Back to NOW!

Dylan Jones once described the Eighties as being shaped by ‘a new type of bohemianism, one empowered by a certainty and an optimism that was only fleeting back in the sixties.’ *

Moreso, K.Tel records importantly reminded us that home taping was killing music. 

So, it’s November 1981, and this young music fan is feverishly taking ownership of two cassettes in his local Woolworths. One blue, one red. One bought, one free. Together this maiden compilation purchase - from the aforementioned compilation giant K.Tel, Charthits ‘81 - as kicked off by the ever so eighties drum crash from Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin – was the start of a lifelong love for variously compiled pop. 

One that would lead to, well, NOW. 

Forty years later and the superlative team at NOW HQ delivered their Yearbook for 1981. 85 of the biggest, brightest and best hits (thank you Mr. Mulligan for that very nice tagline). 

A year that started tragically with the death of John Lennon, and ended with Susanne and Joanne from the Human League with spray foam in their mouths amidst highly flammable Christmas trees in BBC Television Centre.

And inbetween, a dazzling twelve months where the decade began to take shape and form an identity that remains with us today. 

Pop, soul, disco, funk, rock, reggae and metal. All present and correct. 

But, as Thursday nights on BBC1 would testify through those iconic theme tunes of Tomorrow’s World and the newly christened TOTP Yellow Pearl in July, electronica was elbowing its way through the queue at the Blitz club to make a defining mark on the sights and sounds of 1981.

With the able assistance of guests Chi and Ian from ElectricityClub.co.uk, this episode revisits the NOW Yearbook 1981 (and it’s stellar accompanying extra volume!). An iconic line up of music and memories awaits including Duran, Duran, Ultravox, Soft Cell, Kim Wilde, The Human League and ABBA. 

We explore how the year saw some seventies survivors glam up and mobilise for this new decade with assistance from the new video pioneers such as Russell Mulcahy and David Mallet. 

We also consider how retro never sounded so good, what made a good (and bad) medley hit, how tribal factions and cultural identity shaped our school days (and the streets across the UK), how news and popular culture were living under the ever present threat of global destruction and how pop saved us all once again.

Grab some blank tapes, switch off one of the three channels on your TV and join us as we head back to a glorious year in pop, 1981.

Ridicule is, as you know, nothing to be scared of. 

* Sweet Dreams: The Story of the New Romantics: Dylan Jones (2020)

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We’re going where the sun shines brightly,

We’re going where the sea is blue…

1986 really was very Cliff. He had celebrated his first No1 of the 80s with the cast of The Young Ones, featured in some devastating billboard action in the (rerun) finale of the aforementioned BBC comedy show, been covered by the TVam rat and gerbil, and even had one of his most famous songs feature on a rather unique (and quite frankly ghastly) novelty Euro hit. And in July of the very same year, this very prominent track (it’s Summer Holiday folks!), Cliff’s ubiquitous seasonal anthem to double decker buses and Una Stubbs, was sitting proudly as track 1 side 2 on the latest NOW, That’s What I Call Music album.

But wait!

The gloriously designed blue sky and beach umbrella that housed the latest variously compiled pop selection was not to feature such 1986 chart toppers as Wham!, Dr and the Medics and Chris De Burgh(!). This wasn’t the impending 7th volume of the (rapidly becoming) world famous series of compilations, this was NOW - The Summer Album, and it was…well, different.

Just as the wonderful team had done in November 1985 with NOW - The Christmas Album, here was the brand’s second venture into a ‘theme’. And what a theme it was! Four decades of summer anthems, summer hits, sizzling memories - phew what a scorcher!

But as it transpires, with guest Tim Worthington, we discover that the album announced from the pages of Smash Hits in July 1986 (featuring the most summery of acts, The Jesus and Mary Chain!) was much more than that just sun loungers and factor 30. Because growing up in the 70s/80s in the UK summer was often quite different indeed!

What NOW - The Summer Album perhaps did do, was provide a template of summers we all wished we’d known; a sixties summer of love, a fifties summer of rock n roll, a seventies summer of…cricket (?) and of course an eighties summer of Radio One roadshows, and quite probably, traffic jams.

It was an album that also provided a range of genres, new bands from the past to discover and a template for all summer soundtracks to come.

So, dive back into an iconic chapter in the NOW series. Find out how some VERY big pop names appeared (TWICE!), why sound effects always make summer songs better, how some songs were longer (and shorter!) than others and why John Menzies probably didn’t anticipate how well this summer set would sell.

And importantly, remember your Plymouth dealer is, indeed, a dealing man.

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“What we’re gonna do right here is go back, way back!”

