Now That's What I Call A Music Blog

Tag: Madness

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

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

    Now_21Like 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.

    Justified and ancient
    Justified and ancient

    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.

    Hair
    Studio Line

    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.

    Seasoning in the sun
    Seasoning in the sun

    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

     

  • Now That’s What I Call Music 8 – Not perfect, but perfect for you

    Now That’s What I Call Music 8 – Not perfect, but perfect for you

    now 8Welcome to the future!

    For Christmas 1986, NOW would deliver a lovely shiny package for its fans, because the future is always shiny, isn’t it? NOW 8 is fit to burst with number ones, top ten hits, legendary tracks and a team up between Dr and the Medics and Roy Wood that nobody remembers. It was also bursting with extras too, boasting a competition and the opportunity to purchase official NOW merchandise! NOW was big business and they were going to take you for everything you’ve got.

    But it was still better than Hits 5.

    NOW 8 was the first of the series in which European music giant Polygram was involved; it was the first to be designed by Quick on the Draw (who still design the albums today) and it was the first to be released on a regular CD (after the false start with NOW 4), even if it only featured half the tracks. The idea of a full, double CD release must surely have been contemplated, but given that the core audience for the albums was still teenagers, the thought of them being able to afford such a thing must have been a key factor in delaying their releases for a further two albums. In the mid-to-late 80s a double CD could set you back anything up to £20, depending on where you bought it. That sounds an obscene amount today, let alone 27 years ago! So, clearly, a single CD selection was deemed the preferred option with which to test the water. So four years after a re-issue of an old Billy Joel album became the first commercially available CD (in Japan, at least) NOW finally decided that the time was right, the public was ready and a CD had to be part of their package.

    Not only did they produce artwork to represent this monumental decision, as if the CD had been forged in the artwork itself, the silver, shiny new dawn was also plastered all over the TV ad, featuring, for the first time, the unmistakable tones of David “The now very far from a kid” Jensen.

    Ironically, NOW 8 would have been a great choice with which to launch a full CD release, as the line up is a very strong one, including three number ones. They even got lucky anticipating the hit songs they included before they were released (with one very notable exception). It’s perhaps the purest pop selection so far in the series. Side one is wall-to-wall pop goodness from the leaner, funkier Duran Duran, right through to OMD’s bouncy (Forever) Live and Die, not, as I briefly thought at the time, the theme to a Bond movie I’d heard of but not seen.

    The Duran’s Notorious is simply brilliant and, maybe surprisingly for a lifelong Duranie, I now think it’s their best single. You’ve got to admire their balls, frankly, for going back to the bear pit of the pop charts, no longer the biggest band in the world, and with their tails between their legs after two satisfying, but hardly earth-shatteringly successful side projects, short two members, one of whom is openly malicious and dismissive about you, and carrying a sound unlike anything you’ve done before. Those screaming teenagers didn’t know what hit them, losing both Wham and Duran in a matter of months. Spandau Ballet and the withering Culture Club just didn’t compare.

    Disco king, Nile Rodger’s production adds a whole new level to their sound, sensibly playing up John Taylor’s amazing bass work in the wake of losing a regular lead guitarist. the fact that Notorious made number two in the USA, but struggled to scrape into the top ten here in the UK is a travesty to which, I think, we all should feel a little ashamed.

    The Pet Shop Boys continue to produce wonderfully overblown fluff masquerading as social commentary with Suburbia, which is followed by the still toweringly good Walk This Way, which suffers the same fate as it does on the radio – when should it be faded out? Here they settle for around 3 minutes 30, though officially it can go on for almost another two minutes.

    While Walk This Way is probably the biggest track on offer, in legacy terms, the ACTUAL biggest track here is in fact the biggest track of 1986, as The Communards finally got the success they deserved as they rework, reinvent and rejuvenate Harold Melvin’s Don’t Leave Me This Way. I recently saw a list of “Songs You Didn’t Know Were Cover Versions”, which featured Soft Cell’s Tainted Love. Well, if that’s on there, then this surely should have been included too. This was the sound of late summer 1986, and it still sounds great today (though, as I’m a contrary bugger, I prefer their version of Never Can Say Goodbye, which found itself on NOW 10).

    ian-hislop
    Ooooooh…. baby!

