David Bowie reclaims third place from Elton John with his return to the charts after 6 years away. There is also a return for Frank Sinatra with his 33rd and final hit which was a double a side with "Stay" by U2 and becomes the third 50s debutant to have a hit this decade along with Cliff Richard and Nat 'King' Cole.
Madonna, Prince and UB40 join the 30+ club in terms of number of hits:
| Artist | No of Hits | New Hits | |
| 1 | Cliff Richard | 107 | Peace In Our Time, Human Work of Art, Never Let Go, Healing Love |
| 2 | Elvis Presley | 101 | |
| 3 | David Bowie | 48 | Jump They Say, Black Tie White Noise, Miracle Goodnight, Buddha of Suburbia |
| 4 | Elton John | 46 | True Love |
| 5 | Status Quo | 43 | |
| 6 | Queen | 41 | Five Live EP |
| 7 | Paul McCartney | 40 | Hope of Deliverance |
| 8 | Rod Stewart | 39 | Ruby Tuesday, Shotgun Wedding, Have I Told You Lately |
| 9 | Stevie Wonder | 37 | |
| = | Michael Jackson | 37 | Give In To Me, Will You Be There, Gone Too Soon |
| 11 | Diana Ross | 36 | Heart (Don’t Change My Mind), Your Love |
| 12 | Frank Sinatra | 33 | I've Got You Under My Skin |
| 13 | Rolling Stones | 32 | |
| = | Shakin Stevens | 32 | |
| = | Madonna | 32 | Bad Girl, Fever, Rain |
| 16 | Roy Orbison | 31 | |
| = | Prince | 31 | Peach, Controversy |
| 18 | Lonnie Donegan | 30 | |
| = | UB40 | 30 | (I Can't Help) Falling In Love With You, Higher Ground, Bring Me Your Cup |
No change in most number ones:
| Artist | No of #1s | New #1s | |
| 1 | Elvis Presley | 17 | |
| = | Beatles | 17 | |
| 3 | Cliff Richard | 13 | |
| 4 | Abba | 9 | |
| 5 | Rolling Stones | 8 | |
| 6 | Madonna | 7 | |
| 7 | Slade | 6 | |
| = | Rod Stewart | 6 |
The Banamarama hit was "More More More" which was one of the final Stock/Waterman produced singles to reach the Top 40. Also from Stock/Waterman was "The Love I Lost" and "When I'm Good and Ready" by Sybil and the final two which were released in the same week were "Wrestlemania" by WWF Superstars and "One Voice" by Bill Tarmey aka Jack Duckworth.
The success story of the year was Take That who scored 3 number ones and a number two. They narrowly missed out on the Christmas number one with "Babe", with Mr Blobby knocking them off the top. Another one of their number ones, "Relight My Fire" featured 60s singer Lulu, but she wasn't the only act of yesteryear to reach the top this year.
It was knocked off the top by Meat Loaf who returned to the charts after a seven year absence with "I' Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)".
The Bluebells reached number one with a reissue of "Young at Heart" having originally reached number 8 in 1984. This was knocked off the top by the "Five Live EP" by George Michael with Queen & Lisa Stansfield with the lead track being the performance of "Somebody to Love" from the Freddie Mercury tribute concert.
Freddie Mercury himself scored a posthumous number one with a Euro Dance remake of "Living on my Own". This was one of three Euro Dance number ones of the year, the others being "No Limit" by 2 Unlimited and "Mr Vain" by Culturebeat. Other big Euro Dance records this year included "Exterminate" by Snap featuring Niki Harris, "What Is Love" by Haddaway and "U Got 2 Let The Music" by Cappella.
Another act from yesteryear to score a number one was UB40 with "(I Can't Help) Falling In Love With You". It was one of three reggae pop number ones this year, the other two coming from debutants Shaggy with "Oh Carolina" and Ace of Base with "All That She Wants".
Reggae had been present in the charts since the 60s but there hadn't been much of it in the years prior to 1993 where it had somewhat some of a resurgence. The year brought the debuts of Chaka Demus & Pliers with "Tease Me", Bitty McLean with "It Keep Rainin' (Tears From Eyes)" and Louchie Lou & Michie One with "Shout". We also had the only hits from Snow with "Informer", Shinehead with "Jamaican In New York" and Ali & Frazier with "Uptown Top Ranking". Inner Circle returned after a 14 year absence with "Sweat (A La La La La Long)". There were also hits for Maxi Priest, Shabba Ranks and Apache Indian.
Seven years after their chart debut, Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince score a number one with "Boom! Shake The Room" which was the third Rap/Hip Hop number one after "Turtle Power" and "Ice Ice Baby".
It was the strongest year to date in the UK Top 40 with several notable acts making their debuts. This included Ice Cube with "It Was A Good Day", Cypress Hill with "Insane In The Brain", Guru with "Trust Me", Snoop Doggy Dogg with "What's My Name" and Ice-T with "That's How I'm Livin'".
