Tag: Kylie Minogue

30 Years of NOW – The Christmas Album Part 2 (2000-2015)

By 2005, it had been five years since the last NOW Christmas Album, and it was time for a reboot. But things had changed in the interim. Popstars: The Rivals and lying in wait The X Factor, had the Christmas number one all but monopolised, which had a strange effect of leading to both the dullest ‘races’ for Christmas number one ever and also a resurgence in the popularity of the Christmas music of old. The previously mentioned Golden Period from the early 70s to mid-80s became particularly venerated on radio and on the multitude of music channels now available. Unfortunately, this didn’t lead to a great deal of new Christmas music, at least not any GOOD new Christmas music, which may explain the decision to slim back NOW Christmas 2005 to a single cd.

NOW Xmas (2005)

It still retains the core tracks you would expect with no surprises or baffling inclusions, bar one. A chap called Patrizio Buanne, who sounds like a lecherous ice cream man with an awful karaoke backing track. It’s so stinky bad it makes you think Michael Buble isn’t actually that bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl4RpS-Gmv0

The album does, though, feature the giant Perspex NOW lettering in a suitably festive landscape, but labels itself as NOW Massive Christmas Hits XMAS which is a tad unwieldy. This may have been a dig at the BMG/WEA backed Christmas Hits (as in NOW’s great 80’s rival, The Hits Album). They had knocked out their first spoiler album in 2001, utilising a near identical track listing to NOW, beefed up to 50 tracks, but crucially including those big tracks (well, two tracks) NOW no longer had the use of: Wham’s Last Christmas, and the more recent Christmas classic Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas. Christmas Hits would appear again in 2004, expanded to 60 tracks and filling itself with a lot more obscure (to UK ears) tracks by the likes of Linda Ronstadt and a Backstreet Boys B-side. On the plus side it includes T-Rex’s oddly neglected Christmas Bop and Wombling Merry Christmas. So it’s clearly brilliant.

In 2006, and no doubt noticing a distinct drop in their December cashflow the previous year, NOW Christmas is back and up for a fight, expanding to 3 discs and 60 tracks. Its title is back to the more normal, NOW That’s What I Call Xmas, but it’s still using Xmas instead of Christmas. No doubt this is something they focus grouped.

NOW That’s What I Call Xmas (2006)

(This link to Allmusic is the only tracklisting I can find for the 2006 release; the info on the official NOW site is incorrect, and is actually the 2009 release. Oops.)

Upping the ante to three discs results in some fine introductions (The Waitresses finally make an appearance, a couple of Motown classics, Squeeze’s long forgotten Christmas Day, to my knowledge the only Christmas song to namecheck Morecambe and Wise, feel free to prove me wrong in the comments), a selection of much older tunes and some carols for the oldies (disc 2 would no doubt be given short shrift by the kids) and the inevitable contract fulfilling excretions by EMI/Virgin acts, although ALL of the dreadful tracks mentioned on the 2000 release (Robbie, Spice Girls, Ronan Keating, Billie) have gone. Thank Christ.

In their place however, we get Samantha Mumba’s horribly weedy (and far cheaper, in every respect) version of All I Want For Christmas Is You. Despite its belief that a Spector-like Wall of Sound is achieved by chucking as many different sounds into the mix as possible, it actually achieves the near impossible feat of making perhaps the best Christmas song of the past 25 years utterly unlistenable. It even steals Macca’s squelches. Slow hand clap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obsUKs78VhY

Slightly saucy Andrew Sisters knock-offs The Puppini Sisters (who, incidentally do a rather superb Dixie jazz version of the Mariah track) deliver the most recent track on the album. Their fun version of Jingle Bells was made available as a download only track, but only AFTER the NOW album had already been released. It was all good publicity for them and their soon-to-be released album, no doubt. Girls Aloud’s Not Tonight Santa is one of the bonus guffs from the Christmas cash-in release of their album Chemistry in 2005. It’s the slightly naughty tale of the Girls’ boyfriend (it’s not clear if they all share the same one or if they are singing about their own significant others) and what he can offer that Santa can’t. Sadly, they missed the opportunity for references to bulging sacks and only coming once a year. It’s fairly dreadful, considering the cracking tunes they could knock out.

His great Lord Cliffness manages to snag three places on the album, with the perennial Mistletoe and Wine being joined by the almost as ubiquitous Saviours Day (whose video reminds me so much of the Wicker Man I once mashed them up) and long forgotten almost-Christmas-number-one-that-no-one-remembers, Little Town. No idea why, maybe Cliff had a Greatest Hits out that year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJzdxjGEWhk

Other newcomers include a one-time only appearance of Kate Bush’s Home for Christmas. It’s pleasant but inconsequential (it’s less than two minutes) and pales next to the brilliant December Will Be Magic Again. There’s also Band Aid 20, the ’20 years on’ rerecording of Do They Know It’s Christmas? with a bunch of acts most of which have now been long forgotten just 11 years later. There are many problems with this, the biggest of which is that it gave Sir Bob a handy excuse to forever consign Band Aid II (the Stock, Aitken, Waterman version) to the dustbin of musical history forever. There was the fact that Robbie Williams and Dido desperately wanted to be on it, but couldn’t be arsed to get to the studio with everyone else, but they still let them record a bit and included it; there’s Justin bloody Hawkins who thinks a Christmas charity song is the perfect place for his oh-so-ironic axe wanking; there’s bloody Bono and that bloody line (obviously he had his nose very much put out by Matt Goss and Jason Donovan’s reading of the line in 1989 that he felt compelled to come back, despite the fact Mr Hawkins was intended to sing it); there’s the fact that Bananarama weren’t even asked to be on it, and maintain a 100% appearance rate; there’s Chris Martin’s bafflingly out of tune piano; there’s the Sugarbabes sounding like a computer generated girl band; there’s the John Lennon/Give Peace a Chance ending. Perhaps the most maligned aspect at the time of release was Dizzee Rascal’s rap. Listened to now, that’s probably the best part. At least he’s trying, everyone else sounds so utterly bored. One of the problems with Band Aid 20 (and its later 30 cousin) is the sense of duty involved. Adele got absolutely pelted by the media in 2014 for not appearing on Band Aid 30 despite Bob Geldof insisting he never asked her. If you don’t appear on a Band Aid single you are worse than Hitler. So artists trudge to a grotty recording studio on a cold Sunday morning, probably the worse for wear, and sing a song they’re probably just as sick of hearing as we are. You’re bound to be sound a bit bored. At least on the 1984 original the concept alone was exciting enough to generate much enthusiasm (that and coke, probably), but no one ever thinks about why (let alone gets angry because) so and so isn’t on it (Clare Grogan of Altered Images has at least admitted they were asked and they turned it down, brave girl.)

Sod it. You’re not going to hear it on the radio this year. Or any year.

Even Band Aid 20 isn’t the worst track on NOW Christmas ‘06. State of the Heart’s smooth jazz radio version of Last Christmas takes that particular accolade this time round.

There is a rogue element on here that should be mentioned though: East 17’s Stay Another Day. It’s not a Christmas song. It’s sentimental, yes. It’s got bells on, yes. It has a suitably snowy video wiv da boyz from Da Stow in dare puffer jackets, innit. But it ain’t a Christmas song.

NOW That’s What I Call Xmas (2009)

Onto 2009 which features identical artwork but a different tracklisting. A couple of attempted ‘modern’ Christmas songs find their way onto this one, some of which never saw the light of day again. Probably the most celebrated (i.e the one you hear the most) was from Spinal Tap wannabes The Darkness, whose Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) from 2003 was a genuine attempt to wrestle the Christmas number one back for ‘proper’ Christmas songs. You know, proper Christmas music made by sarcastic piss takers who want to write themselves a fat annual cheque. It’s as cynical and calculated as anything The Dark Lord Cowell ever does and the fact people thought this should be number one over the Popstars is frankly laughable now. What was most chucklesome at the time was the fact that it DID outsell that years’ Pop Idol contestants version of Merry Xmas (War Is Over) (good lord) but couldn’t outsell Gary Jules’ Mad World, a song which managed to out depress Tears for Fears, and instill itself into the nation’s hearts. That track has yet to find itself of a NOW Christmas album, but is a Christmas music channel staple now.

(Amazingly, The Darkness, who have had what some may refer to as a comeback this year, are having another pop at the Christmas charts in 2015, with I Am Santa, an utter dirge of a tune which even a wonderfully well made retro video can’t rescue.)

Other newcomers include Gabriella Cilmi (Warm This Winter) whose attempt at a career in the UK (rather than in her native Australia) needed a boost. What better way than to have your Christmas track included in a supermarket ad campaign, along with a NOW appearance. The Wombats (crazy name, crazy guys) tried their hand at the ‘tell it like it really is’ Christmas song, which isn’t bad, but not exactly great either. For a song from 2008, there’s a distinct whiff of 2005 about this. If you heard it on the radio you’d struggle to recall if it was The Kaiser Chiefs, Futureheads, Razorlight or any number of XTC-rip off merchants from the dark days of the mid 00’s. Even an introduction from Les Dennis can’t raise this above ‘meh’.

Other than this the 2009 vintage is starting to taste extremely familiar, with only the late arrival of The Pretenders’ 2000 Miles and Chris Rea’s Driving Home For Christmas (finally) making the thing slightly more definitive than it ever has. Wham and Mariah are still missing, but we still have State of the Heart and Samantha Mumba to annoy the hell out of people who only want to buy one album with all their faves on it.
2010 appears to be identical music wise, but the artwork has been subtly changed from red to purple and given a tad more room to breathe. The Wombats are still on it.

NOW That’s What I Call Christmas (2012)

Joy to the world! The Wham has come! In 2012 people stopped writing crap Amazon reviews of the NOW Christmas Album because of ‘the shitty instrumental version of Last Christmas’ because, finally, Wham’s version returned to NOW for the first time since the original release. In light of this it was also given a prominent place as number three in the almost immovable disc one tracklisting. That running order was given a bit of a spruce and shake up. Not radically so, but at least it didn’t look like nothing had changed, as with the previous couple of go arounds.

George Michael’s second appearance on the album comes from his more recent, and rather neglected, Christmas song, December Song (I Dreamed of Christmas). It’s a proper heart-tugger, which features one of George’s best vocal performances for years. It’s in no way a party tune though, which may account for its lack of airplay in the time since its release in 2009.

Whilst State of the Heart had to give up their slot of Last Christmas to its rightful owner, Samantha Mumba suffers the indignity of being let go in favour of ANOTHER cover version of Mariah’s hit, from someone (or something) called Lady Antebellum. Now, I had to look this one up because that name meant less than bugger all to me, and I really wish I hadn’t. I wonder if this is supposed to be one of those ‘cool christmas’ things that have been popular for a while whereby hipster acts do covers or even attempt a new Christmas song (I blame Sufjan Stevens for all of them). This comes across like S Club 7 trying to do a really heartfelt reading of what was a great pop song. It’s almost interchangeable with Never Had A Dream Come True.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmbLDpy4z50

Mick Hucknall’s Happy This Christmas can, however, sod off. No hit for years? I know, I’ll write a god awful song, stick Christmas in the lyrics, add some bells and ‘little drummer boy’ percussion. Bingo! Or not. It didn’t chart. If it wasn’t for this blog post, and the radio station Smooth Christmas, I would probably never have heard it.

In other changes The Darkness (after just one appearance), Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews, and, sadly, Squeeze, were let go, and replaced by the distinctly unfestive Coldplay (another dreary would be ‘modern classic’), a suprising return for Sinead o’Connor (her brilliantly haunting Silent Night) and mum favourites Il Divo.

NOW That’s What I Call Christmas (2013)

The 2013 release should have been a cause for much celebration as Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas finally made its NOW debut (straight in at number two, pop pickers; John Lennon is still hanging on at number one after all these years), but this is a tainted release for just one reason, and massively controversial it was too (in my head). The past few years have seen the emergence of a new Christmas tradition, and like all great new Christmas traditions it is in fact the revival of an old one. When I was a lad way back when, Christmas didn’t start until the unveiling of that years star-studded Woolworths christmas advert (also available at Woolco). Whether it was Eric Bristow battering a kid at darts, Anita Harris twirling a record stand, Joe Brown being a ringmaster, or The Goodies dancing to an astonishing Super Trouper knock off, you could guarantee it was all anyone was talking about the next day. That and which Star Wars figures you weren’t going to get this year. Well, that tradition is back with us, with many proclaiming John Lewis Day as the official start of the yuletide festivities now. This has not only led to ever increasingly budgeted super commercials by them and their rivals, but also a clamoring to be the unknown (or in Lily Allen’s case, desperate for the work) artist doing an insipid cover of a (sometimes) very famous song in the ad. In 2012, whilst the ad was very good (the snowman getting his snow lady a scarf) the accompanying song was anything but. Worse, Gabrielle Aplin’s cover of Frankie’s The Power of Love usurped its big brother on the NOW album that followed it a year later. I’m not sure why though. The Power of Love is, frankly, one of the best songs of the 80s; powerful, evocative, gut-wrenchingly beautiful, brilliant produced, and, rather sadly in my eyes, a Christmas classic (I say sadly, because it’s so much better than to only be confined to December airplay). Aplin’s version retains none of the original’s potency, replacing a strong message (which incidentally fits the ‘never say die’ message of the ad much better) with a weedy, fragile vocal where the singer sounds like she can barely finish the song. And a year later, no one even remembered it, because, like most Christmas related things, you forget about last year because this year is already creeping up the drive ready to shove a ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’ up your jacksy any second now. No one would have noticed if Aplin’s version wasn’t there; no one would have set up an online petition demanding to know why NOW how snubbed it. No one would have cared. I imagine many DID care that Frankie wasn’t there.

Even more annoyingly it was still present and correct on the 2014 release, which is a carbon copy of 2013.

Which brings us bang up to date.