    Swing Out Sister were a new band on the scene in 1986, and newly insurrected Polygram were obviously keen to plug them, including the single Breakout just two weeks after its release (this was back in the days when singles could take weeks to reach their highest position; going straight in at number one, or even in the top ten, was considered a rarity). Luckily for them Breakout‘s mix of pop, jazz and electro was perfectly timed. Despite that description, they never had the feel of the kind of ‘yuppie pop’ tag that ended up tainting people like Sade or Level 42. Swing Out Sister were fun, the way all the best pop is. The same is true of OMD’s (Forever) Live and Die, perhaps not one of their better-known tracks, but still a good pop track.

    Also, surprisingly good (although given his history, perhaps not) is Steve Winwood’s Higher Love. It’s a track I often dismiss as the kind of Dad-rock which became so prevalent as the 80s went on; the alternative scene in the 80s was so far underground, people like Phil Collins, Rod Stewart and Status Quo just kept on having hit after hit. I bracketed Winwood into that camp. I always had a fondness for Roll With It, but maybe because I’m older now (and have a new appreciation for his earlier work) I can now accept something like Higher Love with a new maturity. Genesis’ In Too Deep smells of poo though, something even its association with American Psycho can do nothing about.

    I dread to think what Larry Blackmon’s cod piece smells like, but it’s back on display with the now legendary Word Up. Hard to believe this is the same band who produced the frankly dreadful Single Life on NOW 6 (where I incorrectly stated that it had the same intro as Word Up; turns out, it was the other way around). Both feature samples from Ennio Morricone’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly soundtrack, back when sampling was still in its infancy.

    A codpiece yesterday
    A codpiece yesterday

    And so we find ourselves in the dance zone, this time taking over side two, where it feels a bit more at home, keeping the party going following on from all that pop malarkey (almost ruined by smelly old Genesis). In a touch of creative compiling, Larry Blackmon’s flattop is immediately followed by the same haircut in the shape of Grace Jones’ I’m Not Perfect. It’s a got a similar sound to Notorious, unsurprising given the involvement of Nile Rodgers, but fails to capture that wonderful otherworldliness she can bring to music, as on Slave to the Rhythm. That track could only have been performed by Jones. This could be a Eurythmics b-side. Another track included on NOW 8 before its actual release, it would prove to be a notable flop, failing to make the Top 40. Much better, and more successful is Mel and Kim’s Showing Out, their first single, and the first of four top ten hits (with their only four singles!) before Mel’s tragic illness. Yes, it’s a cynical Stock, Aitken, Waterman production (and they’ll be much more of that over the next few NOW albums) and, surprisingly for that production team, it’s very rough around the edges. Stuff isn’t quite cut together as cleanly as it should be, with notable jerks and slices through the song which once you know they’re there can’t be unheard. Shame as it’s a great dance-pop tune.

    As is Jermaine Stewart’s We Don’t Have To … It’s fluff, but it’s fun. I’m not sure what’s happening with the title here though. At first I thought NOW were being a tad coy with their titling, but there is genuine confusion as my two source books list it differently (The Guinness British Hit Singles as We Don’t Have To… Take Our Clothes Off and The Guinness Top 40 Charts as We Don’t Have To…). The single sleeve shows it as one sentence with no ellipses. I don’t know…

    Jaki Graham is back, for her fourth appearance in a row, and her last. Step Right Up hadn’t been released when NOW 8 hit the shops, but it is pretty forgettable, and would prove to be her final top 40 hit. In contrast Janet Jackson was celebrating her first hit with the still awesome What Have You Done For Me Lately. So different from what her big brother was selling trillions of records doing, it still sounds like it’s about six months ahead of its time, even though, oddly, it was the oldest track on NOW 8, having been released in March 1986, eight months previously.

    The dance side then slows it down for some smooching, with Human League’s Human (which on closer listen is a pretty horrible song about a couple who keep cheating on each other because they’re “only human”…) and Boris Gardiner’s I Wanna Wake Up With You. This wasn’t the guy who parachuted out of a spaceship last year; this is a guy who somehow managed to have a massive number one with a dreary, repetitive love song that sounded like it was recorded in his bedroom with a Casio keyboard. He may also have been a reggae pioneer in the 70s, but on this showing I think that’s a lie.