If you were really down with the cool kids in 1984, you would have most definitely have been passing around the school prized C90 cassettes featuring much copied Streetsounds compilations. And somewhere in there was Kurtis Blow’s AJ Scratch track with those immortal sampled words from the Jimmy Castor Bunch in 1972. Straight out onto The BMXs and down to throw some funky worm shapes on that strip of lino!

Or, in this writer’s case, 1984 was mainly spent in a bedroom hovering over the play and pause button to catch a clean edit (without Simon Bates) of Two Tribes, still at number one after 5 weeks! But which mix would we get this week? Now, THIS was anticipation, pop kids!

1984. A pop year of decadence, contradictions, conflict, controversy and coming of age. A year that authors (and the BBC) told us would feature impending, inevitable Armageddon. Annihilation, it turned out, came in the shape of a plethora of 12” mixes, plastic smiles, snoods, 808 drum machines, hairspray, neon and (red) balloons. How was it for you?

In the third decade of the 21st century, a time surely we wouldn’t (a) remember 1984 or (b) still be around to remember 1984, the team at NOW Music HQ presented the second in a (now) glorious series of curated Yearbooks. And what an album (and accompanying extra volume!) we have to rediscover. The sun is most definitely shining brighter than Doris Day!

So for this special episode we’re joined by two poptastic friends of the show to take a deep dive into 1984. Journalist, DJ and author Ian Wade and journalist, author and broadcaster Jude Rogers.

Jude can be found contributing musings and writing about music, culture and much more in The Guardian, Observer and The Quietus amongst many others. Her first (best selling!) book, The Sound of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives is available through White Rabbit books.

Ian has written for Classic Pop, Record Collector, The Quietus, Official Charts, Sunday Times Culture as well as doing time at such titles as Smash Hits and The Face many years ago. He has worked as a PR on BBC’s Later… with Jools Holland and occasionally DJs at Spiritland and Duckie. And his debut book 1984: The Year Pop went Queer is published by NineEight Books in July 2024.

And whilst we don’t take a forensic look at every one of the 80 tracks on the 1984 Yearbook (and the further 60 on the extra volume) we instead provide you with an opportunity to explore the sights, sounds, culture, music, genres, tribes and (school!) fashion that makes this year so thoroughly iconic for so many reasons.

Join us then, as we turn up the neon and dance through mutually agreed destruction in celebration of 1984! 

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August 1989.

The final year of ‘the finest pop decade ever’™️ is moving along quite nicely thank you very much. 

There’s most definitely a change in the air, and we don’t mean the launch of the FOUR channel Sky TV network. Relax everyone, UK Gold and TOTP reruns are coming in three years!

No, real change was coming. The second summer of love in 1988 (sorry Danny Wilson, probably a year out) as witnessed on the utterly imperial NOW 11, 12 and 13 had demonstrated that the 90s were calling and they would be decked out in dayglo. And most importantly a new positivity was being felt in the air, across the airwaves and through the pop we were all immersed in.

And let’s not beat about the bush, folks, 1989 was a seismic year for music. Let me indulge you listeners:

Disintegration, Three Feet High and Rising, Doolittle, Technique, Club Classics Volume One, Raw Like Sushi, The Stone Roses, , Like A Prayer, Hats, The Seeds of Love, Flowers In The Dirt, Paul’s Boutique, The Raw And The Cooked…

And of course Neither Fish Nor Flesh (A Soundtrack of Love, Faith, Hope & Destruction).

And so, to our favourite compiler of variously compiled pop. 1989 saw four (yes, as many as that!) new NOW, That’s What I Call Music albums. Why four, I hear you cry? Well, because the summer was adorned with the first new dance volume since 1986, an album that, NOW fans will know, featured Love Can’t Turn Around by Farley Jackmaster Funk - the first House track to break the UK. And 1989 was time (not for the guru, that’s 1990 of course) to celebrate how dance was back, Back, BACK!

And this additionally delicious dance volume enabled the BIG summer fifteenth volume to go deeper into the year’s genres. So step forward delights including Soul II Soul’s era defining classic, Paul McCartney’s Hofner bass-adorned celebration of TV dinners, Swing Out Sister’s mind-bending, sumptuous sixties throwback and De La Soul’s daisy-age makeover of Hall and Oates (the ultimate backward nod to the outgoing 80s?).

What a time to be on the edge of seventeen (deliberate Stevie Nicks nod, there) as this listener was!

And joining me for this sepia-tinged and frankly tear-stained 1989 nostalgia fest through NOW 15 is the music journalist and author of the 33 1/3 book on George Michael's Faith, Matthew Horton.