NOW That’s What I Call Christmas (2015)

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to suggest NOW Christmas 2015 may be the best edition since the first, 30 years ago this very year. The convergence of record companies over the years has led to a situation where almost every major label (Warners being the exception) now falls under NOW’s umbrella, meaning almost everything is up for grabs. What this means is that they can now separate the wheat from the chaff and still knock out a 70(!) track compilation that would keep most festive parties happy. The tracklisting has been shaken to its very core with John Lennon finally forgoing his position at the top of the tree for the first time since the original release (both on the record and in the ads too, where he is now nowhere to be seen) to be replaced by Mariah Carey. No harm done. Interestingly, along with Lennon, many of those survivors from 30 years ago now find themselves bringing up the rear on CD3, including, rather surprisingly, the original opener, Band Aid, though thankfully only in its original incarnation with Band Aid 20 falling by the wayside and (Jesus praise you) no one had the bright idea of including Band Aid 30.

There is a sprinkling of new tracks and a massive addition of new/old tracks too. The actual new stuff (as in songs from the past few years) seems to fit quite nicely, and I’d actually be happy to see them again. Kelly Clarkson manages the best Spector sound-a-like since Mariah’s with the big and bouncy Underneath the Tree. THAT’S how you do a modern Christmas song.

Leona Lewis’ One More Sleep is a perfectly pleasant modern confection which is so in thrall of Christmas past its video even knocks off the one for Last Christmas. The inclusion of Do You Wanna Build A Snowman? is, sadly, inevitable, but at least it isn’t Let It bloody Go, so we should be thankful for small mercies.

What takes it up to another level is the extra classic Christmas tunes of old, many of which will be ingrained in your brain from endless Christmas shopping trips and Christmas movies, but have never before appeared on a NOW Christmas Album. James Brown’s masterful reading of Merry Christmas Baby and Eartha Kitt’s version of Santa Baby are just the start of it. We now have half (HALF!) of the Phil Spector Christmas album. the missing tracks are all replaced by other versions of the songs with the exception of Parade of the Wooden Soldiers (which means naff all to UK listeners) and, tragically, Darlene Love’s majestic Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home), a song the combined mights of Springsteen, Bono and Buble have failed to tarnish. Marshmallow World is here though, and that’s almost as good.

There’s also a superb Ella Fitzgerald hat-trick, providing criminally ignored versions of Sleigh Ride, The Christmas Song and (along with Louis Jordan) Baby, It’s Cold Outside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnEbRaFaqfg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xg6FcaYHf4

There appears to be a great deal of thought in the sequencing of the tunes too, with CD1 clearly being everyone’s favourites along with the party and more up to date hits; CD2 is the classic disc for the oldies (and the not quite that oldies); and CD3 is the more thoughtful, sombre side of christmas, with a couple of carols chucked on for good measure.

But there is one very notable, and elephant-in-the-room-sized omission. Stevie Wonder may be singing about what Christmas means to him, but to a great deal of the UK population, when it comes to Christmas music, Christmas means to them… Cliff Richard. But he is nowhere to be seen. How has the Lord Cliffmass himself managed to go from three tracks a few editions ago, to none. Normally I’d speculate wildly here about the reasons for it, but I can’t afford very good lawyers, so I’ll leave you make up your own minds. Some may argue it isn’t Christmas without Cliff. I am not one of them.

“Hello ladies…”

It’s pretty difficult to see where NOW Christmas goes from here. Obviously we could see a swathe of new Christmas classics released in the next few years, but I doubt it. How many could you name from the past decade? Looking back over the past 30 years, it’s amazing that almost all the original 18 tracks on the 1985 edition have survived all this time. Obviously Gary Glitter isn’t here anymore; Queen’s Thank God It’s Christmas seems a strange omission, but the fact that it has never appeared again after the 1985 edition may suggest the band don’t want it included; Shakey’s Blue Christmas was quickly replaced in the nation’s affections by Merry Christmas Everyone, so that’s an acceptable loss. But the rest are all still here, most of them ever-present. I think that’s rather lovely. And makes me wonder if my generation’s views on Christmas music were probably shaped by that album. I obviously know sod all about the kids today, but I often feel my generation is the one that most cherishes Christmas music, the generation that most enjoys it, reveres it, and criticises the fact that none of the new stuff is as good as the old stuff. I’ve said elsewhere on this blog that I believe everyone thinks the pop music from their youth is the best period. With Christmas music, I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think everyone, no matter how old, could pick their top ten Christmas tunes, and it would encompass a vast, diverse range of artists, periods and styles. And they’d probably all be quite different as well. Though most would probably pick Fairytale of New York or All I Want For Christmas as their number one, instead of Wombling Merry Christmas. The idiots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzAL9ELsFRw

December 4, 2015

30 Years of NOW – The Christmas Album Part 1 (1985-2000)

The internet never fails to amuse itself by asking “Want to feel old?”, does it? “Here’s what the kid from Cadbury’s Fudge advert looks like now”, “We’re now further away from the release of back to the Future than the number of years Marty travels in the whole trilogy”, and of course, “That person you fancied in your teens now looks like your Nan/Grandad”.

Well, now it’s my turn. Want to feel old? This year marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the first NOW Christmas album. Yep, 30 years since this the sound of John Lennon heralded the arrival of one the most ubiquitous adverts of the festive season (everywhere except on You Tube it seems, where the original remains oddly elusive), and the album became a party must-have for every generation that followed.

If you weren’t around when the first NOW Christmas Album landed in 1985, it’s difficult to convey just how legendary this was. Finally, all your favourite Christmas songs could be found on one album (if the words ‘favourite’ and ‘Christmas songs’ do ever feature in your particular vocabulary). In the dark times, before NOW, Christmas albums fell into very distinct categories. There was your album of standards popularised by the likes of Bing Crosby, Perry Como and Frank Sinatra (in our house the Elvis Christmas Album would hit the deck as we were decking the halls and wouldn’t leave the record player until mid-January). Occasionally, someone like James Brown would pop up with a truly interesting attempt to do something different, but these were rare and often overlooked in the December record buying chaos. (Brown’s Funky Christmas is a brilliant piece of work, combining the familiar and new, socially conscious Christmas fare. It does have a dreadful, fuzzy felt-style cover though). Next was your loose collection of artists from the same record company performing contractually-obligated numbers for a ‘Merry Christmas From…’ collection (the best examples hail, of course, from Motown and the Phil Spector Christmas Gift For You, which hasn’t let the fact that the producer/genius/nutcase is a convicted murderer prevent it from being an annual best seller). There was also your ‘Sing-a-long-a-thons’ from the likes of Chas n Dave and Max Bygraves, instrumental concoctions from Mantovani and James Last, and the inevitable Carols from King’s type affair. As ‘traditional’ as these may all have been, come the 80’s it was very difficult to have a Christmas party and only stick one album on. At least for an hour. Party DJs needed serious help, and Christmas 1985 saw that help arrive in the shape of the first NOW Christmas Album.

If you’ve paid any attention to this infrequently updated collection of ramblings about 80s pop, you’ll know that by the end of 1985 NOW was huge business. The regular series of chart compilations were beginning to be augmented with additional collections under the NOW brand, starting with NOW Dance in the summer of 1985. A Christmas addition must have seemed like a no brainer, particularly with so little serious competition. Even nearly 30 years on the tracklisting is pretty definitive, having the advantage of coming at the end of the Christmas song Golden Age which kicked off in the early 70s, with the likes of Mud and Slade, and ending with Band Aid, Wham and Shakey’s Merry Christmas Everyone (1985’s yuletide chart topper, but sadly, and obviously, omitted).

The great thing here also is the songs are all so ingrained in your brains that I don’t have to spend too much time discussing the merits (or otherwise) of individual tracks and can instead witter on about useless trivia and be rude about Chris de Burgh and Paul McCartney. Hooray!

NOW That’s What I Call Music – The Christmas Album (1985)

(The spine title is NOW – The Christmas Album. The cassette version was known as NOW – The Christmas Tape, and the CD release in 1986 was, rather cunningly, titled NOW – The Christmas Compact Disc)

Tracklisting

Do They Know It’s Christmas?	Band Aid
I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday	Roy Wood With Wizzard
Merry Xmas Everybody	Slade
Last Christmas	Wham!
Step Into Christmas	Elton John
In Dulci Jubilo	Mike Oldfield
Another Rock ‘N’ Roll Christmas	Gary Glitter
Wonderful Christmastime	Paul McCartney
Blue Christmas	Shakin’ Stevens
Merry Christmas (War is Over)	John Lennon & Yoko Ono*
I Believe In Father Christmas	Greg Lake*
A Spaceman Came Travelling	Chris De Burgh
Stop The Cavalry	Jona Lewie
Little Saint Nick	The Beach Boys
Thank God It’s Christmas	Queen
Lonely This Christmas	Mud
When A Child Is Born (Soleado)	Johnny Mathis
White Christmas	Bing Crosby

(* – omitted from the 1986 CD re-issue)

As I said, that’s pretty much all you need, right? Everyone is going to have their favourites on that, but for me the standouts are Step Into Christmas (a song I seem to love more and more each year), In Dulci Jubilo, and Greg Lake’s wonderfully sardonic I Believe In Father Christmas, a song written in criticism of modern Christmas that has become a staple of the very thing he is railing against. I’m sure his bank manager doesn’t mind though. That’s not to say Slade, Wizzard, Wham and all the other artists whose names are only one word bring nothing to the table. Christmas would not be Christmas without Noddy’s yell, Roy Wood’s glittery cheeks or George Michael’s bouffant, even for someone like me who endured seven years of shop work at Christmas having them beamed directly into my cerebral cortex from mid-October.

Obviously there are some problems though. The ridiculously popular-with-my-Dad-for-reasons-I-never-understood A Spaceman Came Traveling has much to answer for, not least because it was included here BEFORE De Burgh became a star through The Lady in Red. No one had given a toss about this song for the previous decade, so its inclusion here not only led to it gaining a reputation as a ‘Christmas classic’ (and annual appearances everywhere) but also increased his popularity with the public and, probably, led to the success of The Lady in Red the following year. Chaos theory.

The other pop music criminal hiding in plain sight is Macca, positively glowing on the cover whilst delivering one of the worst pieces of music ever recorded. I’ve said before that the billions he made off of Yesterday and Hey Jude were just flukes, and I submit Wonderful Christmas Time as Exhibit A. Maybe that theory about him dying in the 60s are true, because it’s hard to believe that the same guy wrote this and Hey Jude. What IS that squelching noise? It sounds like a synthesised version of someone playing a guitar through a synthesiser. And then synthesising it. Take the sleigh bells off and you’ve just got a squelchy noise. Macca apparently recorded the whole thing himself, which is a shame as he could have done with a Wing or two to point out it was shite, despite making him a reported £200,000 a year. Which just makes me sick. (I’m rather fond of this Tom McRae cover version which, for me at least, wonderfully sums up the utter joylessness of listening to the bloody thing.)

Paul McCartney, Yesterday

And Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a little Glitter. Yes, we are never going to see Another Rock n Roll Christmas gracing a UK Christmas compilation ever again, because while it’s fine to continue to swell the coffers of a convicted murderer like Phil Spector, Glitter is now considered something less than human. It’s still a great track, though. There, I said it.

Of the rest, Shakey’s Blue Christmas seems like an afterthought to modern eyes, presumably because he didn’t want Merry Christmas Everybody included and damage his chances of getting the festive top spot (he’d already held the track back a year to avoid a clash with Band Aid in 1984) and it was cheaper than licensing the far superior Elvis version (which, although not the first recording is probably the definitive recording). In fact Shakey’s version was a huge hit, and was only stopped from being his first festive chart topper by the baffling popularity of Renne and Renato’s Save Your Love; The Beach Boys experiment with the sleigh bells which they would soon adopt and become the only band allowed to use them the rest of the year; and Jona Lewie becomes a millionaire overnight despite not actually writing a Christmas song (this is a theme which will recur as we move through the ages, not least here, where Johnny Mathis’ When A Child is Born makes no specific reference to Christmas beyond mention of a ‘tiny star’, but the production is amazing…)

Ol’ Black Eyes, Bing Crosby, is the sole inclusion from outside the Golden Age, but you always need something for the old folks, don’t you, so what better than perhaps the most famous Christmas song of all time (and even that made the top 10 during the Golden Age, in 1977).

The Golden Age of the Christmas song is worth brief further analysis (with the emphasis on the word anal) as it’s often bemoaned that the recent crop of crimbo chart-toppers (say, the last 20 years) aren’t really in keeping with the spirit of the occasion, being as they are now manufactured and manipulated by the telly to snag the top spot from the rightful grasp of some millionaire pop stars ruthlessly manipulating the charts by releasing a festive themed tune around December in the hopes of securing the summit, and a tasty pension pot at the same time. This is, of course, nonsense. In the entire history of the singles chart only 12 Christmas number ones have actually been about Christmas. That’s 12 out of 61. That 12 includes When a Child is Born (which is tenuous), 3 Band Aids, 2 Mary’s Boy Child and Slade and Mud. But not Wizzard. It doesn’t include the ‘adopted’ Christmas songs such as East 17’s Stay Another Day, which just happened to be number one at Christmas, and thanks to the music TV channels are as ingrained in the public consciousness as any number of sleigh bell riddled ditties. It is interesting though that five of those twelve appeared between 1973 and 1985, and since then only The Lord Antichrist Cliff and Band Aid have had actual Christmas number ones. So any talk that the Christmas number one isn’t the same as it used to be is both way off the mark, but also true if you of a certain age (as, to be fair, most people who complain about it are).

