This is a summary of 1993 in music in the United Kingdom, including the official charts from that year.
Summary
15 songs reached the number 1 spot this year. Compared to 1992, there was an improvement to singles sales, with sales rising year on year for the first time since 1989. However, none of the singles released this year were million sellers, the first instance of this happening since 1990. The only song to sell over a million in 1993 was one from the previous year, Whitney Houston's cover of "I Will Always Love You". It managed to sell sufficiently well enough to make its way onto the top 10 of both 1992 and 1993.
March saw The Bluebells reach number 1 with "Young at Heart", a song that had previously made number 8 in 1984. It was reissued after appearing in an advert for Volkswagen, and the band reformed to promote the song.
Take That got their first #1 in July, with "Pray". Debuting in 1991 with the #38 hit "Promises", they would go on to score another seven number 1s before splitting in 1996. "Pray" was followed by Freddie Mercury scoring a posthumous number 1 with a remixed version of "Living on My Own", the original version of which made number 50 in 1985, making it the first remix of a previously charted single to reach number 1.
Finally, as usual, December saw the Christmas number one single. Meat Loaf's successor at number 1 was Mr. Blobby, a popular character on the BBC One show Noel's House Party, with "Mr. Blobby" (the first ever eponymously titled number 1 single). In the final week before Christmas, he was knocked off by Take That's "Babe", making Mr. Blobby the first one-week #1 since U2's "The Fly" in November 1991, and making Take That the first act to have three singles in a row all enter at #1. However, the following week (Christmas week) saw Mr. Blobby climb back up to the top, the first time this had happened since January 1969, and officially become this year's Christmas number 1. Take That's "Babe" became the only chart topper of the year to spend only a week at the summit.
In the classical world, the British composer Michael Nyman enjoyed great success with his soundtrack for the film The Piano, which brought him an Ivor Novello Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and American Film Institute award; the album sold over three million copies. Veteran Welsh composer Daniel Jones died. A less well-known composer, Peter Reynolds, won notoriety when his three-minute work Sands of Time was performed in Cardiff city centre; it is listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's shortest opera.
27 March – Sands of Time, a short (four minutes long) opera by Welsh composer Peter Reynolds, libretto by Simon Rees, has its world premiere at an outdoor shopping centre in Cardiff, sung by soprano Rhian Owen and baritone Dominic Burns.
28 August - Bruce Dickinson plays his final show with Iron Maiden after announcing his departure from the band earlier in the year. He would rejoin the band in 1999.
7 September - Berthold Goldschmidt‘s 12 minute orchestral work Ciaconna Sinfonica is performed for the first time in the UK by Simon Rattle at the Proms. The 90 year-old composer, resident in London since 1935, takes a bow at the end.