Discover how homemade mixtapes (his mums AND his own) inspired many a house party and achieved (almost) legendary status. Which cassettes were stuck in his Walkman at the outdoor Lido pool, why goth stars and American soap operas need to come together, which rapper performed for Matthew (and others, obviously) at Bristol University and (YES!) why the love for Fish and Flesh will never go away.

And amongst these glittering 1989 delights, experience the moments when I actually say positive things (almost) about our friends from the north The Beautiful South and Hue and Cry.

Join us on the glorious beach (best cover ever™️ - Jude Rogers) as we head back to NOW15. 

I think it’s going to be alright.

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It was the wise prophet and occasional flower impersonator Peter Gabriel that said, 

‘I don’t remember, I don’t recall,

I have no memory of anything at all.’

Do you remember 2008?

Yes, it's only (!) 16 years ago, so I’ve no doubt you still have packets in the kitchen cupboard that are older, but do you also remember how the pop landscape of 2008 was mapping out? 

Indeed, what on earth was going on in your life eight years into the 21st century?

You see, this writer (it’s, me IAIN!) has quite a glitchy view back of his shoulder to this year. Life had thrown a few curveballs (listen in, it’s kinda revealed) meaning that pop memory has become patchy. Perhaps for you, dear listeners, 2008 is similarly harder to initially grasp hold of. 

Fear not! The world’s finest compilation series (as always) is on hand to jog memories, restart downloads an piece together for us what was selling, streaming, rising and falling up and down the hit parade that we call “The Charts’. 

It’s NOW, That’s What I Call Music 69!

And crikey, what a mix we had!

Torchsongs, soul songs, Neo-soul songs, Soul-dance songs, Northern soul songs! Songs that weren’t soul soul songs but would like to be!

Big pop statements from Britney, Robyn, Girls Aloud!

Slightly smaller pop statements from Shane Ward and Leon Jackson!

We also had some huge ghosts of pop pasts resurfacing thanks to the likes of Rihanna, Duffy, Kylie and others. And some iconic artists that would stay with us through some era defining tracks. Because sometimes pop is the only thing that helps us when things aren’t OK (but will be OK). 

Our special guest for this episode is author of the frankly wonderful Don't Stop the Music - A Year of Pop History, One Day at a Time, and lifetime pop fan Justin Lewis.

AND, if all of this wasn’t enough (and don’t forget Basshunter is in there too), find out where Joe Fagin fits in, who the Kajagoogoo of NOW69 is, which group may (or may not) have their own day time quiz show, how Justin grew up with Tom and Annie on Radio One and grew back in love with music in 2008 through some of these songs, and also which tracks deserve 10 out of 10. And of course, why pop is still so important for making sense of the world around us, in any decade!

All of this, and I’ve managed not to say anything negative about Scouting for Girls!

Oh no, wait…

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It's November 2023, and the world's most successful compilation series is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Five decades of compiling the latest hits, the occasional miss, but always the songs that soundtracked our lives. Always there, always democratically and expertly sequencing the music that the UK buying (downloading/streaming/swiping) public were grooving to, laughing to, dancing along with, or crying about (add in your own band or artists here).

What else is still with us from 1983? And still having such an impact?

Breakfast Time? Well, certainly not Frank Bough.

The Ford Sierra? Taxi!

£1 coins? Down the back of the sofa.

Kajagoogoo? Hush hush, as they say. (One for the older listeners)

So, as our friends at NOW rightly celebrate the past through a stunning array of special albums and even see podcasters pop up across several TV programmes waxing lyrically about the famous compilation series (well, no-one else will talk about it, will they?) the numbered series that started it all in November 1983 continued to do exactly what it set out to do; bring together the songs of NOW.

Perhaps no longer just the Top Chart Hits, that tag line that emblazoned the front cover of earlier volumes, but now taking into account the various ways we actually DO consume music in the third decade of the 21st century.

NOW 116 - The Best of the Best.

47 tracks. Tik Tok stars, Film soundtrack anthems, legendary decade surviving artists. Pop, rock, dance, soul.

All present and correct, all breathlessly exciting, all taking that snapshot in time of pop culture. And as we know, an invaluable window into the soundtrack of our lives.

Where, indeed, Agnetha, do we go from here?

To understand the past and the future, we always need to be in the NOW. (Take a note of that line, its a good one: Ed)

And joining me to make sense of this dazzling volume of the world famous compilation series is award winning writer, journalist and NOW fan David Quantick.