But what of NOW, or rather ‘then’. The first NOW Christmas is pretty perfect but a few omissions stand out. From today’s perspective, The Waitresses’ Christmas Wrapping is perhaps the biggest miss, but the fact is it wasn’t a hit when released in 1981, and only made number 45 the next year, the compilers may have assumed the public wasn’t interested. Kate Bush’s December Will Be Magic Again is a more puzzling MIA as Ms Bush is an EMI stalwart and the song is now a long forgotten gem. The Pretenders’ 2000 Miles, Bowie and Bing’s Little Drummer Boy and Wombling Merry Christmas can be excused by, presumably, prohibitive licensing fees from rival record companies. Paying extra for Wham’s Last Christmas (the biggest selling single in the UK not to get to number one, fact fans!) is one thing. It’s a bit harder to justify it for a bunch of overgrown muppets, even if it is one of the greatest Christmas songs ever.

While we’re on the subject of myth debunking, here’s another: NOW do not re-release the Christmas album every year, and add one track to the tracklisting to get you to buy it again. That would be silly, and not very cost effective. But mostly silly. The album (in its most recent incarnations) is certainly re-issued every year but the tracklisting has only changed nine times in the 30 years since the original release, and all of those changes have occurred since 2000. (Wikipedia states that the original album was reissued in 1986 missing the Queen track, but I haven’t been able to verify this and every copy available on eBay and Discogs seems to have the track present and correct. The first CD issue, also from 1986, is missing the Greg Lake and John Lennon tracks for some reason, but the Queen track is on it, so it would appear odd for it to be taken off of the vinyl and cassette. The track has, however, never appeared on any subsequent new release.)

Part of the confusion for this may arise from the fact that for some reason in 1989 EMI broke ranks from their NOW partners and released It’s Christmas. The tracklisting was near identical but out went Wham, Mike Oldfield, Gary Glitter and Queen, in came Cliff’s Mistletoe and Wine, the aforementioned Kate Bush track, Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree and Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song. Shakey’s Merry Christmas Everyone replaced his Blue Christmas. It’s branding and cover design are near identical to the NOW design, so it’s very easy (and probably deliberate) that many punters assumed it was the latest incarnation of the more famous cousin. It’s Christmas was reformatted as It’s Christmas Time in 1992, with Glitter and Queen reinstated, as well as Steeleye Span’s Gaudete, which the kids had been crying out for inclusion on a Christmas compilation I’m sure. And more was to come.

Before NOW Christmas was rejigged and re-released at the turn of the decade/century/millennium (delete where appropriate) Virgin would become the second NOW partner to go rogue, in 1993, releasing The Best Christmas … Ever! This album raised the stakes by being a double, and brought in a lot more ‘classic’ (i.e. old and possibly neglected) Christmas tunes from the likes of Eartha Kitt, Doris Day and Dean Martin. More modern tastes were catered for by Snap’s Mary Had A Little Boy and Enigma’s Sadness, which was one of many songs included for their more tenuous links to Christmas (others included Freiheit’s brilliant Keeping the Dream Alive and The Flying Pickets 1983 Christmas chart topper, Only You) which just struck of padding. Along with the usual suspects, some interesting inclusions included a rare appearance for Mel (Smith) and Kim (Wilde)’s version of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (recorded for Comic Relief in 1987) and Miles Davis’ extraordinary Blue Christmas, which is sequenced immediately before Willie Nelson’s version of the more famous song with that title! An almost identical tracklist appeared as the more familiar sounding Best Christmas Album in the World… Ever! (along with truly terrifying cover art)in 1996.

Various other cheaper, tattier, collections would start to litter the shelves of Our Price throughout the 80s and 90s, but special mention must be made of A&M records A Very Special Christmas, which managed to avoid all the obvious Christmas tracks, and included tracks from the likes of Eurythmics, U2, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band and is possibly the only mainstream Christmas collection to include Run DMC’s Christmas in Hollis (“This IS Christmas music, man!”). Sadly, while it includes a Bon Jovi track, it isn’t R2D2, We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

And so we all meet up in the year 2000, a year which once seemed to promise so much but which ultimately delivered exactly the same stuff in slightly different packaging… like the NOW Christmas Album (do you see what I did there?). After 15 years the annual festive best seller was given a dusting down, a spruce up and an influx of some 22 extra tracks. In keeping with The Best Christmas Album a few years before, a single disc just wouldn’t cut it anymore, and whilst this means an increase in great tracks from the 50s and 60s, it also means more tenuously connected tracks (Angels?), along with some truly bizarre cover versions to bring down the cost of licensing the more famous versions, as we will shortly see.

(From this point I’ll link to the official NOW site for tracklistings, or this is going to get very very very long)

NOW! The Christmas Album (2000)

Firstly, the cover. It’s dreadful. The giant floating Perspex letters in space had long been established as the NOW house style, so, I’m not sure what they were thinking branding the Christmas album with what looks like a Poundshop tree topper, and with the NOW logo banished, almost invisibly into the corner. This may go some way to explaining its relatively poor sales, but I would suggest the tracklisting helped also.

Of the new additions, no one can possibly argue with the inclusions of Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, The Jackson 5 and Brenda Lee. The Love Unlimited Orchestra’s It May Be Winter Outside is pushing things a bit, but I’ll let it slide, along with Frankie’s The Power of Love which pub bores will argue about til the cows come home; fact is, it’s not a Christmas song, even if the video did play up to its release date, but I’d miss it if it wasn’t here, mainly because it’s one of the best songs on offer. Walking in the Air seems a no-brainer as well, despite not exactly being a party tune, but then neither is Sinead O’Connor’s Silent Night which is almost as good (but not nearly as bone-chilling) as Simon and Garfunkel’s take on the carol (including THAT would have taken a very brave man). Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews Baby It’s Cold Outside had taken about 30 nanoseconds to become a Christmas mainstay, and in the process rejuvenated a long forgotten song for a new generation and even more cover versions in the following years.

The most bang up to date track is S Club 7’s Perfect Christmas which was mere days old when NOW Christmas was released, being one of the B-sides to Never Had a Dream Come True. Frankly this was good enough to be released on its own and but for the fact its big brother was chosen to be the official Children in Need single for 2000, and thus released in late November, they could have had a good run at that year’s Christmas number one. It’s not a classic, but it is pretty much what you expect an S Club Christmas single to sound like, and that ain’t too shabby.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCUit4tMHVg

Also bang up to date, but in hindsight ridiculously presumptuous, is Hannah Morris, whose version of When a Child is Born means poor old Johnny Mathis (and his amazing production) are jettisoned in favour of a flash in the pan teen sensation signed to Virgin on a one album deal. I’d never heard of her and any information about her seems to have been removed entirely from the internet. Fair play, she’s got a great voice for a 14 year old, but this is woeful stuff. The whole thing is slavered in church bells and ye olde Oirish charm. I’d include a link, but I can’t find one. Anywhere.

Robbie Williams’ anointed status in 2000 as the biggest solo artist going (and EMI golden boy) meant he had to be included, so we get Angels just because, that’s why, but also that single’s appalling B-side, Walk This Sleigh (younger readers may need to ask a grown up to help them find out what a B-side is, or rather was). Thankfully it isn’t in anyway an attempt to re-write the Aerosmith barnstormer with hilarious festive lyrics. It’s somehow worse than that. It probably set the template for a number of Christmas hits which followed which tried to repaint Christmas not in hues of white and blue, but in the beige and brown reality that most people experience but try to escape by listening to the likes of Wizzard and Cliff. For some reason Robbie sings most of it a scouse accent, slags off the Spice Girls (who at the time of the single’s release were Robbie’s biggest chart rivals) and whilst it’s clearly a dry run for Millenium, it also invokes the Muppets Manna-Manna just for the sake of being really annoying.

Amazingly it’s not even the worst track on the album. Other contenders include Billie Piper’s pointless, soul-less and emotionless version of Last Christmas which starts off rather effectively with the sound of Billie trapped in a blizzard and whispering to the apparition of her dead boyfriend who has just appeared to her as a vision, but then becomes the worst karaoke backing track of Last Christmas you’ve ever heard, combined with one of the most ‘sod it will this do’ vocal performances I think I’ve ever heard. It also proves what a dreadful song it can be in the wrong hands and, like most Christmas songs, should never be covered unless you do something really special with it (and no, I don’t mean Jimmy Eat World, or even Crazy Frog. Nor sadly do I even mean Whigfield). It was released in 1999 as the B-side to She Wants You if you’re at all interested.

Michael Ball’s version of Driving Home for Christmas is rather odd. Ball is a fine vocalist, but this song needs Chris Rea’s gravelly tones to best replicate the terrain of a bumper-to-bumper motorway on Christmas Eve. Interestingly, possibly, is the fact that Rea’s version wasn’t a big hit on initial release in 1988, only reaching number 53. It took a couple of Iceland campaigns, and then a re-release for the charity Shelter, to get the song to deserved status it has now. Thankfully not for this version though. State of the Heart (presumably some kind of in-house covers band) provide a suitably dreadful version of Please Come Home For Christmas (on later NOW Christmas’ they submit their inimitable take on Last Christmas, which puts Billie’s in a whole new light). This is the kind of toss that turns up in the background of Christmas specials of sitcoms that won’t fork out serious money for proper Christmas songs, and gives Christmas music a bad name.

But perhaps the greatest cover crime on offer comes from the Spice Girls. Now, whilst they had dominated the Christmas charts in the late 90s they hadn’t released an actual Christmas song. (Both 2 Become 1 and Goodbye do feature Christmas themed videos, ensuring annual dust offs by the music channels; the video for their second Christmas number one, Too Much, was slightly scuppered by having to promote the Spice World movie.) For Goodbye, the third of their hat trick of Christmas number ones, someone decided it was a good idea to desecrate one of the greatest Christmas songs of all time. Luckily being a B-side, and appearing on one of the lowest selling NOW Christmas albums, the fallout was minimal. Thank Christ, because their version of Christmas Wrapping is the stuff wars are made of. I’ll admit I don’t hate the arrangement, it’s suitably updated (i.e. it sounds ridiculously cheap and tacky and like it was recorded using Music 2000 on a PlayStation, which it probably was) but the whole thing stinks of a ’15 minutes of studio time left and we need another track for the 3 CD limited edition digipack edition with fold out poster (1 of 5 to collect)’. There’s the fact that Mel C is reduced to sounding as bored as she ever did whilst in The Girls; the fact Emma can’t pronounce “ending” properly; the fact they ‘hilariously’ update the lyrics to mention 24 hour garages and Tesco; the fact that three of them don’t appear to sing on it; the fact it’s a minute shorter (and seemingly cut off early); the fact that it has a billionth of the heart, soul and, let’s face it, brilliance of the original. So, once again The Waitresses miss out on well-deserved royalties from NOW simply to appease the manager of one of the labels biggest acts who had just split up anyway. Sorry, were on ‘hiatus’.

But what’s this? What’s THIS? Maybe the Spices’ isn’t the worst. I’ll let you decide if you think Ronan Keating’s oh-so-heartfelt cover of Fairytale of New York should take the crown. If you read my review of NOW 10 from way back when you’ll know exactly how I feel about this song, and I’ll be honest I’ve only ever listened to Ronan’s version all the way through once before. I’d heard about ‘that’ lyric change and was prepared for it, so what surprised me was how utterly fake the whole thing sounds. It’s like an American producer took the song and decided it needed to be a bit more Oirish, because Oirish is very big right now. Yes Ronan, I like your accent, but can you play it up a bit, it’s not quite hitting the numbers we’d like. We focus grouped it and decided we need more penny whistle, more wistfulness, less aggression apart from that bit you try it and it just sounds like you’ve sworn in front of your parents for the first time to try and show them how independent you are now but you’re actually a bit embarrassed by it all. You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned his accomplice in this, but that’s because no one ever remembers her, despite her being (and this was news to me) the lead singer of Clannad. Though no one’s sure if she’s called Maire or Moya.

Almost as a footnote, his Cliffness doubles up with Mistletoe and Wine, and as an added bonus his long-forgotten (even just a year later) Millenium Prayer, which would have been number one if Radio 1 had played it (*stifles guffaw*). This began a (kind of) tradition of including one or two tracks intended for New Years parties too, supposedly to ensure an extra week’s shelf life for the album. Later releases would include ABBA’s Happy New Year as standard, and various Auld Lang Syne’s would soon join it.

From fear of dulling your senses into submission like so many turkey sandwiches, I’ll pause here and allow you a breather.

It would be a further five years before NOW Christmas got a reboot, and in that time pop music changed, man. Just how this affected NOW Christmas, we’ll find out soon.

Note:

The original 1985 release features a note on the rear cover stating:

“A donation from the proceeds of sale of this record will be made to the NSPCC”

I’m not sure if this was a gesture that extended to the subsequent releases.

November 30, 2015

NOW 21 – It’s got an ‘ology. A V-I-B-E-ology

Like 1988 before it, 1992 is not one of those banner years in the annuls of music. Flipping through the ‘1992 in music’ page on Wikipedia turns up such nuggets as Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love got married, Kylie parted company with Pete Waterman and Billy Idol punched a woman in the face. Three of pops darkest days I’m sure you’ll agree. Musically it is devoid of much worth commenting on. 1992 did see the release of Hiphoprisy Is The Greatest Luxury, Sugar’s Copper Blue and Take That and Party, but it also begat The Bodyguard soundtrack, still one of the biggest selling albums of all time. You idiots. The accepted wisdom is that 1992 (and to some extent, 1993) are the dark hinterlands between the grunge ‘explosion’, which generated just three top ten hits, and 1994’s birth of Britpop (copyright 6Music for the whole of this year), which ruined everything. And judging by NOW 21, those sorts of people who get asked to discuss the merits of Right Side Fred versus The Breeders on BBC Four filler shows are absolutely right: 1992 smells worse than teen spirit.