    Things get a bit serious on side three, as we enter Dad territory. In fact, with the exception of Huey Lewis and the News’ Stuck with You (another song that on closer listen doesn’t sound like the lovely song you always thought it was) this is all very low key and moody. Don’t Give Up and Think For A Minute were clearly only included because of the success of Peter Gabriel and The Housemartins’ previous singles, as neither screams “Top Chart Hit”. Madness’ Waiting For The Ghost Train was a disappointing end to their golden period (it’s billed here as their farewell single), and Status Quo’s In The Army Now snatches the worst song on the album title from Boris Gardiner’s clutches. What was the country thinking sending this to number two (kept off the top by Every Loser Wins, which I’ll deal with in a moment)? Big Country’s One Great Thing is not one of their better tunes.

    status_quo
    In The Army Now got to WHERE in the charts?

    The side closes out with a surprise: Billy Bragg’s single NOW appearance with the wonderful Greetings to the New Brunette. Obviously hoping it would repeat his top 30 showing with Levi Stubbs’ Tears, this equally good tune was included pre-release, but sadly (unbelievably) it failed to dent the magic 40. Not that I’m sure Mr Bragg gave a monkey’s about things like that. Just as I’m sure he wasn’t bothered about being followed by Cutting Crew’s (I Just) Died In Your Arms (it must have been something I ate). Don’t know what happened with them or why the public fell out of love with them so quickly. Maybe the appearance of the near identical Then Jericho the next year had something to do with it.

    From all that doom and gloom, we are firmly back in pop wonderland with side four. Kim Wilde’s You Keep Me Hangin’ On is in the same vein (and is arguably as good) as The Communards, in re-visiting classic soul for an 80s audience. Respectful, but also great on its own terms. It Bites would join Cutting Crew in the dumper soon after their only major hit Calling All the Heroes, which, to a kid like me, sounded like the future of pop, but now I realise is a massively pretentious piece of prog-rock, synth, jazz, pop blancmange nonsense. It’s massively over-produced, much like their Wikipedia page, which is bursting with such choice bon mots  as ” a band composed of voracious pop fans with a parallel taste for progressive rock.” No… stop it. That’s just silly. For a band who only had one hit, it’s pretty comprehensive stuff.

    Also very silly is the big boo-boo by the compilers. We’ve noted a couple of early inclusions which proved to be a bit wide of the mark, but Dr and The Medics with Roy Wood just make them look very foolish. I know that everyone reading this has just gone “Wha…?”, I did too when I first saw the track listing, and saw their inclusion with a version of ABBA’s Waterloo. I’ll just repeat that, as it may have trouble settling your brain: Dr and the Medics (as in Spirit in the Sky), with Roy Wood (as in Wizzard, I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday), covering ABBA’s Waterloo… NOW certainly thought it was a guaranteed winner, and I shall quote:

    “Roy Wood was number 1 with The Move (Blackberry Way) and with Wizzard (See My Baby Jive & Angel Fingers. Dr and the Medics were number 1 with Spirit in the Sky. Waterloo was number 1 and a Eurovision winner for ABBA. So this new version should get to…”

    That’s the actual blurb on the sleeve, word for word, including the cheeky ellipses. That is utterly ludicrous confidence. And since you’ve probably never even heard it, I should tell you it managed to get to the dizzying heights of number 45.

    More successful was Debbie Harry’s French Kissin’  in the USA and Robert Palmer’s I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On. Oddly not as successful was Paul Hardcastle’s The Wizard, which stalled at number 15 despite weekly advertising as the then theme for Top of the Pops (replacing the epochal Yellow Pearl by Phil Lynott).

    In contrast to the brilliant 80s versions of 60s classics we’ve already seen, Gwen Guthrie’s remodelling of (They Long To Be) Close To You is everything that’s wrong with 80s cover versions; sludgy synthesisers, over-confident crooning, wildly inappropriate backing singers and arrangement, mention of “I love your sexy sexy moves”… it’s a mess. And that’s coming from someone for whom The Carpenters make me want to staple my ears shut. Still at least there’s Nick Berry to look forward too.