There were also some lesser known names making their debuts such as Onyx with "Slam", Sagat with "Funk Dat", K7 with "Come Baby Come" and Funkdoobiest with "Wopbabalubop". Other acts charting this year included Arrested Development, Naughty by Nature, Monie Love, PM Dawn, LL Cool J, House Of Pain, De La Soul and Salt-N-Pepa.
It was also a strong year for R&B this year. It was more of the contemporary sound and more pop sounding R&B than the New Jack Swing sound which had been big in recent years. The most notable was the number one debut of Gabrielle with "Dreams".
Other British acts make their debuts were Eternal with "Stay" and Michelle Gayle with "Looking Up" plus the only hit from Lena Fiagbe with "Gotta Get It Right".
From America we had the debuts of Mary J Blige with "Reminisce", Jade with "Don't Walk Away", SWV with "I'm So Into You", Blackstreet with "Baby Be Mine" and Zhané with "Hey Mr DJ".
The Hardcore Rave sound that had a strong presence in the charts the previous year was virtually non existent chart wise this year. The Prodigy had their final hit from album 1, "Wind It Up", and first hit from album 2, "One Love". N-Joi had their final hit with "The Drumstruck EP". The only other hits you could put in this genre were a couple from Moby, "I Feel It / Thousand" and "Move", though this is quite borderline.
The only Trip Hop act prior to this year to have a Top 40 hit was Massive Attack. They had none this year but Shara Nelson who sang for them had hits with "Down That Road" and "One Goodbye In Ten". We also had hits from Marxman with "All About Eve", One Dove with "Breakdown" and Bjork & David Arnold with "Play Dead".
Straddling the Trip Hop and Acid Jazz genres we had Oui 3 with "For What It's Worth" and "Break From The Old Routine" and Stakka Bo with "Here We Go".
The year saw the debut of perhaps the best known Acid Jazz act of all time, Jamiroquai. They had four hits, the first being "Too Young To Die". Another act making their debut was US3 with "Riddim" followed by "Cantaloop". Freak Power, a Norman Cook project, made their debut with their best known hit "Turn On Tune In Cop Out". There was also the only hit for JTQ with "Love The Life" which featured Noel McKoy.
The big question from the rock world though was did Grunge finally kill of Glam? Well I guess it finally did this year, the only Glam hits being the final Extreme hit "Tragic Comic" and the final two Poison hits "Stand" and "Until You Suffer Some (Fire And Ice)". It seemed to be the end for Gothic Rock too with the only hit from that genre this year being the final Sisters of Mercy hit "Under The Gun". Thrash also seemed to be on its way out with Anthrax having their final hit with "Only" and Megadeth having their penultimate hit with "Sweating Bullets".
It was still Hard Rock going strongest though with hits from Little Angels, Def Leppard, Thunder, Quireboys, Ugly Kid Joe, Aerosmith, Guns n Roses and AC/DC. From the Heavy Metal scene we had the final hit for WASP with "Sunset And Babylon". There were also hits from Metallica, Iron Maiden, Therapy? and Almighty.
From the Grunge scene itself we had the debut of Alice In Chains with "Would". There was also the only hit for Stone Temple Pilots with "Plush". The Smashing Pumpkins made their debut with "Cherub Rock" and Radiohead made their debut with "Anyone Can Play Guitar" followed by "Creep" which was also considered to be Grunge.
There were no hits from Pearl Jam or Soundgarden this year. We did however have three hits from Nirvana, "Oh the Guilt" which was a double a side with "Puss" by Jesus Lizard, "Heart Shaped Box" and "All Apologies / Rape Me" which was Nirvanas final UK Top 40 hit.
We saw the beginnings of Groove Metal in the charts this year with Pantera debuting with "Walk". There was also the debut of Rap Metal act Rage Against the Machine with "Killing in the Name".
It was a transitional year for Indie music with both Baggy and Shoegazing no longer having much presence in the charts and Brit Pop still in it's infancy. The only Top 10 Brit Pop record was "Animal Nitrate" by Suede but we also had Top 40 hits from Blur and Paul Weller.
Having mentioned Take That near the beginning of the post it's only right I mention how East 17 fared this year. They had four hits, the highest charting being "It's Alright" which reached number 3. They also had a number 5 with "Deep" whilst "Slow It Down" and "West End Girls" were outside the Top 10.
With the boyband rivalry in full swing, there were three more boybands we said hello to this year. First came Worlds Apart with "Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel". Then came Bad Boys Inc with "Don't Talk About Love". Finally at the end of the year came EYC with "Feelin Alright". None of them managed any Top Tens though, but they'd all be back the next year.
Despite several old timers having number ones this year, it does seem like an out with the old in with the new sort of year. The early 90s is remembered for Take That/East 17, Grunge, Rave and Baggy amongst other things but in reality the heyday for the last two was over before the heyday for the first two began, the shelf life of each phase seemingly getting shorter from a chart perspective.
For 1994 the questions are will Grunge survive beyond Nirvana? will there be a new Rock/Metal genre? a new Dance genre? how will Rap/Hip Hop fare? will the Reggae revival continue? and who will win the 1994 battle of the boybands?
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