As seen on 'I'll Say I Love Any Kind of Music for £250 plus exees' — **As seen on ‘I’ll Say I Love Any Kind of Music for £250 plus exees’**

NOW 21 is the last NOW album I have any experience of in the real world. Whilst I was now fully ensconced in a world of John Peel, the NME and whatever my now-moved out brother was sticking on C90s for me, a friend of mine had NOW 21 on CD and insisted on putting it on whenever I was at his house. I hated it at the time, and was only interested in the Jesus and Mary Chain track mainly because it seemed so out of place. It wasn’t a patch on the JAMC stuff I was listening to at home, but I just couldn’t understand why Far Gone and Out was on it. My mate didn’t care and insisted on only playing Bohemian Rhapsody and Mr Big’s Be With You. I never did keep in touch with him when I left school. Can’t think why.

NOW 21 is top heavy with number ones, but sadly shoots its wad too early. It begins with Bohemian Rhapsody, re-released the previous Christmas as a tribute to the death of Freddie Mercury, making it the only song to score a Christmas number one twice, in the same version. You know this back to front so there’s little point in me discussing it further.

We Wet Wet’s Goodnight Girl does warrant a bit of further discussion. Like With a Little Help From My Friends, this is probably long forgotten as a Wets’ number one, but top spot it did reach. No idea why though. It’s a trite, piano-based soufflé of a song which features no drums whatsoever. That’s a no-no in my book. It also has, to my ears at least, some rather suspect lyrics: “I won’t tell a soul, I won’t tell at all, Do they have to know about my Goodnight Girl”… make of that what you will.

Far more wholesome, if nonetheless bonkers, is the triumphant return of Shakespeare’s Sister. Stay is just so wonderfully hat stand that you can’t help but love it. I’m sure most of those who pushed it to number one are the same kind of people who made Babybird’s You’re Gorgeous a hit, i.e. people who don’t really listen to music. Of course, Stay makes no sense without its video, which makes the fact it was so popular even more amusing. I wonder what cultural historians of the future will make of this one.

They’ll have far more fun dissecting that one than they will explaining the continued success of Simply Red, who offer us Stars this time round. That’s preceded by the albums token “song from a hit movie”, with the Temptations My Girl, and followed by The KLF’s Justified and Ancient, a re-recording of the final track from their White Room album, with new vocals from Tammy Wynette. As a fan of the original album version, I’m not keen on this, and see it as the KLF taking their joke to the extreme where it becomes irritating rather than amusing. The fact that it was in the running for the Christmas number one in 1991 was probably the point. The KLF will, amazingly, feature again later.

Madness provide the third re-release on side one. It Must Be Love is great, obviously, but it does make you start to wonder if there was anything new that was good about at the time. The fact that Genesis could score top ten hits in 1992 probably means the answer is no. I Can’t Dance is one of those songs that was probably more successful as a result of its (admittedly, through gritted teeth) amusing video, taking the piss out of Levi commercials, than it was for the inherent merits of the song itself. Julia Fordham’s Love Moves in Mysterious Ways is, possibly, the token act being plugged on side one. A fairly forgettable piano-based dirge, it’s not particularly memorable even given Fordham’s slightly odd vocal recalling Beverly Craven’s much better Promise Me, with hints of the heavy breathy type of singer that would become popular when Mariah Carey started selling millions. I’m amazed more X Factor finalists haven’t given this a pop; it’s right up their street as an example of fragile yet strong singing. Oooo-oooh.

The next half does get better, eventually, but takes its time getting there. Crowded House’s Weather With You is always embedded in my mind thanks to an impromptu sing-along on the last day of school, when someone decided it was a perfect way to say our goodbyes to everyone, whilst I was writing sub-Pixies lyrics in everyone’s ‘Farewell Journals’ or whatever the hell they called them.

Deeply Dippy, the final number one on the album, has survived pretty well, I think. It’s a cracking pop tune which never seems to get any respect. If Ian Dury had written and performed that exact same song, everyone would say it was a masterpiece. I think it’s almost a masterpiece, with only the slightly weedy brass section holding it back.

The afore-mentioned Mr Big is next with their horribly hand-clappy sing-a-long-a-barnyard Be With You. An unbelievable hit at a time when grunge was supposed to be ruling the charts, this recalls the worst of the likes of John Cougar Mellancamp and other US country-rock acts that you only know the names of if you ever watched America’s Top Ten. We Brits can conjure up our own insipidness though, thanks to Everything but the Girl, once again scoring a surprise hit with a cover version a few years before they had their trip-hop renaissance which they were working on at the same time as Tracey Thorn was providing vocals for Massive Attack. Honest. Just as forgettable is Roxette’s Church Of Your Heart. You know this is a duffer because the bloke sings it.

I said things got better. Well not quite yet. Bryan May’s Driven By You stinks up the speakers next. With this May makes his second appearance on a NOW album. Just like he did on NOW 19. Christ. Driven By You, younger viewers may not know, was especially written for a Ford car commercial (no doubt to one up Vauxhall who had been having great success using the riff from Eric Clapton’s Layla for a few years). In the ad, it sort of worked, as a Top Gear, petrol-head, greasy overalls theme to shots of jets, R and D departments, Transit vans and the like. As a song, it fails miserably mainly because May seems to have forgotten to change the lyrics from ‘everything WE do’ to ‘everything I do’ for huge sections of the thing, even confusing matters by saying ‘we’ and ‘I’ in the same sentence. So is he singing to Anita Dobson about how together, everything they do is driven by her? Or is he suggesting that the Ford Corporation of America are responsible for the continued married bliss they share? I’m none the wiser.

So, to the good stuff, and there’s very little. The Wonder Stuff appear for the second NOW in succession with the jolly Welcome to the Cheap Seats (with uncredited Kirsty McColl on backing vocals).The incongruous Far Gone and Out follows it, to the bafflement of a nation of teenage NOW buyers. It’s C-grade Jesus and Mary Chain (as was most of the album, Honey’s Dead), but it’s still miles better than most of the crap on offer here. JAMC were on a Warners subsidiary, so one can only assume this was a potential sop to grunge, having failed to snag a Nirvana or Pearl Jam track for inclusion. I’m speculating wildly here, but you have to but this makes no sense at all.

James’ Born of Frustration is a bit more at home, its rallying warble still sounds great. It’s better than Sit Down anyway (though most James singles are). The first half finishes off with one of the rare appearances for The Cure. High sounds like pretty much every Cure song, with that twangly guitar, lyrics tumbling from Robert Smith’s gob, and mention of a cat. Textbook stuff.

Textbook could also describe the running order of CD 2. Apart from the now standard ditching of some odds and ends at the finale, and one hilarious hand grenade of a track, it’s dance all the way, kicking off with Shanice’s I Love Your Smile. Even a cold hearted cynic like me can appreciate how nice this is, but that’s also its problem: it’s sickeningly nice. And you hum it for hours afterwards. The Pasadena’s cover of I’m Doing Fine follows, bringing banality to the niceness of Shanice to produce a horribly soul-less version of the soul classic. I never got on with these guys at the time, finding their reappropriation of soul legends for their own ends cheap and tacky. My opinion has not changed.

Next up, one of Kylie’s forgotten hits, despite it reaching number 2 at the time. Like The Pasadena’s, Give Me Just A Little Bit More Time is a drab soul cover with uninspired SAW production (without the A this time) and a horribly strained vocal from Ms Minogue, who by the year’s end, would be finally stepping out from under the Hit factory’s wing. On this evidence, not a moment too soon. The cover versions continue with East Side Beat’s Ride Like The Wind. It’s a surprisingly listenable track, sounding every inch the forefather of the likes of D:Ream and similar chart botherers who would go on to litter the charts (and NOW albums) in the coming years. It’s an Italian DJ re-working a Christopher Cross non-hit (in the UK at least) from 1979. The original is a late era disco track from the time when everyone was releasing disco records (i.e. when they got rubbish). ESB’s version adds a slightly ballsier vocal and more bass, but essential they aren’t that different.

The Daddy Mack'll make you... JUMP! JUMP! — **The Daddy Mack’ll make you… JUMP! JUMP!**

That’s followed by the Fisher Price hard house of 2 Unlimited with the forgettable Twilight Zone, which doesn’t even sample the Theme from The Twilight Zone. Idiots.

Thankfully, all that nastiness is firmly blown away by the musical equivalent of a photobomb thanks to the compiler dropping KLF’s America (What Time Is Love) into the mix and showing everyone else on the record how to produce ball-busting dance music. Yes, it’s another cover version on a side filled with them, but at least it does something different to the original chart version (which in itself is only one of various versions of the track). Featuring the riff from Ace of Spades and the singer from Deep Purple, along with a hellish choir, a ludicrous prologue…you need to hear the full 9 minute version to appreciate this tune’s almighty power, but even the truncated radio version here is enough to satisfy. It’s also crying out for someone more talented than me to mash it up with Neil Diamond’s America.

We continue with two pretty good tunes: Civilles and Coles’ Deeper Love sounds like the kind of thing that would have inspired a fair few people. It’s got some swing to its standard house beat and a really good sassy vocal to add some grit to this particular oyster, not sure about that protracted ending though. It’s not one I particularly liked in the day, but sounds pretty good now. As does Opus III A Fine Day. What both these tracks have is the inability to date them. Deeper Love could be from anywhere between 1987 and 1995. A Fine Day, too, is fairly impossible to pin down. I was genuinely surprised to see it on this album, thinking it at least a year younger than 1992. This has turned up on at least two Pete Waterman compilations even though he had bugger all to with it, other than it was released by his PWL label.

Erasure’s Breath of Life seems a little out of place in this kind of company, and it’s clear from their lowly position midway through CD2 that their star was starting to wane for the record company. Including them was still obligatory because they were still having top 10 hits (and would continue to do so for another decade) and it’s a great tune, it’s just unfortunate that former album openers now found themselves in the pick n mix bin, next to McHammer, stinking up the charts with the god-awful Addams Groove. Produced to promote the Addams Family movie, it desecrates the original famous theme, but at least has the grace to bury it in the mix so much you can barely hear it. By this point he’d dropped the Mc, so this was credited as just Hammer on the single, which would prove to be his last top 10 hit, with only one further single (something called Do Not Pass Me By, hopefully a cover of the Ringo Starr composition) even breaching the top 40. And no one cared. The pop-rap vibe continues with Salt n’ Pepa’s Expression. Clearly inspired (i.e. ripping off) Madonna’s Express Yourself, this is all about getting the sisters to do it for themselves and “believe in me”. I’m not quite sure how “come on and work your body” fits into this proto-Girl Power theme, but there you go. It’s not aimed at me so I’m not meant to get it. By this point any innovation S n P may have once showed has long gone, and they are now sounding like almost every other ‘new jack’ R n’ B act starting to occupy the UK charts at the time. Like Ce Ce Penniston who followed up the wonderful Finally, with the bland and by-the-numbers We Got A Love Thang (god, even typing that made me cringe). Meh.

The next track is thankfully odd enough, if not necessarily any good, to elicit some interest: Paula Abdul’s Vibeology. It’s a little strange that such an odd thing would turn out to be her best track since Straight Up. I suspect it’s the result of some studio off cuts that didn’t quite make a whole song, being handed over to a producer to slap together. It’s a world away from the dreary ballads she seemed to have made her stock in trade, and pointed to a new direction she could have taken. If Madonna had recorded this, it would still be the subject of academic studies. As it is it’s left as a curious mix of sex, funk, juvenile humour, schoolgirl excitement and Paula’s Bart Simpson impression (“Let’s do it!”). I like it but I’m not sure why, as it’s not good in any sense of the word as I understand it.

The final dancey track is Alison Limerick’s Make It On My Own. This is one of those tracks that seemed to be forever laying in the ‘fun’ pubs and would be wine bars of my home town, at the time when I was first experimenting with fake IDs. It’s very good and worth having a new listen to.

But it’s all downhill from there: Tina Turner’s Way of the World starts off sounding like Let’s Stay Together… just like Be Tender With Me Baby did on NOW 18! It’s as a beige as a newly refurbished flat on Homes Under the Hammer, and just as mercenary. Ms Bullock had ceased to be relevant to NOW and its listeners for a while now so her inclusion with a number 13 hit, from 5 months previous, that barely anyone remembered at the time, let alone now, seems like unnecessary padding. At least Curtis Stigers’ I Wonder Why was a big hit. Its inclusion is at least understandable, even if the song is all kinds of wrong. Lounge-jazz sax invades this penthouse ballad with all the subtlety of a thrown brick and with even less charm. It sounds like the theme to a long forgotten yuppie soap opera about people who stare out of their high rise apartment windows across a city that doesn’t understand them anymore, high paid jobs they hate but which they can’t live without and relationships so convoluted you end up marrying yourself. Twice. Stigers has a very strange voice too, like he’s got a permanent bit of phlegm vibrating in the back of his throat he’s long since given up trying to dislodge. Listened to on headphones, there’s a constant rattle in the background that convinces you your Sennheisers are bust. Again.

NOW 21 breathes its last with one of the most insipid ballads, in a long history of insipid ballads, which the series has served up so far. Diana Ross’ When You Tell Me That You Love Me sounds like it was released in the early 80s, like it was a rejected song from a Lloyd Webber musical. She sounds like an X Factor finalist rather than one of the most successful soul singers we’ve ever had, and with its pointless key change, synthesised orchestra and choir filled finale, it has all the charm and heart of a Michael Bay movie. This managed to hold off KLF in the battle for Christmas number 1991, but its huge sentimentality was no match for the death of a national treasure. According to Wikipedia it missed the top shot by only a couple of hundred units. Ross tried to rectify this a decade later by re-recording it with Westlife, of all people, but that also stalled at number two. Oops.

So, is the perceived wisdom right? Is 1992 a dark, post-apocalyptic wasteland of pop nothingness? On this evidence, the answer is definitely yes. NOW 21 isn’t the whole story of the year (it’s not even the whole NOW story of the year) but as a snapshot of where things were it seems the public loved their cover versions, corny love songs and re-releases. But, there’s nothing resembling grunge here and no sign of the great British backlash to come, so what exactly are all these commentators banging on about on 6Music at the moment? 1992 is simply shaping up to be one of those forgettable years. Isn’t it?

