1 Vogue Madonna

The Power Snap!

3 Black Velvet Alannah Myles

4 Kingston Town UB40

5 Step On Happy Mondays

6 Love Shack The B-52s

7 Don’t Miss The Partyline Bizz Nizz

8 Hang On To Your Love Jason Donovan

9 Strawberry Fields Forever Candy Flip

10 Birdhouse In Your Soul They Might Be Giants

“Vogue”, the world’s best selling single of 1990, topped the charts in over 30 countries and remains one of Madonna’s biggest international hits.

A house song with disco influences, the six-million-plus seller was co-written and co-produced by Madonna and Shep Pettibone. It was a trend setter for dance music in the 1990s, ranked fifth by VH1 in a list of Greatest Songs of the 90s and No. 3 by Slant Magazine in their list of 100 Greatest Dance Songs. AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine claimed the song was “Madonna’s finest single moment”.

It won three awards at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards out of a total of nine nominations.

A major influence on popular culture, “Vogue” took its inspiration from “vogueing”, a dance craze popular in the gay community where dancers used elaborate hand gestures and frequently stopped to pose. This song brought the dance style to the mainstream and cemented Madonna’s standing as an icon in the gay community.

The song was originally written as the B-side to “Keep It Together,” but when Shep Pettibone played “Vogue” to record company executives, all agreed it was too good to waste on a B-side.

“Vogue” topped the Eurochart Hot 100 Singles chart for eight consecutive weeks. It displaced Sinéad O’Connor’s epic “Nothing Compares 2 U” from the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and knocked Snap’s “The Power” off the No. 1 slot in the UK, staying there for four weeks.

Our Retro Chart is the UK top ten from this week 22 years ago. In Ireland, “Vogue” was stopped in its tracks at number two as Miley from Glenroe (the late Mick Lally) withstood the Madonna onslaught, his tribute to wife Biddy, “The By-road to Glenroe” spending five consecutive weeks at the top.

Madonna name checks a number of Hollywood celebrities in “Vogue”, all but one of whom had passed away by the time the single was released. Lauren Bacall, the last surviver, died after a stroke on August 12, 2014. Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Joe DiMaggio (the only non actor mentioned), Marlon Brando, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, and Lana Turner had all departed before the husky-voiced Hollywood icon.