    Do you know how much of a disappointment you are to your mother because you are not him?
    Do you know how much of a disappointment you are to your mother because you are not him?

    Everyone who slags off The X Factor or The Voice should be forced to listen to this (along with Anita Dobson and The Banned (Sharon and Kelvin)) and realise that hearing people who can actually sing is a bit of a novelty compared to when any old stage school hack who manages to snag a part in a soap opera managed to get to number one. It wasn’t just Eastenders either (though they were the main culprits). Neighbours of course would provide half of all the top 40 hits between 1988-90, and then there were the hits from Malandra Burrows, Martine McCutcheon, Adam Rickitt and The Cat From Corrie’s Opening Titles; unwanted chart botherers the lot of them. So next time you look at the charts and think “who are these talentless idiots?”, remember they are only following a time-honoured tradition of milking your 15 minutes for all it’s worth. And at least it kept You’re In The Army Now from getting to number one.

    But wait! There’s more!

    With NOW 8 there is also the amazing opportunity to own a piece of pop history! Yes you too could own an official Now That’s What I Call Music sweatshirt! Light in weight but heavy in warmth, they were available in ‘Chinese Jade’ (green) or ‘Electric Blue’ (oo-er!). Made by Le Coq Sportif, they were advertised as being for a limited time only. But then they were still available when NOW 9 came out due to “exceptional public demand”. Not because “we’ve still got a warehouse full of the things”. Not at all. And at £20 a pop I’m not surprised; that’s about £50 in new money. And they were worried about people forking out for a double CD at the same price?

    now-8-sweatshirt

    NOW 8 also featured a competition, which handily also doubled as a plug for all the other great NOW albums still available (and no doubt would make great last minute Christmas gifts). Note that alongside NOW 7, the re-released Christmas Album, and the latest NOW Dance, there’s an anomaly on show: NOW That’s What I Call Music ’86. I’ll come to this in due course, as it is an oddity and one which requires its own post. The CD version of NOW 8 is intrinsically linked with NOW ’86, so I’ll discuss that in more detail there too (everything on the CD is on NOW 8 as discussed above, so you won’t miss out on me being sarcastic about any of the songs, it’s more to do with how the selection of tracks for NOW 8’s CD and NOW ’86 are interlinked).

    now-8-competition

    NOW had embraced the future and was now selling itself to a new market, the upwardly mobile of society. No longer the sole preserve of bedroom-ensconced, pop-loving, but probably spotty and grumpy, teenagers, the CD age was taking NOW to the mobile-phone buying, Porsche-driving, Filofax-touting nouveau riche. NOW 9 would model itself in their image.

     

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 8

    Release date

    24th November 1986

    Biggest tracks

    Walk This Way – Run DMC (Aerosmith are not credited)

    Don’t Leave Me This Way – The Communards

    Word Up – Cameo

    Lost gems

    Greetings to the New Brunette) – Billy Bragg

    Forgotten tracks

    I’m Not Perfect – Grace Jones

    (They Long To Be) Close To You – Gwen Guthrie

    Waterloo – Dr and the Medics with Roy Wood (fair play, the video is fantastic, unfortunately the sound on this is very ropey)

    What’s missing

    All I Ask of You  – Cliff Richard and Sarah Brightman

    (I don’t like it, but it was a huge top ten hit)

     

    Track listing

    Side one
    Notorious Duran Duran
    Suburbia Pet Shop Boys
    Walk This Way Run DMC
    Don’t Leave Me This Way The Communards
    Breakout Swing Out Sister
    Higher Love Steve Winwood
    (Forever) Live And Die Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
    In Too Deep Genesis
    Side two
    Word Up (7” Vocal Version) Cameo
    I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect For You) Grace Jones
    Showing Out (Get Fresh At The Weekend) Mel & Kim
    We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off Jermaine Stewart
    Step Right Up Jaki Graham
    What Have You Done For Me Lately Janet Jackson
    Human The Human League
    I Wanna Wake Up With You Boris Gardiner
    Side three
    Don’t Give Up Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush
    Think For A Minute The Housemartins
    (Waiting For The) Ghost Train Madness
    In The Army Now Status Quo
    Stuck With You Huey Lewis & The News
    One Great Thing Big Country
    Greetings To The New Brunette Billy Bragg
    (I Just) Died In Your Arms Cutting Crew
    Side four
    You Keep Me Hanging On Kim Wilde
    Calling All The Heroes It Bites
    Waterloo Doctor & The Medics with Roy Wood
    French Kissin’ In The USA Deborah Harry
    I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On Robert Palmer
    The Wizard Paul Hardcastle
    (They Long To Be) Close To You Gwen Guthrie
    Every Loser Wins Nick Berry