Yes, that is the then voice of the Official Top 40, Mark “Goodie Bags’ Goodier, replacing ‘The Kid’ as the voice of NOW, where he remains to this day.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 21

Release date

13th April 1992

Biggest tracks

Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen

Stay – Shakespeare’s Sister

Lost gems

America: What Time Is Love? – The KLF feat. The Children of the Revolution

Vibeology – Paula Abdul

Forgotten tracks

(Love Moves In) Mysterious Ways – Julia Fordham

We Got a Love Thang – Ce Ce Penniston

Make It On My Own – Alison Limerick

Way Of The World – Tina Turner

Worst Track

Addams Groove – Hammer

What’s missing?

Everybody In The Place – The Prodigy

God Gave Rock n Roll To You – KISS

Movin’ On Up – Primal Scream

Track listing

CD1
Bohemian Rhapsody	Queen
Goodnight Girl	Wet Wet Wet
Stay	Shakespears Sister
My Girl	The Temptations
Stars	Simply Red
Justified And Ancient	The KLF featuring Tammy Wynette
It Must Be Love	Madness
I Can’t Dance	Genesis
(Love Moves In) Mysterious Ways	Julia Fordham
Weather With You	Crowded House
Deeply Dippy	Right Said Fred
To Be With You	Mr Big
Love Is Strange	Everything But The Girl
Church Of Your Heart	Roxette
Driven By You	Brian May
Welcome To The Cheap Seats	The Wonder Stuff
Far Gone And Out	The Jesus & Mary Chain
Born Of Frustration	James
High	The Cure

CD2
I Love Your Smile (Driza Bone Remix)	Shanice
I’m Doing Fine Now	The Pasadenas
Give Me Just A Little More Time	Kylie Minogue
Ride Like The Wind	East Side Beat
Twilight Zone	2 Unlimited
America: What Time Is Love?	The KLF featuring The Children Of The Revolution
A Deeper Love	Clivilles & Cole
It’s A Fine Day	Opus III
Breath Of Life	Erasure
Addams Groove	Hammer
Expression	Salt ‘N’ Pepa
We Got A Love Thang	Ce Ce Peniston
Vibeology	Paula Abdul
Make It On My Own	Alison Limerick
Way Of The World	Tina Turner
I Wonder Why	Curtis Stigers
When You Tell Me That You Love Me	Diana Ross

April 24, 2014

NOW! 19 – Not quite the time of your life

1991 was to prove to be a game changing year for NOW. Hits was now dead in the water and to celebrate NOW would unveil an exciting, sexy new look. That, however, would have to wait, as the year began with a continuation of the dreadful pub wallpaper, shouty brash styling of its predecessor, but at least NOW 19 is a huge improvement. Oddly, although it contains five number ones, I suspect many people would struggle to remember them from the track listing, and would probably misidentify a couple of songs as chart-toppers that weren’t.

The advert, which chooses to highlight some odd selections, mentions six number ones. I wonder if they are cheekily including The Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling, which was a number one in 1965, but only number 3 on it’s 1990 re-release.

We start with one of the ones that DID hit the top spot at the time, with the peerless The Clash and their denim-flogging Should I Stay or Should I Go. A brilliant song, no doubt, but should such an old song (from an advert no less) be opening the album? What used to be the prime slot of a NOW album, usually reserved for the biggest track available, it was increasingly being used as brinkmanship and devoted to artists the labels wanted to plug the most. The fact that The Clash was licensed from WEA for inclusion makes this doubly strange as none of the NOW labels benefit from additional sales. Maybe it was considered a big enough hit to warrant a negotiation with WEA to get it front and centre.

Adding to the mystery is the fact that the rest of side one is almost exclusively dance orientated. But none of this is as odd as the second track, a tune I’ve spent 20 years trying to decide if I like or not, and I’m still not sure. Much like Candy Flip’s Strawberry Fields Forever, Scritti Politti’s take on the Fab Four’s She’s a Woman (a lesser known mop-top track, being the B-side to I Feel Fine) is a ridiculously contemporary take on a Beatles’ track, so over-produced, bleeding-edge and, frankly, camp, that you wonder if it’s not all some elaborate joke at the listeners’ expense. Add in everyone’s favourite homophobic rapper, Shabba Ranks (making his UK chart debut), and you have the perfect punchline. Seeing Green Gartside in the video looking like Richard Madeley doing his Ali G impression, wearing a very hot-looking tracksuit and baseball cap (right way round, thankfully) is something to behold. It’s not a bad track, not by a long shot; it’s just so wonderfully odd. I’ve had my doubts before about how seriously The Politti’s take themselves (see NOW 12) so I’m happy to assume that, like The Beautiful South, they’re happy for people to take their songs how they hear them and not sneer at them for ‘not getting it’. It’s one of the lowest charting tracks on NOW 19, reaching only number 20.

Just two songs in and we next get one of the best songs on the album with You Got the Love. The track has a massively convoluted genesis which I won’t delve into here, but needless to say the vocal is old (around 1986) and this arrangement was a re-working of a previous bootleg release (1989). Even this 1991 release appears in various different guises. The one on NOW 19 is the one I remember from the charts at the time, but has subtle differences to the one more commonly played on the radio now and heard on 90’s compilations (the track has been remixed and re-released so many times, it’s impossible to know which version you’re going to get).

So things are shaping up nicely, a drop must be due, surely? Well, not yet there isn’t. The KLF’s 3AM Eternal is next, somehow managing to sound like a perfect fusion of rap, dance and rock and simultaneously sound like it’s sending it all up. That’s followed by C and C Music Factory with Gonna Make You Sweat (still a pop-tastic floor-filler) and Nomad’s I Wanna Give You Devotion. In NOW 19’s only sop to the alternative scene we get EMF’s I Believe, a fine follow up to megahit Unbelievable, and 808 State’s In Your Face, probably the hardest track featured on a NOW album. It’s the kind of thing that people say isn’t music, it’s just noise. It’s not quite as teeth-shattering as Cubik from the previous year, but it gives the bass a good rattling. Amazingly this was a top ten hit. Good, because it’s great.

Side one has been pretty damn good, it has to be said, but it saves the best until last, with, in my opinion anyway, the best track featured in the whole series, Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy. It’s simply one of the most perfect records released in my lifetime: a subtle sample, a wonderful vocal, great lyrics, and more atmosphere than the best of Russ Abbott’s parties. It still gives me chills and stops me doing whatever I’m doing when I hear it. It’s so perfect it’s hard to believe it’s actually on a pop compilation and had it not been for this blog I would never have known that it appeared on a NOW album. It reached a sorry number 13 in the charts, a fact I feel the country as a whole should hang its collective head in shame for. Its inclusion does however cement in history a moment of BBC craziness which has been long forgotten. As the single was released at the height of the Gulf War (part 1) Auntie took it upon itself to ban, edit and rename a whole list of songs and artists (including the Happy Mondays, whose track Loose Fit lost a line about blowing up an air force base and wiping out your race; they didn’t have a problem with the lines about getting stoned though). As such Massive Attack were persuaded, through their record company, to lose the ‘Attack’ or risk not getting any airplay, unfortunately making them Massive, and sounding like any number of generic Belgian DJs then cluttering up the lower reaches of the chart. It’s under that name that they appear here.

"Vindaloo! Vindaloo! Vindaloo! Vindaloo! ... and we all like vindaloo!" — **“Vindaloo! Vindaloo! Vindaloo! Vindaloo! … and we all like vindaloo!”**

So, as good as side one is, it’s inevitable that it would have a bad and evil twin. Side two is that twin. Well, to be fair, it’s more that the bad ones are SO bad, they taint the rest of the side. The only track on side two I would choose to listen to is Kylie’s What Do I Have To Do?, part of her sexy re-invention phase. It’s one of the weaker efforts from this period, paling in comparison to Shocked or Better The Devil You Know. Of the rest, Kim Appleby’s G.L.A.D. is fun without scoring as highly as Don’t Worry. Wiggle It, from 2 in a Room, just sounds creepy (and I could have sworn was released a couple of years later than 1991). McHammer’s Pray is poor and only here because if he had a single out it had to be included to make up for the fact that NOW missed out on U Can’t Touch This.

Vanilla Ice and Hale and Pace (featuring Brian May!) slug it out for worst track on the album. I hadn’t heard either Play That Funky Music or The Stonk since 1991 and a bloody good thing too. If any excuses can be made for these, at least Vanilla Ice’s was never meant to be anything other than a pocket-money grabbing, quick buck follow-up to Ice Ice Baby. The Stonk has no such excuse. I hate the idea that charity records, and particularly Comic Relief records, are allowed to be rubbish because the music isn’t the point. Don’t release a record then! Release a comedy video instead, release a book, do a comedy telethon (oh, for the days when Comic Relief actually featured comedy rather than just Children in Need with swearing). The Stonk is a foul, festering boil of a song. Badly written and with little talent on show, either comedically or musically, it is possibly the worst comedy record of all time. It’s certainly the worst one to get to number one. You bloody idiots.

Side two does finish off with a few interesting tracks (no doubt considered mere filler by the compilers of the day). Jesus Loves You was Boy George’s return to the charts, and Bow Down Mister is nowhere near as awful as I remember it from back in the day. In fact its hymn to Hare Krishna actually sounds much more worthwhile now. Enigma’s Sadness Part 1 is one of the oddest number ones we’ve seen so far, mixing monks, pan pipes and a dance beat. I’ve never liked it, for I blame it for introducing us to the endless stream of compilations of Pan Pipe Moods, Chill Out Moods, Moods Moods and Moods. If I want to hear Smells Like Teen Spirit played on pan pipes I’ll go back to University thanks.

The final track of side two is the real curve ball though, and perhaps best sums up how ephemeral the charts were becoming: Only You by Praise. Ring any bells? It didn’t with me, even though it was a top 5 single. No? Was featured in a car advert? Maybe that’s jogged a few memories. As soon as you hear the opening, ghostly female moan bouncing from one speaker to the other you’ll recognise it. In a similar vein to Sadness, but much more atmospheric, better produced and likely to still sound contemporary for many years, this is a tune ripe for rediscovery. Or is it an embarrassing mix of would-be spiritualism, dolphin noises and with a whiff of the Ikea catalogue about it. It’s one or the other.

The decision to top load the album with the dance tracks (with the odd exception of The Clash) does the job of making NOW seem trendy again and down with the kids. What it conversely does it make the second half incredibly dreary by comparison, filled as it is, once again, with old timers, covers and re-issues. A quick glance at the line up for sides 3 and 4 turns up just two tracks I’d choose to listen to, and one of them is Chris Rea!

We are definitely in black and chrome dinner party mode to start things off. Oleta Adams’ Get Here shows off her vocal skills admirably but it is a boring bank advert soundtrack (actually I think Royal Mail ended up using it in a TV commercial, with crushing inevitability). Rick Astley’s Cry For Help was an admirable attempt to demonstrate he could still operate without SAW pulling the strings (he grew his hair long and everything) and it’s nice, if uneventful. The public, of course, wanted the funny little dance, so this would be his last major hit. The cheese is supplied by Robert Palmer, this time wasting his talents on a dreary cover of Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me and I Want You, combining the two songs to no noticeable effect.

Next is a bunch of old tracks: I’ve Had The Time of My Life gets the reissue treatment following Dirty Dancing’s TV premiere (!). Berlin’s Take My Breath Away had similarly gone stratospheric following Top Gun’s TV debut, but luckily that wasn’t included for a second time. The Righteous Brothers record company had followed up Unchained Melody (the best-selling track of 1990) with the infinitely better You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling to keep the Greatest Hits album sales ticking over. This was a double A side release with the even better, but less well-known Ebb Tide. The radio only ever played the more famous track though. Shame.

Seal then pops up to tell you the world is doomed in Crazy. I never quite understood why we have to get crazy in order to survive, but there you go.

Finally a good song arrives. It’s still a little on the maudlin side, but Banderas deserve to be better remembered than they are, at least if This Is Your Life is any kind of evidence. It hasn’t aged that well, but its left-field and dancey approach to the ‘state of the planet’ song so popular at the time is far more appealing than Seal’s diatribe. It’s one of the lesser known tracks on here and needs a wider audience.

It’s followed by a song I swear I had never heard before in my life, this despite the fact it reached number six at a time when I still had a vague passing interest in what was in the top ten: The Postman Song by Stevie B. It is bloody awful and genuinely sounds like it could have been a massive hit at any point in the past 20 years (I suppose that’s some kind of compliment but it’s not meant to be). Lyrically naive, as if written by a child, it’s also musically bland (horrible electronic piano abounds), over produced (quite odd considering how sparse it is) with far too much echo on the trying-too-hard vocal. Mr B (probably no relation to Derek or Radio 1 DJ Emma) clearly fancies himself as a successor to Jacko, but that rhotacism does creep in occasionally, making his cries of “because I love you” sound like Kim Jong Il in Team America. So ronery.

Side four, thankfully starts off well, with two solid songs. Chris Rea’s Auberge has always been a song I’ve had a fondness for because I’m a sucker for a good horn section (ooh, cheeky). No idea what it’s about but his gravelly voice suits it perfectly and I remember there was an amusing video which helped a lot too. Chris Issak’s Blue Hotel is the long-forgotten follow up to his massive Wicked Game. As good as that song was I’ve always preferred this. This kind of stuff was so rare at the time it was refreshing to hear someone who wasn’t ashamed of being considered old fashioned (Harry Connick Jr was breaking at the same time with his crooner revival). The charts were full of old songs at the time anyway, like Free’s All Right Now, clogging up the top 5 like so much swallowed chewing gum. Never understood the attraction of this sweaty slice of 70s cheese and that hasn’t changed with age.

