Welcome, everyone, to the Back to Now review for 2024!

Following in the well-loved festive traditions such as fingering your way through the double edition Radio Times, fumbling your way to the back of the cupboard for the remnants of last year’s Baileys or just thumbing through some nuts next to an open fire, we bring you a finale to another variously compiled year in pop in the company of some wonderful, wintry guests. 

Author of the year and close friend of Hazell Dean - Ian Wade!

Compiler of the year and close friend of Bryan Ferry - Mark Wood!

Shake off those snowy boots, grab an eggnog to go and join three ‘wise’ men as we forensically (well, not really, actually) examine twelve months of pop extravaganza including Sabrina, Charli, Billie and probably a few others that may have got a look-in at the charts of 2024. We also pull a cracker to reveal our albums of the year including such delights as the Pet Shop Boys and The Cure. 

And of course, it wouldn’t be the perennial end of year episode without shining a Christmas star spotlight on another year of stellar NOW releases. What were our highlights, surprises, favourites of the 2024’s FORTY compilations? We celebrate all of our selections from the variously compiled chocolate box - Yearbooks, Vaults, Millenniums, 12”s and much more. We ask the question on everyone’s (possibly) lips - what can 2025 hold for the world’s biggest and best iconic compilation series?

Will we see more 70s Yearbooks?

How will the iconic numbered series evolve?

Can Das Psych-oh Rangers really make it onto a Vault album?

And of all of this wasn’t enough of a soundtrack to your present wrapping, we also celebrate Duran Duran’s ongoing brilliance and appearance on NOW, revel in a range of other (there are OTHER?) compilations of 2024 and dip back into 1984 (yes, AGAIN!) as we examine Band Aid Forty and the legacy of Bob and Midge (and Trevor’s!) era-defining clanging chimes of Christmas.

Forget the cranberry sauce and turn down all of those other invites - the end (of another pop year) is here! And you are warmly welcomed. 

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