     

    CD track listing

    Notorious Duran Duran
    Suburbia Pet Shop Boys
    Walk This Way Run DMC
    I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect For You) Grace Jones
    Showing Out (Get Fresh At The Weekend) Mel & Kim
    Step Right Up Jaki Graham
    Breakout Swing Out Sister
    You Keep Me Hanging On Kim Wilde
    Calling All The Heroes It Bites
    Waterloo Doctor & The Medics with Roy Wood
    French Kissin’ In The USA Deborah Harry
    Stuck With You Huey Lewis & The News
    Don’t Give Up Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush
    (Waiting For The) Ghost Train Madness
    (Forever) Live And Die Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
    In Too Deep Genesis

     

    Video version

    Venus had previously appeared on the album of NOW 7. Sometimes by Erasure would later appear on Now 9.

    Four other tracks do not appear on any NOW album (marked with *)

    Duran Duran – Notorious
    Pet Shop Boys – Suburbia
    Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark – Forever Live and Die
    Erasure – Sometimes
    The Communards – Don’t Leave Me This Way
    Mel & Kim – Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend)
    Bananarama – Venus
    Jaki Graham – Step Right Up
    Swing Out Sister – Breakout
    The Housemartins – Think For A Minute
    Madness – Waiting for the Ghost Train
    The Damned – Anything*
    Big Country – One Great Thing
    Ultravox – All Fall Down*
    Status Quo – In the Army Now
    Glass Tiger – Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone)*
    Frankie Goes to Hollywood – Warriors of the Wasteland*
    Kim Wilde – You Keep Me Hangin’ On
    Boris Gardiner – I Wanna Wake Up With You

     

  • Now That’s What I Call Music 6 – Re-election day

    Now That’s What I Call Music 6 – Re-election day

    now 6Christmas 1985 would see NOW reclaim its crown, in some style. Not only did NOW 6 indicate a return to form, but they also had the trump card of the Now Christmas Album. I’ll discuss the Christmas album (and its various incarnations) elsewhere, but it was a cunning one-two, releasing both within a fortnight of each other, that Hits just didn’t see coming. Released the same day as Hits 3, NOW 6 won out. It had a stronger line-up, better design, and the now all-important brand loyalty. What better way is there is to make people feel all warm and fuzzy about your brand than selling them a lovely, festive collection of classic Christmas hits?

    Despite being released earlier, The Christmas Album didn’t hit the top until the week before Christmas, being kept off by NOW 6, but also by another pretender to the throne: Telstar’s Greatest Hits of 1985. Telstar had been set up a few years previously, and specialised in compilation albums, usually accompanied by a heavy TV marketing campaign. The Greatest Hits of… series would continue into the 90s, but were never a serious threat to NOW as with only one release a year, most of the tracks would have already featured on either of the competing series’ offerings, and those that were exclusive to the album would rarely warrant an additional purchase. 1985’s release did feature Paul Hardcastle’s 19, a rare number one which neither NOW or Hits had included; however it also featured several songs from 1984 including Everything She Wants, Ghostbusters and Do They Know It’s Christmas. It managed a solitary week at number one before the big boys moved back in, NOW 6 and NOW The Christmas Album racking up 6 consecutive weeks between them.

    Speaking of number 1’s, NOW 6 manages to include four, the most since NOW 2, whereas Hits 3 managed only two, one of which, Frankie, had already appeared on NOW 5. (The other was Jennifer Rush’s The Power of Love. Hits 3 also featured Huey Lewis and The News’ The Power of Love, but not Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s The Power of Love. 1985 was a confusing year for pop fans.)  Things like that don’t go unnoticed. At least not by people like me.

