10 Best Songs of the 1990s

Plenty of rankings concerning the best songs of the 1990s include many more songs than what you’ll get below, which means there is going to be a naturally high amount of disappointment and confusion. If you ranked 100 songs here, there would remain notable omissions, and if you ranked 1000, you’d still be well and truly out of “this is going to please everyone” territory.

If you had to limit yourself to 10, or 15, or 20, you’d be disappointed with your own personal omissions. It’s the nature of doing something like this. Which is all a defensive way to start, but it’s worth highlighting anyway. These are 10 especially amazing songs that came out in the 1990s, and there’s a limit of one song per artist, alongside something of an attempt to represent multiple genres. Such selections are among the greatest ‘90s songs, and maybe to the person assembling such a ranking, they are the genuine best.

10

“Bitter Sweet Symphony” (1997)

The Verve

If there’s a problem with “Bitter Sweet Symphony” that can be highlighted without sounding like you’re nitpicking, it’s that it’s a definite riff on “The Last Time,” by The Rolling Stones, and it did lead to a lawsuit that became complicated, to say the least. In 2019, the rights were reverted back to The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft. The song does do quite a lot with that sample, though, and “The Last Time” itself was inspired by a previous piece of music, too.

“Bitter Sweet Symphony” slows that repeated sample/riff down, and uses it for something more orchestral and mellow in nature. If there’s another problem with the song, that is nitpicking, it could be that “Bitter Sweet Symphony” is overplayed, which you might feel if you like – but don’t love – the song, and have subsequently heard it almost everywhere over the years. But if you’re really into what it’s laying down, it’s one of those ubiquitous hits that doesn’t really get old (and hopefully, there are more people in that camp than the “it’s overplayed” sayers of nay).

9

“Alison” (1993)

Slowdive

Souvlaki was Slowdive’s second album overall, and remains arguably the band’s best, even if Just for a Day (1991) was a strong and relatively straightforward debut, and Pygmalion (1995) was admirably experimental and out-there. Souvlaki gets the balance right, with some immediacy and then some unusual and unexpected qualities, and then it also benefits from having a fair few stand-out tracks.

“Alison” is one of them, kicking the album off incredibly, as well as being the kind of thing you can hear, and then know straight away whether the following 35-ish minutes of music will be for you. There’s a singular sort of sadness heard here, and maybe it’s made bittersweet – and a little easier to swallow – on account of “Alison” also being beautiful, and the sort of thing that’s very easy to let wash over you and/or get lost in.

8

“Heaven or Las Vegas” (1990)

Cocteau Twins

As far as the lyrics are concerned, what can be said about “Heaven or Las Vegas” is that it’s about those two places, and not much else, since “Am I just in heaven or Las Vegas” is one of the only recognizable lyrics here. The rest of the song, as is usually the case with the Cocteau Twins, doesn’t have lyrics that are in an understandable language.

Which might sound ridiculous, but it’s one of the things that makes this band distinct, and swearing off Cocteau Twins because you can’t understand the lyrics would be like dismissing the act of listening to a musician who sings in a language you don’t personally understand. They’re uniquely dreamy, and their very best songs are about as atmospheric as music gets, with “Heaven or Las Vegas” being perhaps the best single track the band ever put out.

7

“Stay Together” (1994)

Suede

“Stay Together” is an intoxicating blend of Britpop and glam rock, mostly feeling of the 1990s thanks to the former genre, though scratching the same itch as some rock music of the 1970s thanks to the latter genre. It’s also quite a melodramatic song, perhaps more so than most of Suede’s already quite dramatic music, but it also sums up what makes them special, as a band, and continually underappreciated compared to other artists associated with the whole Britpop movement/genre.

Like with a lot of songs that have edited and full-length versions, you do have to listen to the longer version of “Stay Together” to fully appreciate it. Well, one of the longer versions, since there’s a 7.5-minute-long version and one that’s closer to 8.5 minutes, both being much better than the 4.5-minute-long edit. It’s grand, sweeping, and possibly some blend of romantic and sad… it’s a bit hard to tell, but that side of the song is enigmatic in a way that really works, and adds to its overall allure.

6

“Fade Into You” (1993)

Mazzy Star

There are other Mazzy Star songs that are pretty good, but the clear stand-out in the band’s whole discography is “Fade into You.” It’s a signature song and then some, being a hit that stops Mazzy Star from being a wholly alternative or indie band, though it’s lingered and endured more than it exploded upon release, since it technically only got as high as #44 on the Billboard Hot 100, and didn’t chart higher in any other major territories.

