Many of these groups and artists have sought lyrical inspiration from their home city.
But it’s not just the artists hailing from Sheffield who have referenced the city in their music, with songs from famous Londoners like The Clash and Stormzy, and Watford’s Elton John, also paying musical homage to the Steel City.
We’ve put together a list of songs mentioning Sheffield.
One of the bands featured is even named after a city suburb, while others have penned lyrics dripping with nostalgia for the Sheffield of yesteryear and some of the tracks celebrate the here and now.
The likes of Pulp, the Arctic Monkeys and Richard Hawley have famously mined their Sheffield roots to spectacular effect when writing their songs, but not all bands from the city have taken the same approach.
Def Leppard’s lead singer Joe Elliott once reportedly described his native city as a ‘great place with great people’ but said 'there’s nothing in Sheffield to write songs about’.
Some of the band’s early songs were instead inspired by a bit of escapism from the drudgery of the members’ daily lives in Sheffield before they hit the big time.
Speaking of their 1980 song Hello America, Joe Elliott once said he and his bandmates had never even been to America at that point, and he was ‘working in a factory with lots of nuts and bolts and no natural light’.
After watching a glamorous US TV show, he recalled thinking ‘wow, this is a lot sexier than Sheffield’, and described the lyrics he subequently wrote about taking a trip to California as him effectively saying ‘get me out of here’.
9. The Crookes Laundry Murder (1922) - The Crookes
The Crookes loved Sheffield so much they even named themselves after one of its more picturesque suburbs. One of their songs, The Crookes Laundry Murder (1922), is about a notorious crime in said suburb. Its lyrics include the haunting lines: "Take me back to 1922. Let echoes of the past bleed through/And find before your eyes, an ashen scene unfold." Photo: Submitted
10. Crazy Titch (Interlude) - Stormzy
Stormzy was born a long way from Sheffield, in the London borough of Croydon, but he does reference the Steel City in his song Crazy Titch (Interlude). He sings: "I know certi' guys from all over/Brum, Manchester, Notts, Sheffield, Leeds, Manny, Liverpool/These people all say the same thing, 'We don't really even know what grime is but we know who Stormzy is'." Photo: Tristan Fewings
11. Sheffield: Sex City - Pulp
Pulp's lyrics draw heavily on Jarvis Cocker's formative years in Sheffield and the city is referenced in songs like Babies, which mentions Stanhope Road, in Intake, and Wickerman, which takes listeners on a musical tour of the lead singer's native city, from The Leadmill and The Moor to Broomhall. But for sheer number of Sheffield place names you can't beat the 8m32s opus Sheffield: Sex City, which sees the band at their seedily seductive best. It opens with a long list of neighbourhoods read out in a breathy whisper, including Pitsmoor, Wincobanks and Ecclesall. Photo: Yui Mok
12. The Sheffield Song - The Supernaturals
Glaswegian band The Supernaturals are probably best known for their indie anthem Smile. It's not clear what inspired the title of their lovesick tune The Sheffield Song but perhaps it was a doomed romance in the Steel City. Its lyrics include the cutting lines: "And I can't help comparing the two of you/It's like a Formula 1 with a Subaru." Photo: Dan Burn-Forti