Welcome to Autumn 1996. Royal divorce, Mad Cow disease, Take That helplines, TFI Friday. 

But it wasn’t all bad news, oh no – the pop charts were continuing to dazzle and amaze the CD buying public! Indeed, if we weren’t snapping up those hits on £5 CD singles (both one and two, to complete the set) we were most definitely picking up a copy of the latest volume of everyone’s favourite compilation series, NOW35. 

And what delights across the forty tracks would you find? 

Girl Power taking over the world with that (not actually) difficult second single, George Michael looking for love in all sorts of place, Boybands (some on the way in, some heading further eastwards!) And enough dance anthems to fill any bedroom disco or sparkling nightclub.

And a fair smattering of, what the music press were still most definitely describing, as the all conquering, crowd pleasing, flag waving, two-fingered swagger Britpop. But was a change on the horizon as the year of Euro 96, Knebworth and a plethora of Union Jacks moved towards its conclusion? Was the retrograde triumphalism sliding towards its own runout groove? And if so, were the clues to the Next Big Thing to be found on this album? As the team at NOW always successfully managed to do in their gloriously curated way, most definitely!

Back to Now guest Neil Kulkarni has been writing about pop since 1994, starting out at the weekly Melody Maker before moving on to a host of magazines, newspapers and websites as well as lecturing in music journalism and releasing music with his band The Moonbears.

Amongst hits and headlines from Spice Girls, Pulp, Neneh Cherry, Underworld and others, we also explore the huge influence that r’n’b was having on the popworld, find out how to wind-up indie fans (it involves 2 unlimited), discover the bands that music journalists can’t admit to not liking (doesn’t involve 2 unlimited) and be amazed at the connection between a solar eclipse, Lynx Africa and a James Bond baddie (yes really).

And find out why pretty much every ‘indie’ guitar act on NOW35 won’t be returning our calls.

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