Top 100 Songs of 1990: The Year-End Chart

“Hold On” by Wilson Phillips was the biggest hit of 1990, finishing at No. 1 on the year-end Top 100 ahead of “It Must Have Been Love” by Roxette and “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinead O'Connor. The year-end chart ranks the songs that performed best across the whole year, not just in a single week.

16 acts placed more than one song on the list, led by Janet Jackson (5), Phil Collins (4), Michael Bolton (3), Taylor Dayne (3), Wilson Phillips (2). 1 of the 100 were holdovers from the 1989 list, so 99 songs were new to the year-end chart.

The 1990s: the sound of the era

R&B and hip-hop became central to the pop charts in the 1990s, alongside dance-pop, grunge-era rock and, by the end of the decade, a new wave of teen pop. Changes to how the charts counted sales and airplay in 1991 made the year-end lists more closely reflect what people actually bought and heard.

Born in 1972? This was the year you turned 18. Tune the mixer to your year, or try today’s Name That Year game.

The full 1990 year-end Top 100

Source: Billboard’s year-end singles chart, as compiled on Wikipedia. Hey DJ 4U is an independent site, not affiliated with Billboard. ▶ plays the song in Hey DJ 4U; ♪ searches for it on Apple Music. Spotted an error? Tell us.