The rest of side four returns to NOW standard and meanders its way home with the off-cuts, forgotten tracks and artists that needed a push (sometimes off the roster). And Queen.

While INXS didn’t really need a push, the album X wasn’t selling as well as anticipated. Disappear was a weak track and the chart position it reached reflected this. Falling by the wayside for a second time was Belinda Carlisle, with the dull Summer Rain. Also rans in attendance also include The Railway Children (the odd Every Beat of My Heart drifts between Aztec Camera, House of Love and Johnny Hates Jazz without coming close to any of them, not even the latter) and Thunder (one of those bands, like Runrig and Wildhearts, who always seem more popular than their record sales suggest, failing to score big hits but selling out Wembley for a week).

But the strangest song is saved for last: Queen’s Innuendo. It’s probably their most successful attempt to recreate the template for Bohemian Rhapsody (something they’d been trying to do since 1975) but that does not make it any good. It ain’t. In fact it’s one of their worst singles ever, so quite why it became only their second number one after Rhapsody is completely beyond me. Radio 1 certainly helped. The old guard were still holding court but were faltering and most (DLT especially) just seemed to doing whatever the hell they liked by this stage. I remember Simon Bates, who had the mid-morning show, was going to give the record its first airing. Not only did he play the whole song (all six and a half minutes) with a reverential silence unheard of other records, he then declared it a masterpiece and played the whole thing again! It’s no masterpiece: it sounds like the darker cousin of their 1989 minor chart fancier, The Miracle, with an added Spanish guitar and castanets wig-out halfway through, and a truly odd rock opera interlude. It’s the kind of thing Muse aspire to now, but at least you think they are aware of their own ridiculousness. At least I do.

A few years earlier, Innuendo would have opened a NOW album, but Queen (number one or not) were not relevant to the NOW buyers anymore. Despite the abundance of re-releases on show, dance music now dominated the teenager’s music choice. NOW, the charts and Radio 1 were going to have to adapt to the new order.

The other thing to change, for NOW, would be look of the thing. The new 90s look needed a refresh and after just two outings the brash, gaudy look (along with the exclamation mark) would be ditched in favour of something far more refined, stylish and NOW.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 19

Release date

25th March 1991

Biggest tracks

Should I Stay or Should I Go – The Clash

You Got The Love – The Source feat. Candi Stanton

Unfinished Sympathy – Massive

Crazy – Seal

Lost gems

This Is Your Life – Banderas

She’s A Woman – Scritti Politti feat Shabba Ranks

Forgotten tracks

Only You – Praise

Because I Love You (The Postman Song) – Stevie B

Worst Tracks

The Stonk – Hale & Pace and The Stonkers

Play That Funky Music – Vanilla Ice

What’s missing?

Grease Megamix – John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John

Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter – Iron Maiden

Hippy Chick – Soho

Track listing

Side one
Should I Stay or should I Go	The Clash
She’s A Woman	Scritti Politti feat. Shabba Ranks
You Got The Love	The Source feat. Candi Stanton
3 a.m. Eternal	The KLF feat. The Children Of The Revolution
Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)	C+C Music Factory pts. Freedom Williams
(I Wanna Give You) Devotion	Nomad feat. MC Mikee Freedom
I Believe	EMF
In Yer Face	808 State
Unfinished Sympathy	Massive Attack

Side two
Pray	M C Hammer
G.L.A.D.	Kim Appleby
What Do I Have To Do (7 Mix)	Kylie Minogue
The Stonk	Hale & Pace & The Stonkers
Wiggle It	2 In A Room
Play That Funky Music	Vanilla Ice
Bow Down Mister	Jesus Loves You
Sadness Part 1	Enigma
Only You	Praise

Side three
Get Here	Oleta Adams
Cry For Help	Rick Astley
Mercy Mercy Me/I Want You (Medley)	Robert Palmer
(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life	Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’	The Righteous Brothers
Crazy	Seal
This Is Your Life	Banderas
Because I Love You (The Postman Song)	Stevie B

Side four
Auberge	Chris Rea
Blue Hotel	Chris Isaak
All Right Now	Free
Disappear	INXS
Summer Rain	Belinda Carlisle
Every Beat Of The Heart	The Railway Children
Love Walked In	Thunder
Innuendo	Queen

Note: NOW 19 was the first album not to have an accompanying VHS release.

March 11, 2014

NOW! 18 – The pompatus of love

In some ways the much-derided (by smart arses like me), and often ignored (by everyone else) re-vamp of the NOW design is nice and simple. No one was calling the albums by their full name, so why bother putting the whole title on the cover? They barely bothered with NOW 17, but retained the iconic balls for one last round. Also, the series had been going for so long now, surely everyone had given up on the numbering by now? The latest release would be just another NOW album, people will flock to buy it anyway, it doesn’t matter what number it is. We’ll keep the number, but we’ll hide it on the sleeve, like a game, or like some cryptic cigarette ad. With NOW 18, the balls were chopped off in their prime and replaced by what I can only compare to old pub wallpaper, with the word NOW! emblazoned across the front (note also the addition of the kiddie-friendly but otherwise useless exclamation mark). It’s breathtakingly dreadful. Even as a teenager I knew this was a horrible design, mainly because it looks cheap and generic. Add some band photos down the side and it’s not a million miles away from the rip-off Out Now! series Chrysalis and MCA records briefly released in the mid 80s.

This might be excusable if NOW 18 bestrode the charts like a sales statistic behemoth (whatever one of them might look like) but it doesn’t, and I’m beginning to wonder whether it’s me or the music. This blog was a direct result of me wondering if pop music got bad or did I just get old. The question I forgot to ask myself was, do we only like the pop music from when we were kids? Does every generation think their music was the best?

NOW 18 is certainly not short on number ones; side one kicks off with three in a row, and features a further three later on. The Beautiful South’s A Little Time, Steve Miller Band’s The Joker and Reg Dwight’s first UK number one, Sacrifice, represent probably the lowest key opening to a NOW album so far. Strange that they re-brand, presumably, to appeal more to a hip, happening teenage market (it’s unlikely many who bought the first NOW were still buying them by this stage), and then they choose to open the album with some of the most insipid, turgid, beige-sounding songs of the year. The Joker in particular, featured in a Levis ad, so a nailed on number one, really perplexes me now. What was it about this song (apart from its ubiquity on the TV) that made it so popular, particularly when it failed to score on its original release in the 70s? Lest we forget this is the song that stopped Deee-Lite’s Groove Is In The Heart from reaching number one. Elton John’s song is a mystery too, since Sacrifice and it’s double A side brother, the much better, Healing Hands, had BOTH been released as singles the year before, and neither had charted!

The dirge doesn’t stop there. It Must have Been Love isn’t a bad ballad (and I was sure it had been a chart-topper but it stopped at number 3), but following on from Baldy Reg (still in hat-wearing rather than bad weave mode) just demonstrates why you shouldn’t pack all your smooch songs too close together. Four songs in and NOW 18 is making me reconsider whether this blog will ever get finished. A lively horn section and a small orchestra jerk me back into action. Sadly it’s courtesy of Phil Collins’ Something Happened On The Way To Heaven, surely one of the worst song titles of all time. The song’s alright, nothing special, but I’m probably giving it an easier ride because of what came before it. Collins somehow manages to snag himself a prime location as the first artist name on the cover, a spot normally reserved for the coveted side one, track one artist.

Just as side one is starting to feel like a complete washout, NOW 18’s first forgotten gem arrives. Last year Wilson Phillips’ Hold On got itself a bit of a mini revival thanks to the awful Bridesmaids movie (a film whose best scene features a group of ladies in wedding dresses suffering explosive diarrhoea…), but listening to it again here it still generates that “I haven’t heard this for years” feeling. Given they are the daughters of various Beach Boys and Mamas and Papas, it shouldn’t surprise that they can hold a cracking pop tune. It’s ridiculously uplifting and nice in a fun way rather than being nice because it’s not dreadful.

The mood then drops immediately, but to be fair, it is for one of the best songs on the album, if not the whole of the 90s: Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O’Connor. Given its release date, this really should have featured on NOW 17, and one can only suspect it was held back so as not to affect sales of Ms O’Connor’s album (which sold very well, thank you very much). As breathtakingly good as the song is, it brings to a close the least inspiring side of NOW I’ve experienced thus far.

And things don’t improve on the flipside either, at least not at first. Thanks to the movie Ghost, Unchained Melody found itself vying with The Joker for the title of Biggest Selling Re-release of 1990. The Righteous Brothers were victorious, becoming the biggest selling single of the whole year into the bargain. I’ve always found this endlessly popular (and endlessly covered) song to be a bit of a slog and in the Righteous Brothers discography I’ve always preferred You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling and the less well-known Ebb Tide, both of which were released as a double A-side later in the year, but performed less well.

Now That's what I Call a Pop Group Publicity Photo. I love this a bit too much. — **Now That’s what I Call a Pop Group Publicity Photo. I love this a bit too much.**

An act whose chart career seemed to end almost at the same time as the the 80s was Belinda Carlisle. Her chart placings had been steadily declining since she burst onto the scene at the tail end of 1987, with successive singles registering lower and lower, so it was a bit of a surprise that the fifth (FIFTH!) single from her Runaway Horses album would not only be a hit, but would be her biggest hit since Heaven Is A Place on Earth. It’s not that much of a surprise though when you learn that single was the car- flogging We Want The Same Thing. Now regarded as one of her best-loved songs, the single version was a radical reworking of the version on the album, at least that’s what Wikipedia says. Not having a copy of the album to hand I can’t verify this, and the interwebs are no help either, offering only this, more famous version. It follows the template of Heaven to a tee, and is a brilliant pop single as a result. A number six finish seems a bit harsh now for such a great pop nugget, but the charts were much tougher in those days.

Sadly, the charts weren’t quite tough enough to prevent Status Quo’s Anniversary Waltz from reaching number two! Obviously conceived to try and cash in on the success of Jive Bunny the previous year, The Quo take a three-chord-wander their way through a succession of 50s rock n’ roll standards with all the enthusiasm of a pub band on a wet Tuesday night. Dreadful. Much better is INXS’ Suicide Blonde. The first new single after the massive success of the Kick album, this was always going to be a tricky prospect. Luckily, it still sounds pretty damn good, though that harmonica does have a tendency to wow and irritate in equal measure. INXS takes us into a cul-de-sac of ‘indie’ tunes, but with baggy imploding as quickly as it started, it’s left to two old hands and one doomed new act to provide our left-field choices this time around.

Public Image Limited’s (PiL) Don’t Ask Me is the big “huh?” on NOW 18. Never a big hit (and PiL were never more than critically-acclaimed rather than chart successes) it is a pretty good tune. Not as good as This Is Not A Love Song or Rise, this does strike me as filler for a NOW album. Were Virgin really trying to sell PiL to the kids of the early 90s? One band that definitely was successfully sold back to the kids was Talk Talk. Never as successful as they should have been, a greatest hits album led to a couple of top 20 hits with It’s My Life (on show here) becoming their biggest ever hit, 6 years after its original release. Such a brilliant track, it opened up the band to whole new audience (myself included) who had not been aware of them. Listened to now it’s easy to spot Talk Talk’s influence over so much of the alternative scene in the intervening years, it’s shameful it took a contract-fulfilling compilation to get them noticed in their own country.

You mean I could have my landline, broadband and TV all handled by just ONE 80's experimental rock band? — **I could have my landline, broadband and TV all handled by just ONE 80’s experimental alternative rock band?**

The La’s also never got their dues and are more widely regarded as one hit wonders. Due to its ubiquity, it may be hard to fathom that There She Goes only reached the dizzy heights of number 18 and remains their only top 40 single. Despite it being a wonderful piece of jaunty pop fluff (allegedly about heroin addiction) I’ll gladly never hear it again. If you like it, I implore you to buy their debut (and to date, only studio) album. There at least five songs on it better than this.

Side two then finishes itself off with the seemingly obligatory inclusions for Tina Turner’s Be Gentle With Me Baby (kind of like The First Cut Is The Deepest by way of Stay With Me Baby) and Robert palmer and UB40’s I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, which is playful if not exactly good. Palmer helps a lot.

Perhaps reflecting the shift in sales to CD’s, there seems to be a definite attempt to theme the halves of the albums now, with, usually, sides three and four given over to dance music, as is the case here. This reflects the charts at the time, but it’s telling that five of the number ones on NOW 18 were on the first half, in with all the rock and pop, while the second half, almost exclusively dance-orientated features just the one, which we’ll come to in a moment. The Pet Shop Boys return with So Hard, and ‘proper’ bands get a brief look in thanks to the wonderful remix of The Cure’s already wonderful Close To Me, and the dreadful Ben Liebrand remix of Sting’s already dreadful An Englishman In New York. There’s also the jaw-droppingly simple but effective remix treatment given to Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner, which still impresses.

Producer-led dance was taking over though: Fascinating Rhythm from Bass-o-matic (which I always thought was a great name for a washing machine) sounded great in 1990, but sounds awfully generic now. It’s probably no fault of the song, but the endless, pointless samples are over the top and irritate enormously. Soul II Soul’s Missing You is pretty ropey stuff compared to their 1989 vintage, despite the presence of Kym Mazelle on vocals. This should have made for a stronger vocal than Carol Wheeler, but somehow it ends up sounding even weedier. Also disappointing is Neneh Cherry’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin; a self-conscious attempt to re-write Prince’s awesome Sign o’ The Times, it fails completely. Cherry’s vocal is fine, and the subject is laudable, but it feels contrived and cheap. Blue Pearl’s Little Brother is only here in anticipation of it being as big a hit as its predecessor, Naked In The Rain. Not a chance, but it’s not as bad as I remember considering it’s a very difficult song to remember.

