Top Songs of 1996 (Using Top 20 Points)

[DuckHead]

Radio & Records Top 20 Top Songs of 1996

This chart is made using Top 20 inverse points. A song's entire chart run is used, and the song is placed in the year that it peaked.

Tiebreakers:

1. Most Weeks at # 1
2. Most Weeks in Top 2
3. Most Weeks in Top 3
4. Most Weeks in Top 4
5. Etc.

(Points/Weeks/Peak)

The Top 50 Songs of 1996

1. Don't Speak- No Doubt (437/27/1)
2. I Love You Always Forever- Donna Lewis (430/26/1)
3. Give Me One Reason- Tracy Chapman (353/24/1)
4. You Learn- Alanis Morissette (346/23/1)
5. Missing- Everything But The Girl (345/25/1)
6. Nobody Knows- Tony Rich Project (342/24/1)
7. Don't Let Go (Love)- En Vogue (340/28/2)
8. Ironic- Alanis Morissette (326/22/1)
9. Because You Loved Me- Celine Dion (324/21/1)
10. Mouth- Merril Bainbridge (302/21/2)
11. It's All Coming Back To Me Now- Celine Dion (290/20/2)
12. Always Be My Baby- Mariah Carey (286/19/2)
13. Head Over Feet- Alanis Morissette (279/19/1)
14. Change The World- Eric Clapton (274/21/2)
15. Killing Me Softly- Fugees (251/16/1)
16. Who Will Save Your Soul?- Jewel (248/20/3)
17. Counting Blue Cars- Dishwalla (243/21/4)
18. Where Do You Go?- No Mercy (240/20/3)
19. Twisted- Keith Sweat (216/19/5)
20. If It Makes You Happy- Sheryl Crow (213/19/3)
21. One Of Us- Joan Osborne (197/16/3)
22. Follow You Down- Gin Blossoms (195/18/5)
23. You're Makin' Me High- Toni Braxton (186/23/5)
24. Wonder- Natalie Merchant (185/17/4)
25. Time- Hootie & The Blowfish (179/17/4)
26. Sweet Dreams- La Bouche (179/18/5)
27. Be My Lover- La Bouche (173/17/4)
28. The Earth, The Sun, The Rain- Color Me Badd (168/19/4)
29. Old Man & Me- Hootie & The Blowfish (161/13/5)
30. The World I Know- Collective Soul (159/20/8)
31. Everything Falls Apart- Dog's Eye View (152/15/7)
32. Jealousy- Natalie Merchant (151/15/5)
33. C'mon N' Ride It (The Train)- Quad City DJ's (146/17/7)
34. Closer To Free- Bodeans (142/15/6)
35. Exhale (Shoop Shoop)- Whitney Houston (142/13/6)
36. Insensitive- Jann Arden (142/24/12)
37. When You Love A Woman- Journey (135/13/7)
38. Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)- Los Del Rio (124/15/10)
39. Hook- Blues Traveler (117/14/8)
40. Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth...- Primitive Radio Gods (116/12/7)
41. Forever- Mariah Carey (102/10/6)
42. Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First)- John Mellencamp (101/13/9)
43. 1979- Smashing Pumpkins (85/16/9)
44. Wonderwall- Oasis (79/11/9)
45. Sittin' Up In My Room- Brandy (75/12/11)
46. Tucker's Town- Hootie & The Blowfish (71/9/9)
47. Fly Like An Eagle- Seal (70/8/10)
48. Don't Cry- Seal (69/9/12)
49. Champagne Supernova- Oasis (63/9/9)
50. Spiderwebs- No Doubt (63/10/11)

The Complete Chart

51. This Is Your Night- Amber (63/12/13)
52. Big Me- Foo Fighters (59/8/10)
53. Fastlove- George Michael (55/7/10)
54. Just Between You And Me- DC Talk (53/8/12)
55. I Want To Come Over- Melissa Etheridge (51/10/14)
56. Theme From 'Mission: Impossible'- Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen (41/5/11)
57. Get Together- Big Mountain (39/6/11)
58. Free To Decide- Cranberries (36/7/13)
59. Chains- Tina Arena (32/7/12)
60. 'Grease' Megamix- John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John (31/5/12)
61. That Girl- Maxi Priest f/ Shaggy (25/6/15)
62. Fallin' In Love- La Bouche (23/6/16)
63. My Boo- Ghost Town DJ's (15/4/16)
64. Children- Robert Miles (14/5/17)
65. Betcha By Golly Wow!- Prince (13/3/16)
66. Birmingham- Amanda Marshall (13/5/17)
67. Lucky Love- Ace Of Base (12/5/16)
68. I Can't Sleep Baby (If I)- R. Kelly (12/5/17)
69. Oh Virginia- Blessid Union Of Souls (12/4/17)
70. Nowhere To Go- Melissa Etheridge (9/4/17)
71. Jesus To A Child- George Michael (9/4/18)
72. Angeline Is Coming Home- Badlees (7/3/18)
73. Only Love- Sophie B. Hawkins (5/3/19)
74. Flood- Jars Of Clay (5/4/19)
75. Tha Crossroads- Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (3/2/19)
76. Your Loving Arms- Billie Ray Martin (2/1/19)
77A. All Along- Blessid Union Of Souls (1/1/20)
77B. Anything- 3T (1/1/20)
77C. Let's Make A Night To Remember- Bryan Adams (1/1/20)
77D. Tell Me- Groove Theory (1/1/20)

[af18c]

96 was a great music year!...look at the top 2 songs!