    With the pig now sent to the slaughterhouse, a new team brought a more sophisticated look to the album. For this, and the next 10 releases, NOW’s look and feel would be more commonly seen on contemporary cigarette ads than the brash, strutting, look of the Hits series. The NOW! Logo would find itself in various strange locations and scenarios, but never appear out of place. Here it appears as a label inside a leather jacket (this may not be immediately apparent, but the TV ad makes it explicit). It’s a nice idea, and very understated compared to its predecessors. No more Max Headroom-a-like, eye-straining, gut-wrenching, lasers and stripes and whatnot. Simple, clean, efficient. Much like the content, which, after an astonishingly good start, stumbles a bit, before regaining its composure to throw up a few pleasant surprises. As the tagline on the back exclaims: Feel the quality.

    You really can’t argue with side one, at least until the final two tracks. Kicking off with Queen’s One Vision, through Nik Kershaw’s first flop single (but also probably his best), the Maria McKee-penned A Good Heart, the absolutely stunning There Must be An Angel (for me, the best song on a NOW album so far) and Simple Minds perennial Alive and Kicking, it’s about as good a start as a NOW Album has ever had. The final two tracks hint at the mood change to come (Empty Rooms and Lavender both being examples of the overwrought balladry far too popular with rock acts of the time; too well-made to be labelled as ‘soft rock’ they don’t particularly warrant multiple listens unless you’ve got a bottle of whiskey and some paracetamol to hand). The Bryan Adams and Tina Turner collaboration which straddles the gap between the good and the dreary, manages to be both at the same time, featuring a cracking opening riff which dissolves into a deathly dull, well, Bryan Adams song, which just happens to have Tina Turner on it. She pops up again on side two, singing about her thunderdomes.

    Dreariness continues on side two where Phil Collins, Cliff Richard and Elton John battle it out for the prize of most insipid ballad ever on a NOW album, while Kate Bush valiantly delivers Running Up That Hill amid the gloom. Level 42 seems a welcome respite in the midst of this, and Something About You stands up pretty well.

    Side three is a very odd assortment. Whilst it features two number ones (If I Was, and UB40, in collaboration with Chrissie Hynde on I Got You Babe), it’s also possibly, the worst charting side of tracks so far. Of the rest, only one made the top ten. The fact that that one track is Arcadia’s none-more-80s Election Day probably has more to with the fact that they were a side project for Duran Duran than for the fact that it’s a good song. It’s not. It’s stupid, nonsensical, pretentious claptrap which, to make matters worse, features an uncredited cameo from Grace Jones. But, dammit, it’s got something I can’t put my finger on.

    Eighties, by day we run, by night we dance!
    Eighties; by day we run, by night we dance!

    Of the remaining 5 tracks, Lost Weekend was the only one to make the top 20; Uncle Sam and Cities in Dust both stalled at 21, The Communards rather lovely, and under-valued, You Are My World only hit 30 (though their time would come soon enough), and the Fine Young Cannibals make history as Blue is he first single to feature on a NOW Album not to make the top 40. The anti-Tory declamation is no Ghost Town, but it’s a pretty good tune, to be fair, and puzzling that it did so poorly after the top ten success of Johnny Come Home (this may be explained by it appearing, in a different version, on the b-side of that single). The inclusion of Lloyd Cole and a rare appearance for Siouxsie suggests the compilers were still keen to get some exposure for less mainstream acts, but it always feels more like tokenism than because the artists warrant inclusion on the basis on chart performance.

    Incidentally, going back to UB40, as on NOW 1, they make two appearances, with the dreary, repetitive Don’t Break My Heart fitting in right at home on side two. And is just me, or does Ali Campbell sound just like Jim Davidson doing his horrible Chalky voice on I Got You Babe?

    Even just using a picture of Jim Davidson for witty illustrative purposes made me sick a little in my mouth, so here's a kitten instead.
    Even just using a picture of Jim Davidson for witty illustrative purposes made me sick a little in my mouth, so here’s a kitten instead.