David explains why he wanted to get in 'at the deep end' and why he thinks that NOW116 highlights that pop is in a fine healthy state in. We explore what actually is a 'hit' in 2023/24, why short songs are always an indication of great songs, why NOW continues to keep getting it right and how the compilation series is Top Of The Pops in exile.

Along the way, discover who David describes as 'the Dr. Who of Pop', who are 'The Strokes for Queen fans (or was that the other way around)' and what a bad AI version of George Michael may look (and sound) like. We also revisit why Pop continues to Eat Itself (yes, David came up with that one!), why the female artists are leaving the boys behind, who the 'ASDA Madonna' is and who the real Madonna is.

And did Chris Lowe really offer Tracey Chapman a lift in 1988?

We really do (watch what I do here) Paint The Town Red!

Jump in, buckle up and remind yourself why pop is still very, very important.

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Confidence, they say, is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as…

…1994, darlings! 

And of course, as perceived wisdom now dutifully dictates, we were all completely mad for it, lemon hooch in hand, union jacks draped around our football tops, waving two fingers to those damn yanks. Go home!

Except, of course, the truth couldn’t be further away from the, er truth. Whilst it definitely maybe was 1994, there was so much more than just cigarettes (and alcohol). And we were all the better for it, pop kids!

Our favourite compilation series was not only celebrating nearly turning 30, it was also sporting a new slimline 2CD cover - swanky, and soooo nineties! Goodbye fat boxes, this decade of NOW was neater, fitter and certainly in full swing.

So, what could you expect from this sparkly, starshaped selection of 38 Top Chart Hits?

Pure, glistening pop from the likes of Michelle Gayle and Sophie B Hawkins!

Boyband phoar-dom (is this a word?) from the top flight teams of FC Take That and East 17 United!

Swoonsome songstress Lia Loeb positively not missing the knocks of Ethan Hawke (reality will bite)!

And huge slices of europop at every provincial nightclub turn! Another Saturday (rhythm of the) Night folks! Mine’s a Pernod and blackcurrant and chip butty!

And of course we had a selection of those most poppy sounds of the Brit persuasion, courtesy of blur (no capital!) and Oasis. Swagger, confidence and NOW on the money as always. 

All of this and much, much more awaits - including SPARKS! Yes, actual Russell and Ron Mael on a NOW album!

Join Anna Doble - broadcaster, journalist and author of ‘Connection is a Song: Coming Up and Coming Out Through the Music of the 90s’ - as we head down some fascinating rabbit holes and unearth not just a year of memories, but a whole decade of emotional and personal stories, interwoven by the power of music. And as always, NOW serves as the perfect snapshot of pop bringing it all back home.

AND we pose some of 1994 biggest questions:

When did Britpop actually begin?

Which band followed Anna around Leeds on a bus? (well, not actually)

Is 2wo Third3 the first ever case sensitive password?

Are Shampoo the centre of the pop universe?

Ultimate KAOS - why?

Join us for NOW29 - it’s SO GOOD and INCREDIBLE! (Enough puns - Ed)

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Pop. The way that we process everything.

So, it's the summer of 1993. According to meteorological 'experts', the UK experienced its lowest maximum temperatures since 1972. Only 4 days were officially classified as 'HOT'.

Well, I would argue, pop fans, that is UNLESS you had a swingorilliant copy of NOW, That's What I Call Music 25!

(We'll take this quite frankly, cheesy line out in the edit - Ed.)

Yes, indeed, the blue sky and wistful clouds that adorned the glorious cover of the latest variously compiled snapshot of pop invited us into a summer spectacular of hits, Hits, HITS! Some of them even reaching as high as No69!

Actually, there were plenty of chart topping sounds. George and Queen were raising the (non roof) of Wem-ber-lee, Ace of Base were confusing us all about wanting babies (possibly), Gabrielle was setting chart records and certainly not mentioning fast cars and Freddie Mercury was rewizzled and jigging away. And outwith these HUGE No1s we had Tina Turner getting a leg up from Lulu, Sade not getting a leg up from Lulu, Louche Lou and Michie One channeling Lulu. Yes, the variety was indeed...(enough! Ed)

(Turns page)

Big IMPORTANT 90s acts such as REM (stuck in traffic), New Order (stuck in Baywatch), Duran Duran (stuck in, well, being bloody brilliant).

Big DANCE choons from Sybil, Robin S (not that one) and 2 Unlimited (diminishing returns ahoy!) were keeping the frugging youngsters (and those on revolving dancefloors on boats!) moving.

And Dannii and Kim were having a right old 70s revival karaoke style ding dong. Oo-er!

Oh, and the campaign to completely rediscover the utter brilliance of the No42 AMAZEBALL that is 'Somewhere' by Efua starts RIGHT HERE.

