Bryan Adams' '(Everything I Do) I Do It For You' Voted Best '90s Ballad
Bryan Adams' '(Everything I Do) I Do It For You' Voted Best '90s Ballad
Jacqueline Burt CoteWed, February 18, 2026 at 4:22 AM UTC
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(Photo by Gie Knaeps on Getty Images)
When people think of '90s music, the first thing that comes to mind is often the massive grunge explosion...or, at the other end of the spectrum, the rise of pop queens like Britney Spears and the Spice Girls. But the decade is also known for its chart-topping ballads, which came from artists and acts of every genre (after all, everybody needs a slow song sometimes).
Decades later, music lovers are still listening to so many of these sentimental songs...and when Ranker asked readers to vote on the "best ballads of the 90s," they had plenty of opinions.
Kicking off the top 10 picks was Duran Duran's "Ordinary World" (1992), which represented a huge comeback for the band (whose massive popularity from the '80s had waned at that point). At #9 was "Truly Madly Deeply" (1997) by the Australian pop duo Savage Garden, which shot to the very top of the charts in the U.S., Canada and Australia.
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Ranked at #8 was Toni Braxton's "Un-Break My Heart" (1996), which won the singer a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (and stayed at the #1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 for a whopping eleven weeks). Seal took the #7 spot with his emotional trademark tune "Kiss From a Rose" (1994), which got a huge boost on the charts when it was re-released in 1995 on the Batman Forever soundtrack. Shania Twain's country pop crossover "You're Still the One" (1998) was placed at #6...and all these years later, it's apparently still the one, considering it's been streamed over 700 million times on Spotify.
Kicking off the top 5 was another absolutely enormous hit, Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" (1992), a Dolly Parton cover that went on to become the best-selling single worldwide by a female artist. Another iconic chanteuse, Mariah Carey, took the #4 spot with "Hero" (1993), followed by yet another legendary female singer, Celine Dion, in third place with the 1996 hit "Because You Loved Me" (spoiler alert: This won't be the last time you see Dion's name on this list).
Coming in second was Dion's biggest hit of all time — associated with one of the most popular movies in history — "My Heart Will Go On" (1997), which was of course the theme for Titanic. So what song could possibly beat such a blockbuster tune?
Voted the #1 best ballad of the '90s was another song released on a movie soundtrack: Bryan Adams' "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You." The sweeping power ballad was both the lead single for the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves soundtrack album and Adams' sixth studio album, Waking Up the Neighbours, the song went on to hit #1 on the charts in at least 19 countries, making it not just Adams' biggest song ever but one of the best-selling singles of all time, according to ChartMasters.
Related: This 1977 Hit Was Ranked 'Best Rock Love Song' of All Time
This story was originally published by Parade on Feb 18, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