    The ghettoised dance side finds itself closing out the album this time, instead of the more usual maudlin closing numbers, and things start off with Paul Hardcastle’s ridiculous For the Money. This was one of the tunes that I had no recollection of until I heard it again, and suddenly it all came flooding back. A truly ‘of its day’ affair, it combines sub-Herbie Hancock synth twiddling with Laurence Olivier talking about ‘money being the root of all evil’, while Bob Hoskins tries to convince another cock-er-nee geezah (Hardcastle himself!) to pull a blag with him, with the persuasive line “Just fink abaht the moneee!” and “it’s the life o’ luxury!” over and over and over again. It’s a bit like an 80s version of Sexy Beast, with Hoskins in the Ben Kingsley role, but slightly less frightening, particularly with his clichéd “just don’t mess it up or the only place you’ll be gahn is dahn the Scrubs!”. All this, plus two badly accented bit part actors pretending to be 1920’s Chicago gangsters (one of whom turned out to be Hollywood bit part actor Ed O’Ross; he dies in nearly every 80s action movie), and some swooning backing singers making the whole thing sound more like one of the song parodies from Alexei Sayle’s Stuff.  Though it’s worth it for the sound of Lord Larry having his voice scratched.

    Jan Hammer’s Miami Vice Theme is the perfect antidote to all that nonsense, being a brilliant example of how electronic music (still sniffed at in most quarters even in 1985) can be evocative, exciting and somehow timeless too. Three things that most certainly DON’T apply to Maria Vidal’s Body Rock, a shameless rip-off of Madonna’s Borderline (though also oddly sounding like Open Your Heart, six months before its release), or Baltimora’s horrible Tarzan Boy.

    The long-forgotten Mai Tai make a return with another nice, fun, dance track. Heart and Soul is another of those songs that you know you’ve heard countless times before but can never remember its title or who it’s by.  It seems odd they only had the two hits (this and History, which featured on NOW 5), as they were certainly no worse than some comparable acts who achieved more success at the time. Like Cameo. Now I like Word Up as much as the next person, but there’s something extremely icky about Single Life. From the opening, which is EXACTLY the same as Word Up, this tells the story of some guy, who you know has a penthouse apartment with black chrome shelves, metal chairs and a Playboy bunny quilt cover. Hearing the giant codpiece singing about the single life just creeps me out, and like the aural equivalent of rohypnol, it’s liable to send you to sleep and when you wake up you’ll feel utterly violated.

    tom-savini
    Word up

    This brings us disgustingly onto Mated, a second duet betweenJaki Graham and David Grant. Even as a ten-year old, this title seemed wrong, just a bit too animalistic for what sounds like a sickly, sweet love song about finding your soul-mate. It’s not my cup of tea at all, and hearing them croon “We are mated” at each other just turns my stomach. I’d argue it’s one of the least romantic romantic songs ever, and a disappointing end to the album.

    nowmastermindAn interesting design choice was taken on the inside this time, in a rare case of NOW taking a nod from Hits. On the gatefold, the blurbs are now accompanied by album covers rather than the standard star photos, at least in most cases. Level 42 miss out, presumably, because the artwork for World Machine wasn’t ready, though the album is mentioned, but poor old Mai tai’s album had been out since June, and since it only got to number 91 they probably could have done with having it plugged better than it is here!

    The rear cover also, teasingly, says “You’ve heard the record, now buy the book”… The book? Now That’s What I Call Music Mastermind, a quiz book compiled by Ashley Abram himself, was available at the time for “a steal at £2.99”. A scurry round the interwebs finds there only appears to be two copies left in existence, both going for over £60! I did find a picture of the cover though, which in a rare case of branding inconsistency, still features the pig. It also looks incredibly cheap compared to the albums.

    So, NOW was back on top. For the next couple of years, an uneasy cold war between the two compilation behemoths would see them only releasing one album each during the year (Hits at Easter, NOW in the summer) with both going head-to-head at Christmas. It was their biggest, most lucrative, time of the year so neither was willing to yield that, and there was always the possibility that a strong line-up could see Hits go back on top. In a years’ time they would get the chance, but until then NOW had seven months to prepare its next chart attack.