Join Scots pop superfan, Foyle's Bookstore's very own Niall McMurray (he's been waiting in reception) as he revisits an eventful and personal summer soundtrack; songs, music and memories that (in his own words) take him back to 'the year he will write a book about'.

Along the way discover the power of provincial (and often quite terrifying) Scottish night clubs, how music always sounds better in a Fiat Panda, the song that Niall most hates in the whole world, the allure of a sinister pop flute, which NOW25 pop star is immortalised as a cardboard cut out in Iain's attic.

And try to work out why it's impossible to remember the 90s when D:Ream are about!

Oh, and of course, why Linda Perry, Joey Lawrence and Richard Darbyshire (and, quite frankly a few others) absolutely won't be returning our calls.

(PS - the wonderful quote at the start - that's oor Niall X)

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Welcome to Spring 1993.

And, I’m sure you’ll all agree, there was only one phrase on everyone’s lips.

I lick-he boom, boom down.

(Checks notes)

Anyway, more of that later.

The legendary NOW compilation series has reached its twenty-fourth volume and is now standing proud as the finest collection of chart hits around.

HITS who?

And as the fourth year of that craziest of decades ‘The Nineties’ got underway, 37 of the finest top hits were vying for your pop attention. AND what a year it was shaping up to be!

The Bluebells were back from NOW3, promoting the cheeriest of car branded divorce!

Hue and Cry were back from NOW10, still not working for you No More (at No 25!)

Sister Sledge were back from the 70s, sure and as pure as the day is discotastic!

Ultravox were still finding no meaning in anything!

Lulu was, er, just back!

(Get to the NINETIES! - Ed.)

Yes, what a kaleidoscope of pop 1993 was pop kids! And OF COURSE there were plenty of tracks that signalled the decade was well and truly underway.

The dancefloor was burning up thanks to Sub Sub, Robin S and er, 2 Unlimited. 

Reggae was waving its flag with Shaggy, Snow and Shabba Ranks. 

The boybands were exploding into our living rooms with Take That covering Barry Manilow in a garage and East 17 stuck in a Swimming Pool at TOTP. 

And Duran Duran were quietly making THE comeback of the decade with something that certainly wasn’t ordinary AT ALL.

All of this before we mention some fabulous pop moments from the likes of World Party, The Beloved and Lenny Kravitz!

It was enough to make Radio One ‘legend’ DLT flip out live on air! No, really.

Join music journalist and blogger Sam Lidicott as we revisit these tracks and much more as we head back to NOW24. 

We explore why so many brilliant female vocalists were heading up the charts, which band Iain had breakfast with in 1993, and why NOW24 has not one but two exclusive bragging rights across the WHOLE series. 

Oh yes, there really were (wait for it) No Limits!

And without too many spoilers, find out why Ugly Kid Joe and (sorry Mick) Simply Red probably wont be returning our calls.

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Welcome, one and all, to the 3rd annual Back to NOW review! 

As is now tradition, this end of year episode of the variously compiled podcast provides us with a festive opportunity to glance back over our shoulders at the pop landscape of yet another 12 months.

Let’s celebrate a dazzling year of NOW compilations that in 2023 have included something for everyone - fabulous yearbooks scanning four decades, love songs, Eurovision, dance, alternative, hi NRG, 12” annuals, and of the course the ubiquitous, iconic numbered series - across a sparkling selection of CDs and vinyl that we love so much.

But wait! 

This year we have a bigger celebration than normal, as we say Happy 40th to NOW! Yes, a hastily approximated 14,600 days since EMI and Virgin records robbed those Raiders of the Pop Charts of their ‘buy one get one free’ title to claim the undisputed crown of compilations - and the rest, as Richard Branson would expect us to say, is pop history! 

So, join us as we indulge in our BIGGEST episode yet featuring pop rambles, self-referential blether, teary-eyed nostalgia, a few surprise guests - and general celebratory stuff and nonsense galore.

And fear not, our seasonal panel of angelic upstarts have all stepped back from the Christmas shopping and bitching about festive TV ads to be here just for you!

The Golden Mark Wood!

The Frankenscens-ical Ian Wade!

And the Myrrh-raculous Johnny Kalifornia!

And what can we expect from our guests, I hear you cry?

Without unwrapping the presents too much, discover who Johnny is getting to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him on New Year’s Eve, which track Mark came around to after his knee operation (THIS is what the kids want!) and why Ian is stuck between ‘Dystopia and Hazell Dean’. 

Yes, it’s THAT kind of party!

And everyone is welcome. X

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