I didnt know "Dont Let Go (Love)" was that big of a hit on pop. I knew it was big, but i thought year end top 20 big...

[Hervard]

af18c said:

96 was a great music year!...look at the top 2 songs!

I'd rather not look at the number two song, thank you very much!
At least on this chart, "Don't Speak" kept that revolting song from being the top song of the year. It didn't even make number one for 1996 on R&R's chart, since it came too late in the year to accumulate too many points. Unfortunately, it was #1 on the Top 40 of the 1990s chart, though.

[Keith3000]

Great #1 song, though it's kinda surprising it would do so well for the '96 chart, considering most of the time it was #1 was in '97.

[DuckHead]

Keith3000 said:

Great #1 song, though it's kinda surprising it would do so well for the '96 chart, considering most of the time it was #1 was in '97.

I used the song's whole chart run, including the weeks from 1997, and used them for this 1996 chart.

[insect2]

DuckHead said:

I used the song's whole chart run, including the weeks from 1997, and used them for this 1996 chart.

How many weeks at #1 did No Doubt spend in '96?

[Matt4319]

It hit #1 on 12/6/96 and was on top for 9 weeks, so I suppose it would be #1 for 12/6/96, 12/13/96, 1/3/97, 1/10/97, 1/17/97, 1/24/97, 1/31/97, 2/7/97, and 2/14/97. Unless there was only a one-week break in '96, in which case you would take off 2/14/97 and add either 12/20/96 or 12/27/96.

[DuckHead]

Matt4319 said:

It hit #1 on 12/6/96 and was on top for 9 weeks, so I suppose it would be #1 for 12/6/96, 12/13/96, 1/3/97, 1/10/97, 1/17/97, 1/24/97, 1/31/97, 2/7/97, and 2/14/97. Unless there was only a one-week break in '96, in which case you would take off 2/14/97 and add either 12/20/96 or 12/27/96.

That's right, except for switch 1/3/97 with 12/20/96. The two-week break occured on 12/27 and 1/3.

[Chromeozone]

Gosh, 1996 was such a great year for music. All of the songs in the Top 10 here are good.

We need return to the quality of the mid-90s fast. I can't take all of this crap nowadays (now i think over 30% of my personal chart is Britpop- maybe more than that, sad, considering i never hear it on the radio and only hear it on mp3 play)

[Hervard]

IshOnTheRadio said:

Gosh, 1996 was such a great year for music. All of the songs in the Top 10 here are good.

We need return to the quality of the mid-90s fast. I can't take all of this crap nowadays (now i think over 30% of my personal chart is Britpop- maybe more than that, sad, considering i never hear it on the radio and only hear it on mp3 play)

David, I agree with what you said 100%. There may have been a few crappy songs in 1996, but then again, what year doesn't have a song or two like that. This hip-hop infestation of the chart is really getting out of hand. I'm not sure whether or not that's what you're talking about (as there's a lot of Alternative rock on the chart as well, but I don't mind that as much), but Pop music of the mid-1990s is much better. Many of the songs that charted low in 1996 I never heard, since WNDV was running that totally inconsistent Hot AC version of Rick Dees and instead of hearing songs that probably would have been great, we were subjected to boring songs like "Change The World" and "Give Me One Reason" for about a half a year. But, as I said, I just don't like those songs because they were overplayed, but I liked them when they first came out - the quality of music was far superior to songs like "In Da Club", "Bump Bump Bump", "Air Force Ones" and such, all of which I didn't like in the first place.

[Ragin]

This year was pretty good too, but I liked 1997 better.

[j]

I like everything in the Top 17.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

ulij20 said:

This hip-hop infestation of the chart is really getting out of hand.

To be fair, I don't think Hip-Hop is as prominent now as it was a year ago. Right now is almost a perfect mix of all kinds of music. As much as I really love the music of 1996, I do think that the charts back then weren't fair to Hip-Hop and Urban artists in that the only Urban #1 on R&R Pop from when I started following the chart in 95 until the real takeover in approx. 2000 was the Fugees 'Killing Me Softly'. I'd like a fair compromise between all formats to have a hip-hop/rap song go to #1 and be followed by a light rock song and be followed by a straight-up pop song and then an alternative song at #1.

However, as far as quality goes. Bring back 1996!