Now That's What I Call Music! 20

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Tony Blair and Labour had just been re-elected for a third term and everything in the UK felt more stable than it would 10 years later when David Cameron would lead the Conservatives to victory. The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu - It's Grim Up North: Wacky track with a list of towns in the north of England. When two major labels, EMI and Virgin Records, sealed the deal for a joint series on Richard Branson’s boat in Little Venice in 1983 – naming the franchise after the caption on a 1920s ad poster in which the compilation’s mascot pig celebrated a singing chicken – it opened up access to far more hits than a rival series could ever muster. Bolton, Barnsley, Nelson, Colne, Burnley, Bradford, Buxton, Crewe, Warrington, Widnes, Wigan, Leeds, Northwich, Nantwich, Knutsford, Hull, Sale, Salford, Southport, Leigh, Derby, Kearsley, Keighley, Maghull, Harrogate, Huddersfield, Oldham, Lancs, Grimsby, Glossop, Hebden Bridge. My prepubescent soul, ensnared by parental controls on the TV and strict bedtimes, identified strongly with this faraway pop star and her frustration at being so sheltered.

I’ve mentioned Glass Tiger a few times before [see the Formel Eins series] but My Town is a disappointment – subs-bench Deacon Blue with a Rod Stewart backing vocal. And this comes from someone hard to impress by the Backstreet Boys, but they pull off this rock song pretty well. The original Rough Trade single from June ’89 was a failure but Flood’s remix of Come Home and a rebooted Gold Mother album finally saw success come their way. I wasn’t too gone on this at the time but it now feels oddly mesmerising and makes me think of those endless walks around Dublin 6 flatland. There I was, sat on my own on a long-haul bus, hair parted in the middle, plugged blissfully into a chunky, bright yellow Walkman.And with Universal coming on board in 1986, expanding the chart-topping caches even further, each new Now! And if that wasn’t enough, we end with the longest song ever to appear on a Now album – Don McLean’s American Pie. All series with the exception of United Kingdom and the United States have been discontinued, New Zealand had two more albums released as a playlist only on Spotify, South Africa had three more albums released as a playlist on Spotify under DJ Kurtis. This may sound incredibly geeky but another reason was to be able to see the running length of songs. The Now Yearbook series also releases a vinyl selection of its primary release, with an Extra round-up vinyl boxset featuring tracks from the CD-only series, released at the end of 2022.

S Club 7 refused to stop moving, a post-“Millennium” Robbie Williams was crooning about “Eternity”, and Atomic Kitten were nursing an “Eternal Flame”. A formidable collaboration between the major music labels of the Eighties birthed this iconic compilation series.The presentation of each release has evolved notably over time: from 1986 through to 2013, all double and triple CD sets were released in chubby Jewel cases which could hold up to 6 discs. A simple formula: a list of towns and cities in the North of England set to a pounding industrial techno beat and percussion that sounds like steam whistles. So overall, this is a great selection of songs, some amazing, some decent, and some mediocre to bad.

I knew that I was ageing, that the earnest life lessons imparted in Baz Luhrmann’s spoken-word banger “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” touched me, but that they’d mean more to me later. Mainly it was because I was older and had a part-time job so could afford the extra instead of saving pocket money when I was younger. An earlier compilation tie-in with Smash Hits from 1987 did, however, include tracks from those years.Originally, the series captured extended 12" mixes of dance hits of the time, but from 1991 onwards, all Now Dance compilations featured 7" edits with only occasional extended versions or mixes included. Given the prominence of dance music at the time (and my love of the genre), it’s a very un-dancey Now. Released in association with the Official Chart Company to "celebrate 70 years of the official UK singles chart". I'm starting to think Keith's been put on these albums not for popular songs but just so a default country artist could be there. Following a vaguely similar buildup as Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", this song just keeps you listening until the end.

This has been a very successful series in America even after so many versions of it in the UK and other countries. However, the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth and I hope that everyone will join with me, my doctors and all those worldwide in the fight against this terrible disease.The flatlining continues with Paula Abdul’s high-maintenance ballad Rush, Rush before a musical treat from Joseph and The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat – Jason Donovan’s likeable Any Dream Will Do. The series had often featured the odd token alternative act (The Cure, The Smiths, OMD and even Siouxsie and the Banshees graced early comps) but now, elbow-to-elbow with Nick Berry’s “Every Loser Wins” and Cameo’s “Word Up! but those artists "deliver songs that are either tepid retreads or safe compounds of past hits", but it's the songs by the newer artists of the time "that keeps the compilation from being disposable", pointing out tracks by the Pussycat Dolls, Fall Out Boy, and Rihanna as standouts from this volume. How about PM Dawn’s “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” – the trippy hip-hop with which disc one concluded?