What Are Bryan Adams’ 5 Biggest US Hits?

“Straight From The Heart”. “Run To You”. “Summer of ‘69”. These are just some of the iconic songs that don’t make the cut when it comes to the list of Bryan Adams’ five biggest chart hits in the US.

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That should tell you something about the productivity of a guy who dominated the 80s and found a way to go even bigger in the 90s. Here are Bryan Adams’ most monumental American chart smashes.

5. “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started” – No. 2 in 1991

You have to give credit to Adams for refusing to go gently into pop obscurity as the 90s dawned. Many of his peers didn’t seem to fight as hard to stay relevant. He postponed the release of Waking Up The Neighbours, his 1991 album, a few different times to get it just right. Mutt Lange, producing him for the first time, insisted upon it. No arguing with the results, however. The ebullient “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started” debuted the new collaboration for the masses and came up just shy of the No. 1 spot.

4. “Heaven” – No. 1 in 1985

That’s right, we’ve now reached the point in this list where every song is a chart-topper in the US. (We split the difference between them based on worldwide chart performance.) Adams first wrote “Heaven” with longtime collaborator Jim Vallance for a 1983 film called A Night In Heaven. He considered nearly leaving it at that, as both he and Jimmy Iovine, who produced Adams’ 1984 album Reckless, didn’t think it was a fit for the LP. They not only let it on the album, but they rolled it out as a single. The sweeping ballad gave Adams his first chart-topper.

3. “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman” – No. 1 in 1995

Welcome to the soundtrack portion of the list. If Kenny Loggins mastered the movie song in the 80s, there’s no doubt that Adams took up that mantle in the 90s. In this case, the song was composed for the film Don Juan DeMarco, known for its memorable on-screen pairing of Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando. Taking up the flamenco theme of Michael Kamen’s score, Adams and Mutt Lange composed an irresistibly romantic track. In fact, the song has long outlived the film in terms of its hold on pop culture.

2. “All For Love” (with Rod Stewart and Sting) – No. 1 in 1993

Considering this song was for the soundtrack of The Three Musketeers, it made sense for it to include three of the biggest male singing stars on the planet. Keep in mind that it was spearheaded by Adams, who once again wrote it with Mutt Lange and Michael Kamen. Sting and Rod Stewart came aboard to make it a trio. When these guys hit the higher registers of their vocal range, their voices sound kind of similar. That coincidence just played into the overall theme of unity and brotherhood.

1. “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” – No. 1 in 1991

100 points to you if you guessed that Adams wrote this one with Mutt Lange and Michael Kamen. Kudos to Kamen, who would deliver memorable theme melodies for the films he scored (in this case, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves). Adams makes the most out of the material, delivering a desperate, aching vocal performance that raises the stakes of the song. This one was not only Adams’ biggest hit, but it also represented his most important one in that it revived from a mini-slump in his career.

Photo by Phil Dent/Redferns