Please tell me this image doesn't need a caption... — **Please tell me this image doesn’t need a caption…**

Side four feels like it will be the proper party side, kicking off with Kylie’s Step Back In Time (a change in chart fortunes no doubt prompting her re-appearance, two years after I Should Be So Lucky appeared on NOW 11). Kim Appleby’s Don’t Worry is one of the best songs on NOW 18. Lyrically it’s about getting over a bloke, but everyone knew it was really about the tragic death of her sister, Mel. For a floor-filler it’s genuinely moving stuff. The public agreed pushing it to a number two slot that, sadly, subsequent releases couldn’t match. It was produced by Ken from Bros, fact fans!

Next we get two absolute jokes of tunes. Technotronic’s Megamix (I can’t believe that’s the title, but that’s how it’s credited… just Megamix) is one of the most shameless rip-offs I’ve ever heard from the music industry. Having sold the public the same song four times (only Rocking Over The Beat showed any sign of variety) they then cut all four together, along with a fifth, unidentified track, and sell it back to the kids again! It’s like KFC taking all your left over bones and bits of skin, re-heating them and then selling them back to you as “Spicy Scraps” or something. And given that all the songs are bloody identical, it couldn’t have been too much of a chore to mix them all together. One point of mild interest comes from the fact that MC Eric (pfft) is rapping a different lyric from This Beat is Technotronic. Meh.

Next comes the gobsmackingly awful Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Polka Yellow Dot Bikini from Bombalurina (aka Timmy Mallett, crazy name, crazy guy). You all know this, don’t you? Bloody awful… number one all summer… novelty crap… Well, I’m shocked to report that you are wrong. All of you. It’s actually pretty good. I don’t mean in a Pet Sounds/ The Queen Is Dead sense of the word good. We’re not talking about topping a Q magazine list of the greatest number ones of all time. I mean, it’s good in a good, fun pop song kind of way. On NOW 12 there was some discussion (in my head) of the KLF’s Timelords project and how it was a cynical attempt to ‘create’ a number one record. They succeeded. I see Bombalurina as an attempt to use the same principles but to create, not a deliberately bad record but, a good fun pop record. It samples The Incredible Bongo Band, Holly Johnson, Gil Scott Heron and that “ah yeah” heard on every record in 1990. Mallett can’t sing but holds the whole thing together. And let’s not forget, the song is not some great work of art to start with; it’s pop fluff, Mallet just updated it, retaining the fun (an aspect of pop that was slowly being eradicated) and having a massive hit into the bargain. And all power to him. The man was one of the greatest kids TV presenters ever and by all accounts is a thoroughly decent gent. I’ll not hear a word said against him.

Legend — **Utterly utterly utterly utterly brilliant**

Fun pop continues with Betty Boo’s wonderful Where Are You Baby?, which is still brilliant, and Dirty Cash from The Adventures of Stevie V. Not a favourite of mine back in 1990, listened to now (for the first time in two decades) it’s actually rather splendid. Dark, moody and still danceable, it’s just a shame about the incongruous rap that appears halfway through. It’s completely out of place, but luckily, quite short.

The whole thing finishes off with a couple of smoochers. That old Scottish rapper McHammer deconstruction of The Chi-Lites’ Have You Seen Her? deserves little mention, but Jimmy Somerville’s To Love Somebody is rather special. Giving his best vocal performance for years, it somehow manages to make white-boy reggae listenable again. Compared to UB40 this feels a lot more heartfelt and honest. But it’s another notch on the cover version/re-release bedpost, taking NOW 18’s total to a whopping 16 songs! It’s a pleasant end to the album but one which is indicative of the album’s underwhelming whole.

An underwhelming hole, yeaterday — **An underwhelming hole, yesterday**

In NOW 18’s defence (a bit) 1990 was far from a banner year for pop music, and was definitely a transitional year. Stock, Aitken and waterman were on their way out, with ‘purer’ dance music coming to the fore, mainly from Europe. It wasn’t all good, far from it, but it was to become the dominant sound of the charts and arguably still is today. It should be no surprise to learn that NOW only had two regular releases in 1990, but there were three NOW Dance releases (I may come to NOW Dance at a later date). Indie took a bath, and it would be a few more years before it would re-emerge in any meaningful way in the NOW universe. The notable absence is rap. While the charts today are happy to mix hip hop with chart regulars, the record buyers of 1990 were notably unsure, and after a few fruitful years, it too seemed to be on the wane in the mainstream.

NOW 18 is a fair reflection of its cover: shouting from the rooftops about good it is, and how big its hits are, just like the Hits Album used to, but just like Hits, it flatters to deceive. There is some absolute class on show here, but it’s suffocated by old songs, insipid ballads, poor programming and a lack of innovation. Ironic given its ‘innovative’ new look.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 18

Release date

19^th November 1990

Biggest tracks

Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor

It Must have Been Love – Roxette

Unchained Melody – The Righteous Brothers

Forgotten tracks

Little Brother – Blue Pearl

Missing You – Soul II Soul ft Kym Mazelle

Hidden gems

Hold On – Wilson Phillips

Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini – Bombalurina (seriously… try it again)

To Love Somebody – Jimmy Sommervile

What’s missing

King of Wishful Thinking – Go West

Kinky Afro – Happy Mondays

The elephant on the room is the best single of 1990…

Groove is in the Heart – Deee Lite, which had sadly snapped up for The Hit Pack, the latest incarnation of the Hits series.

Track listing

Side one
A Little Time	The Beautiful South
The Joker	Steve Miller Band
Sacrifice	Elton John
It Must Have Been Love	Roxette
Something Happened On The Way To Heaven	Phil Collins
Hold On (Single Edit)	Wilson Phillips
Nothing Compares 2 U	Sinéad O’Connor

Side two
Unchained Melody	The Righteous Brothers
(We Want) The Same Thing	Belinda Carlisle
Anniversary Waltz (Part One)	Status Quo
Suicide Blonde	INXS
Don’t Ask Me	Public Image Ltd
It’s My Life	Talk Talk
There She Goes	The La’s
Be Tender With Me Baby	Tina Turner
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight	Robert Palmer Featuring UB40

Side three
So Hard	Pet Shop Boys
Fascinating Rhythm	Bass-o-Matic
Missing You	Soul II Soul Featuring Kym Mazelle
Tom’s Diner	DNA featuring Suzanne Vega
An Englishman In New York	Sting
Close To Me	The Cure
I’ve Got You Under My Skin	Neneh Cherry
Little Brother	Blue Pearl

Side four
Step Back In Time	Kylie Minogue
Don’t Worry	Kim Appleby
Megamix	Technotronic
Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini	Bombalurina
Where Are You Baby	Betty Boo
Dirty Cash (Money Talks)	The Adventures Of Stevie V
Have You Seen Her	M C Hammer
To Love Somebody	Jimmy Somerville

August 1, 2013

NOW 11 – I know you gonna dig this

Every decade has its game changing year, the year that rocks the music world, the year where, if you’ll pardon the cliché, nothing will ever be the same again. It may be the birth of rock n’ roll in 1956, the flower power of 1967 or the twin-pronged disco-punk revolution of 1977. Some years just define their generation like few others.

1988 is not one of those years. It may have been the year that the charts took on a train-spotters fascination for a certain 12 year old not a million miles away from this keyboard, but it’s hardly remembered for any epoch-making musical movement. Of course there was some great music. The end of year lists may have been dominated by Public Enemy and their album It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, but that won’t really concern us here. Neither will The Pixies’ Surfer Rosa or Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation. You see, as brilliant, ground-breaking and influential as those albums may have been, there were not even close to troubling the top 40 chart compilers. In fact the public was more interested in buying pretty much the same things they were buying the year before. Bad, Faith and Tango in the Night were all top selling albums in 1988 despite being a year old. Yet another Cliff Greatest Hits was, astonishingly, the second biggest selling album of the year! He found himself sandwiched between two young upstarts who made their names early on in 1988, but would go on to have wildly different careers: Kylie Minogue and Bros.

Despite all this, and despite me misremembering that Bros’ When Will I Be Famous was on it, NOW 11 somehow manages to be the best album in the series, at least so far. It always held a special allure for me, remaining tantalisingly out of reach, being released at Easter, when all my spare cash went towards the annual school French trip. This allure was not misguided. For sheer pop gold it is unstoppable, but it also manages to balance this with a sprinkling of alternative acts and a single themed side of cutting edge house and hip hop that is utterly wonderful, and remains possibly the finest side of music on a NOW album.

Being released in April gives the compiler the advantage of having the best of the year so far, and also hovering up the remaining cream missed at the end of the previous year. This, inevitably, leads to what football managers refer to as “a nice problem to have”. Track 1, side 1, for instance. As every mix tape enthusiast knows, the first track is the trickiest: hit them hard, fast and where it hurts. So when you have the choice between a massive number one, a couple of months old, from a hot new act, or the biggest act in the country with their (distinctly non-festive) Christmas number one, but which is a tad older, which way do you go? NOW 11 plays the Nick Hornby/High Fidelity mix-tape how-to guide to the letter with a stonking one-two that hits them hard, then takes it UP a notch.

The Pet Shop Boys’ Always On My Mind starts the party, followed by the biggest recent hit on offer, Heaven Is A Place On Earth. (The album’s third chart-topper, Kylie’s I Should Be So Lucky, will kick off side three).

**Very distracting to a 12 year old boy**

Both these tracks are fantastic. Always On My Mind is generally accepted as one of the greatest cover versions of all time, while former Go-Go, Belinda Carlisle, finally got her solo career off the ground a couple of years after it started in the US (helped in no small part by a prolific song writing team including Diane Warren and fellow Go-Go Charlotte Caffey). Heaven Is A Place on Earth is a great pop/rock song which can still make people jump out of their seats with its rousing intro, rock guitar and soppy lyrics.

Pop highs continue, moving from rock to dance with Billy Ocean’s Get Out Of My Dreams. Easily his best song, bafflingly the UK was about the only country it didn’t get to number one (peaking at number 3) despite heavy TV play thanks to its sophisticated animation-meets-real life video, months before the world had heard of Roger Rabbit. Dance continues with less success with Jermaine Stewart’s inoffensive but bland Say It Again, before I lose interest completely with Eddy Grant’s Gimme Me Hope Jo’anna. Reggae has never really been my bag (though I have a fondness for the 60’s/early 70s variety popularised by Desmond Dekker and Jimmy Cliff), but Grant is capable of better than this. Like I Don’t Wanna Dance years previously, this is repetitive to the point of irritating. I’m fully aware that the song is an anti-apartheid anthem and is well-loved. That doesn’t stop it being thoroughly annoying, but it was a massive hit across the world so what do I know. Although it only made number 7 in the UK it, maybe surprisingly, made number one in Spain and, maybe less surprisingly, Holland.

Levis get their plug with the peerless C’mon Everybody from Eddie Cochran (at a little under two minutes it’s one of the shortest songs ever in the series) before the compiling genius of Ashley Abram follows that with rockabilly rebel Morrissey’s first solo single, Suedehead. Whilst The Smiths made only one NOW appearance, Moz solo would prove to be a reliable mainstay of the series, at least until he stopped having top ten hits. Being signed to Parlophone, an EMI subsidiary, rather than The Smiths who were signed to the indie Rough Trade, probably helped. Side one closes out, rather incongruously, with a live version of Elton John’s Candle In The Wind. Now best known as “the Diana song”, and the biggest selling single of all time, it’s rather strange to hear it with its original lyrics. And blow me, if it’s not actually a little bit good. Released as a single to plug a live album recorded in Australia a couple of years before, this is a great performance of a song which, like a lot of Reg’s biggest hits, is susceptible to maudlin. Not here; this is pure emotion and, strangely, far more moving than the later Diana version. Reg’s anguished roar with the last chorus, his voice breaking in the process, is pretty stunning stuff, leaving the listener speechless. Perhaps, the most amazing thing is that it was such a big hit in 1988, when it had failed to make the top ten on its initial release in the 1970s.

Side two replicates Now 10 by turning over a side to soft metal, hard rock and a couple of tracks that didn’t comfortably sit anywhere else on the album. Like Wet Wet Wet, whose Angel Eyes is one of those really annoying songs that you want to hate for being so bloody smug and pleased with itself, but you can’t help but smile when you hear it. It does serve the purpose of being a whole lot better than Johnny Hates Jazz though, who follow the Wets with the uncompromisingly insipid Turn Back The Clock. When people criticise 80s music, Johnny Hates Jazz are what they are talking about. It smells like artificial sweetener, tastes like supermarket own brand Angel Delight, it’s wearing suede brogues and has a Filofax stuffed into the pocket of its black raincoat. And it makes me hate music.

That fact that T’Pau swoop in to ensure your ears won’t be lopped off by the nearest sharp (or blunt for that matter) object somehow makes Johnny Hates Jazz even worse. To be fair to Valentine, it’s a bit of a corker, which sadly sits in the long shadow cast by China In Your Hand. It does confirm my belief that the more famous track may actually be the worst single they released (with the exception of the makes-a-bit-of-sick-in-my-mouth Sex Talk). Any woman who has ever done the bottle of wine on your own, Bridget Jones, All By Myself, sing-a-long, you are really missing a trick with this one. Valentine really is the song of unrequited, woe is me, pissed up self-loathing. Sadly, even being released around the same time as the most depressing ‘holiday’ of the year couldn’t shove it any further up the charts than number 9. And just three singles in, it would be their last top 10 hit.