For evidence of its endurance as an iconic song of its decade, there is the fact that “Fade into You” crossed 1 billion streams on Spotify, in late 2025, a distinction it shares with fewer than 1300 other songs, at the time of writing. The song sounds somewhat of its time, but not in an overwhelming or bad way, and it’s still undeniably touching and dreamy when listened to now, as it would’ve been more than three decades ago, back in 1993.

5

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” (1991)

Nirvana

The obligatory song, and one that some people would be mad if you didn’t include, and then there’ll also probably be some people who feel mad because it is included, since there’s an argument to be made that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is overplayed. Then again, it is “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and even Kurt Cobain had conflicted feelings about the song and its immense popularity (no version of it was performed for the live album MTV Unplugged in New York, for example).

It’s the track that best sums up grunge in a handful of minutes, for better or worse. It’s got that booming, angsty sound, it feels good to listen to loud, and it’s also incredibly cathartic. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” walks a line between feeling passionate and also apathetic, which is all very Gen X, so you can see why it became an anthem for Nirvana, the grunge genre, and for those who were young around the time the song came out.

4

“Juicy” (1994)

The Notorious B.I.G.

It’s hopefully not too controversial to suggest that “Juicy” is the best hip-hop song of the 1990s, or at least such a suggestion is less controversial than making such an argument for most other hip-hop songs of the decade. “Juicy” is the best song from Ready to Die, which is, tragically, the only studio album the Notorious B.I.G. released during his lifetime, as he was murdered shortly before the release of his second album under still-mysterious/contested circumstances.

“Juicy” is a good deal more optimistic than many of Biggie’s other, darker tracks, so it’s undeniably bittersweet to listen to, after his death, knowing the riches part of his rags-to-riches story was ultimately so short. Still, as an ode to living in the moment, and celebrating the good times while they’re still good (instead of being bitter later in life, when they’re over), “Juicy” keeps on striking a chord and resonating. You don’t even have to be a particularly huge fan of the ‘90s era of hip-hop to get something (and more likely many things) out of a song this good.

3

“Enjoy the Silence” (1990)

Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode could’ve stayed silent after 1989, and they’d still be recognized as a pioneering 1980s band, but they thankfully kept going, with what’s arguably their best album, Violator, being an early 1990s release. It’s still got its toes in the 1980s, just with things being a little darker than previous Depeche Mode albums (which is saying a fair bit, when their previous three albums all had their moodier moments/songs).

The highlight of Violator is “Enjoy the Silence,” which should’ve been one of the most popular songs of its era, but “merely” peaked in the top 10 in a few territories, like the UK. It’s still Depeche Mode’s biggest hit, and at least it’s one of those cases where the band’s debatable signature song is their best; the one that really deserves to be highlighted as a signature song, in other words (however unnecessary those words might be).

2

“1979” (1995)

The Smashing Pumpkins

If nostalgia cycles kick in about every 20 years, that makes it fitting for one of the best songs of the 1990s to reference a year from the 1970s. Granted, yes, “1979” is the tail-end of the 1970s, and “1979” was a Smashing Pumpkins song released in 1995, but it’s close enough. Billy Corgan, the song’s writer and the frontman of Smashing Pumpkins, was 12 in the titular year, and it’s easy to feel nostalgia for a time in life where one is right at the end of childhood, and right near the start of adolescence, for hopefully obvious reasons.

There’s also a sample here of Corgan maybe singing the word “today,” which is heard throughout the song, and if so, then it’s a way to tie “1979” to what might be the band’s second-best song: “Today,” from the 1993 album Siamese Dream. That one’s worth an honorable mention, and is a heavier/sadder song, while “1979” leans into naturally bittersweet, dreamy, and nostalgic territory to great effect.

1

“Hyper-Ballad” (1995)

Björk

Eh, screw it, hot take time. It’s a Björk song going here, and probably not even the most popular Björk song of the 1990s, though that might have something to do with how many great songs she released during that decade. Her dominance as an artist throughout the decade was a real quality over quantity thing, too, since she only released three studio albums in the 1990s (but they’re all classics: Debut, Post, and Homogenic).

There is something particularly sweeping and cathartic about “Hyper-Ballad,” if you’re talking individual songs by Björk that work particularly well on their own. What the song’s going for lyrically is more immediate than most songs by Björk, yet there are a few odd lines and ways of describing relatable feelings that are very on-brand for Björk. It is a song that feels huge, moving, and undeniably of its time, while also representing the best that music could be at that time. If you only ever listen to one Björk song in your life, for whatever cursed reason, it’d be wise to make it this one.