers’ arrangement—sold more copies than any other UK record in the year of our lord 1995.
Maybe that was a head-scratching factoid you were already aware of. The enormity of the Robson & Jerome phenomenon—which is doubly perplexing from the perspective of an American like myself, who lived through the ‘90s never once hearing of the chaps—isn’t the end of the story of the ‘Wonderwall’ reality check. In total, nine songs outsold the Oasis classic in ‘95, with the two R&J tracks (ranked 1st and 3rd respectively) joined by Michael Jackson’s ‘You Are Not Alone’ (9th) and ‘Earth Song’ (6th), Everything But the Girl’s ‘Missing’ (8th), Simply Red’s ‘Fairground’ (7th), Celine Dion’s ‘Think Twice’ (5th), Take That’s ‘Back For Good (4th), and, of course, Coolio’s ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ at number two.
If you thought things would go any differently the following year when Oasis’s equally beloved ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ was on the board, no such luck. It was the number 11 seller of 1996, bested by three Spice Girls songs and Peter Andre’s ‘Mysterious Girl.’ What a golden age!