**OK, you can have a drink, but for God’s sake stay off twitter, Carol!**

Hot in the City continued Billy Idol’s late 80s revival (all calculated to coincide with the release of a Greatest Hits package, hoovered up by the public, and me, a few months later). Like his previous hit, and NOW appearance, Mony, Mony, Hot in the City had originally been recorded in the early 80s and failed to make much of an impression, and this was a re-recorded version. Or was it? I’ve discovered, over the years, that it’s a song that exists in many incarnations, and unpicking the history is a bit fraught. The original, single version from 1982 is the most commonly heard. It’s the one with the windy fade-in intro, with the sexy backing singers crooning “stranger, stranger”. It also features Idol’s bellow of “New York!” later in the song. In 1985, the ‘Exterminator Mix’ of the track appeared on a compilation album entitled Vital Idol, featuring selected songs and remixes from his early work, presumably to cash in on his new success with Rebel Yell and a re-released White Wedding. This version is almost 2 minutes longer, features a much longer intro, each instrument coming separately, has an increased and thoroughly re-worked instrumental break, and loses the “New York!” in favour of a clumsy record scratch effect. This version has a clear end rather than fading out. The version released in 1988, as evidenced by this rather risqué video, which was allegedly banned by MTV, features a cut down version of this remix, reinstates the “New York!”, and has the abrupt ending. Now it gets more complicated: the version on NOW 11 includes this same cut down remix BUT has the scratch effect rather than the “New York!”, and fades out as per the original recording! I’ve not found this version anywhere else. Every other compilation version I’ve found, on Idol’s own compilations and on loads of 80s compilations, all use the original 1982 version, even if they sometimes bill it as the ’88 (and sometimes ’87!) remix. The version on NOW 11 appears to be utterly unique.

As an alternative to all that train-spottery, there follow two rather good, if rather forgotten tracks, at least by the greater public. Sinead O’Connor is probably thought of as a bit of one hit wonder whose career was kept going by making controversial comments about the Catholic church and the treatment of women. People who think this may be right and it is a fact that she only had one BIG hit (which we will of course address in good time) but she was also far more talented than a mere Prince cover version gave her credit for. Mandinka, her first top 40 hit, would have caused minor ripples throughout polite middle-class living rooms had she appeared on Top of the Pops. In my house it was the sight of a shaven-headed woman, screaming out of her Doc Martens on The Chart Show that caused a fluster and bluster not seen since the days of Boy George sashaying across the nations TV’s in 1982. Mandinka is a storming way to introduce yourself to the public: angry, enigmatic, tuneful, and emotional. Everything good pop should be, but a bit shoutier.

The Mission would no doubt hate to be called ‘good pop’, but when your lead singer used to be in Dead or Alive, and you would later record a cover of Blondie’s Atomic, maybe you do have a sense of humour. I can’t imagine Wayne Hussey and Pete Burns in the same room, let alone the same band! Tower of Strength will be unfamiliar to many outside the goth and crusty communities (or people who like to hang around record shops on a Saturday afternoons) and that’s understandable. We’re not in Def Leppard territory here; this is the bridge between Led Zeppelin and The Sisters of Mercy. Handily, not being a huge fan of either, I love Tower of Strength’s overblown theatrics (provided by Led Zep’s own John Paul Jones on production knob-twiddling duties) and rate this as The Mission’s best song Obviously the super dedicated fans would no doubt swoon in horror at such a suggestion, like The Cure fans who hate anyone who says The Love Cats is their best song, because it’s so accessible and popular, and you should go and listen to A Forest or Killing An Arab, you ‘pop’ fan. Alternative music fans do have a tendency to take themselves rather too seriously.

Just like Whitesnake, whose tight leather trousers you can smell coming a mile away. You won’t remember Give Me All Your Love, and you’ll be grateful you don’t, but in case you care, it sounds exactly like Fool For Your Lovin’ from 1980, but worse. Now you’ve got that song in your head instead. Sorry.

I swear, you’ll never be so pleased to hear I Should Be So Lucky as you will be listening to NOW 11. I’m fully aware that most people still hate this song. I hated it when I was the audience for it. I was wrong, and everybody else who still hates it is wrong. It’s one of the most perfect pop records of all time and if you disagree with me there’s a comments section at the bottom of this page. But really you shouldn’t be reading this blog, as you clearly hate pop music.

The second of three Stock, Aitken, Waterman tunes on side three is Mel and Kim’s That’s The Way It Is. Not a patch on Respectable, which was snagged by Hits 6 the previous year, this is pretty forgettable, but the pair are still fun enough to make it listenable. Much better is Bananarama’s I Can’t Help It later on side three. For some reason I can’t my finger on, this is right up there with Venus and Only Your Love as my favourite Nanas song. SAW’s influence is really showing now, and would eventually lead to this being Siobhan Fahey’s final Nana appearance, but it’s much ballsier and sexier than the tracks given to Kylie (or what was to come from the girls) and the video is an absolute scorcher too! It’s a great track, woefully underappreciated at the time, and probably still is.

Between the SAW tracks there’s Come Into My Life, by Joyce Sims. A massive hit at the time, it now sounds like a brasher, shoutier version of Sade. I was surprised to discover it was produced by Mantronix, who were a couple of years away from their own chart success, though Got To Have Your Love would prove far more long-lasting than this New York disco crap. And there’s more where that came from too thanks to the return of the never-popular Jellybean. Who Found Who is as massively bland as his track on NOW 10, which I can’t even remember the name of, and really can’t be bothered to back and look up. Seriously, does ANYONE reading this have ANYTHING by Jellybean in their record collection?

Jellybean... insert your own joke here — **Look, I’m sorry, but I’ve STILL got no idea who you are**

I’ll actually be more surprised if you have anything by Dollar, early 80s “are they/aren’t they” duo (they were… for a bit) who had only mild success. Oddly, they reformed towards the end of the decade, recorded Oh L’Amour, a flop when released as Erasure’s first single, and found themselves back in the top 10, before disappearing as quickly as they had reappeared. On paper the song choice is sound, but David van Day’s voice pales in comparison to Andy Bell’s, and musically it’s identical to the earlier version. Pointless. Van day would later gain infamy by dumping a girlfriend live on TV’s The Wright Stuff, and advertising insurance. Classy fella.

Speaking of classy, Vanessa Paradis provides the first non-English hit on a NOW album. Joe le Taxi is pretty boring and dreary, but that was hardly the point. The point was that Mme Paradis was French, sexy and…um…14. In today’s climate it all seems a bit unsavoury, and, to be fair, it was. Thank goodness she went on to continued success as an adult. She’ll return later in our journey.

Side three finishes with one of the more troubling aspects of the NOW series: the comedy record. Thankfully rare, sadly there are still enough of them dotted throughout the albums to make their presence more than known. The Stutter Rap is skin-crawlingly bad, but, thanks to main man Tony Hawks (not the skateboarder) it’s also witty, clever and astonishingly well produced. It’s an enigma, wrapped in a mystery. The vocals are a wonderful parody of The Beastie Boys, the problem being that they, of course, were themselves a parody anyway. It’s the musical equivalent of Scary Movie spoofing Scream; you’re spoofing a spoof! Despite this, Morris Minor and the Majors snagged a top ten hit and a Saturday night kids show to boot. Sadly, the infinitely superior follow-up, This Is The Chorus (a note perfect spoof of SAW, which featured Queen’s John Deacon as Rick Astley in the video) failed to make the top 40. I can only assume that SAW fans didn’t buy it because it was taking the piss, and everyone else didn’t buy it because it sounded like a SAW track. There’s no justice like pop justice.

Despite this ludicrous oversight by the record buying public, they did somehow manage to buy enough good records to make side four of NOW 11 an absolute joy from start to finish. As we’ve seen on previous editions, themed sides are rarely a success, often resorting to one or two tracks which seem tacked on, or crow barred into the theme, and don’t quite fit. Not so here. Say kids, what time is it…?

Bomb the Bass, Coldcut and Beatmasters are the names that leap from the track listing, of course. Beat Dis still stands proudly alongside Pump Up The Volume as a genre-defining track. Amazing considering Tim Simenon created it, allegedly, in his bedroom for £500. Doctorin’ the House would launch the career of Yazz (though I’m still baffled as to who exactly the Plastic Population were) and was an amazing way for the pioneering Coldcut DJs to launch themselves at the public at large. Their contemporaries, the Beatmasters, would join them on an attack on the charts over the next 18 months, drafting in, and making stars of, a succession of guest vocalists including Lisa Stansfield and Betty Boo. For Rok Da House Beatmasters employed London female rap duo The Cookie Crew. Sassy, ballsy and not a little aggressive (like most of their male counterparts) they blazed a trail for successful female rappers in the UK (Salt n’ Pepa were just about to, finally, have a hit with Push It), but would never again reach the heights of the top five. Still sounds great today.

Between Coldcut and Beatmasters are two one off tracks which, while still good, do betray their vintage and have a slight whiff of bandwagon-jumping about them. Krush’s House Arrest was another huge top five hit and proved that this House music malarkey was probably here to stay. One half of the production team behind the track would go on to form Moloko in the late 90s, fact fans. Jack n’ Chill’s The Jack That House Built reminds me of the Italian film producers of the 70s and early 80s (bear with me) that would rip off anything that was commercial and just put familiar words into the titles, like Zombie Holocaust or Alien Contamination. And like both those films, The Jack That House Built is perfectly good entertainment. I’ve been unable to find out anything about Jack n’ Chill though, which simply adds to the fly-by-night nature of the exercise and suggests the sharks were probably moving in on the House scene already.

The greatest side of music in NOW history closes with two excellent, if unexpected, tracks from artists not normally associated with this kind of thing, one of whom manages to pull off a shameless cash-in with their dignity intact. First up is Two Men, A Drum Machine and a Trumpet (surely the best band name on a NOW album ever) the two men in question being Fine Young Cannibals without Roland Gift, who was off trying to be an actor at the time. They were no strangers to dance music and knob twiddling really, so it’s no surprise that Tired of Getting Pushed Around is so good. What is surprising is that it wasn’t more successful, only reaching number 18 when, as we’ve seen, just about any track featuring a House beat and samples would at least go top ten. It could, possibly, be explained by the fact that Tired of Getting Pushed Around is far more laid back, and stripped back, than its contemporaries. Whereas most tracks were layering sample upon sample, often to the point of incoherence (like mixing all your plasticine together to make one amorphous lump, a shade of brown not normally found in nature), Tired… relies on a couple of film dialogue snippets, a guitar thrash, and a light jazz trumpet and bass accompaniment. It’s refreshing, like an after-dinner mint.

**Obvious illustration of the point made in the previous paragraph**

The coffee course is supplied by Climie Fisher, a pair of successful, and highly respected, songwriters and session musicians who decided they fancied a bit of this fame thing for themselves. They didn’t really look the part, but in the 80s that didn’t really matter. What did matter were the tunes, and by golly they had them coming out of their arses. Rise to the Occasion was originally a slightly bland ballad until some bright spark decided to perk it up a bit with some samples and a House beat. Released as the “Hip Hop remix” (though not credited as such on NOW 11) it quickly found its way into the top ten. Mercenary? Cunning? Cynical? Thrice, yes. Great pop? Undoubtedly. And it was thanks to the success of such a scheming piece of work that would ultimately lead to their finest hour, but you’ll have to wait until NOW 12 for that.

NOW 11, side four, still sounds brilliant all the way through, and even today I think it still stands as the series finest achievement. But of course I’m biased. This was one of the defining periods of my musical education where I was absorbing absolutely everything that crossed my path. Combined with the fact that I know little of the NOW series beyond 1990 and maybe you could argue I’m jumping the gun on that assumption. And you may be right.

I don’t think I’ll find a quarter of a NOW album where every song is still listenable, thrilling and generates that feeling that great, pure pop can create. But I hope I do, because otherwise the remaining 70 odd albums are going to be one hell of a chore.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 11

Release date

21st March 1988

Biggest tracks

Always on My Mind – The Pet Shop Boys

Heaven Is A Place On Earth – Belinda Carlisle

I Should Be So Lucky – Kylie Minogue

Beat Dis – Bomb the Bass

Lost gems

Tired of Getting Pushed Around – Two Men, A Drum Machine and a Trumpet

I Can’t Help It – Bananarama

Forgotten tracks

Mandinka – Sinead o’Connor

Tower of Strength – The Mission

Rise to the Occasion – Climie Fisher

Worst Track

Give Me All Your Love – Whitesnake

What’s missing

Got My Mind Set On You – George Harrison

There Ain’t Nothing Like Shaggin – Tams

Track listing

Side one
Always On My Mind	Pet Shop Boys
Heaven Is A Place On Earth	Belinda Carlisle
Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car	Billy Ocean
Say It Again	Jermaine Stewart
Gimme Hope Jo’Anna	Eddy Grant
C’mon Everybody	Eddie Cochran
Suedehead	Morrissey
Candle In The Wind	Elton John

Side two
Angel Eyes (Home And Away)	Wet Wet Wet
Turn Back The Clock	Johnny Hates Jazz
Valentine	T’Pau
Hot In The City	Billy Idol
Mandinka	Sinéad O’Connor
Tower Of Strength	The Mission
Give Me All Your Love	Whitesnake

Side three
I Should Be So Lucky	Kylie Minogue
That’s The Way It Is (7” Version)	Mel & Kim
Come Into My Life	Joyce Sims
Who Found Who	Jellybean featuring Elisa Fiorillo
I Can’t Help It	Bananarama
Oh L’Amour	Dollar
Joe Le Taxi	Vanessa Paradis
Stutter Rap (No Sleep Till Bedtime)	Morris Minor & The Majors

Side four
Beat Dis	Bomb The Bass
Doctorin’ The House	Coldcut featuring Yazz & The Plastic Population
House Arrest	Krush
The Jack That House Built	Jack N Chill
Rock Da House	The Beatmasters featuring Cookie Crew
I’m Tired Of Getting Pushed Around	Two Men A Drum Machine & A Trumpet
Rise To The Occasion	Climie Fisher

May 12, 2013

Tag: Kylie Minogue

30 Years of NOW – The Christmas Album Part 2 (2000-2015)

30 Years of NOW – The Christmas Album Part 1 (1985-2000)

NOW 21 – It’s got an ‘ology. A V-I-B-E-ology

NOW! 19 – Not quite the time of your life

NOW! 18 – The pompatus of love

NOW 11 – I know you gonna dig this