     

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 6

    Release date

    25th November 1985

    Biggest tracks

    One Vision – Queen

    Alive and Kicking – Simple Minds

    There Must be An Angel (Playing with my Heart) – Eurythmics

    Lost gems

    When a Heart Beats – Nik Kershaw

    You Are My World – The Communards

    Forgotten tracks

    Blue – Fine Young Cannibals

    She’s So Beautiful – Cliff Richard

    Just For Money – Paul Hardcastle

    Single Life – Cameo

    What’s missing

    Money for Nothing  – Dire Straits

    White Wedding – Billy Idol

    Dancing in the Street – David Bowie and Mick Jagger

    (A case could also be made for West End Girls, by The Pet Shop Boys, as it does appear on the accompanying video, but to be fair to the compilers, it only charted at number the week that NOW 6 was released, and, as a first single, there was no indication of what a huge hit it would be, except for the fact that it was brilliant.)

    Track listing

    Side One
    One Vision Queen
    When A Heart Beats Nik Kershaw
    A Good Heart Feargal Sharkey
    There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) Eurythmics
    Alive And Kicking Simple Minds
    It’s Only Love (Live) Tina Turner With Bryan Adams
    Empty Rooms Gary Moore
    Lavender Marillion
    Side Two
    Nikita Elton John
    Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) Kate Bush
    Something About You Level 42
    We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) Tina Turner
    Don’t Break My Heart UB40
    Separate Lives Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin
    She’s So Beautiful Cliff Richard
    Side Three
    Election Day Arcadia
    I Got You Babe UB40 Featuring Chrissie Hynde
    Blue Fine Young Cannibals
    If I Was Midge Ure
    Cities In Dust Siouxsie & The Banshees
    Uncle Sam Madness
    Lost Weekend Lloyd Cole & The Commotions
    You Are My World The Communards
    Side Four
    Just For Money Paul Hardcastle
    Miami Vice Theme Jan Hammer
    Body Rock Maria Vidal
    Tarzan Boy (Original Version) Baltimora
    Body And Soul Mai Tai
    Single Life Cameo
    Mated David Grant & Jaki Graham

     

    Video version

    The video version contained five tracks not featured on the main album (marked with *)

    Queen – One Vision
    Fergal Sharkey – A Good Heart
    Kate Bush – Running Up that Hill (A Deal With God)
    UB40 featuring Chrissie Hynde – I Got You Babe
    Madness – Uncle Sam
    Marillion – Lavender
    Bryan Adams & Tina Turner – It’s Only Love
    Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls*
    Thompson Twins – King for a Day*
    Simple Minds – Alive and Kicking
    Depeche Mode – It’s Called A Heart*
    David Grant And Jaki Graham – Mated
    Gary Moore – Empty Rooms
    The Cult – Revolution*
    Baltimora – Tarzan Boy
    Ian Dury – Profoundly In Love With Pandora*
    Cliff Richard – She’s So Beautiful
    UB40 – Don’t Break My Heart
    Arcadia – Election Day

     

  • Now! That’s What I Call Music 3 – Can U Pig It?

    Now! That’s What I Call Music 3 – Can U Pig It?

     

    now 3

    NOW! continued its first full year in the summer of 1984, with the release of NOW 3. And it’s a porker! It’s the pig one! Compilations don’t get much pigger than this! It’s so big I may need a ham with this review.

    Sorry, I’ll stop being silly now.

    It’s just that the pig made his triumphant debut as a cover star, advert leading man (voiced, of course, by Brian Glover) and general ‘face’ of NOW! As we’ve already seen, the pig has an important role to play in the glorious history of NOW!, but it’s still a bit… odd. There’s no obvious connection between a walking bacon sandwich and pop music. Maybe someone at the design agency thought it was a nice way to honour the origins of the name (see here). Maybe someone over a lunchtime beer thought it was hilarious to put sunglasses on a pig. Google “pig sunglasses” and you’ll see a great number of the world’s population think it still is. For whatever reason, the pig was here, and for a while, he would remain. Though he would remain in the subconcious of a great many pop fans for a lot longer.

    Mark Goodier: The Yorkshire Years
    Mark Goodier: The Yorkshire Years

    Definitely not odd is the first appearance of the ‘classic’ NOW! logo. I say classic in inverted commas deliberately because it’s really only classic for anyone who remembers the albums from 3 to 17  in the series. To be fair, 15 albums using the same logo not only shows tremendous faith in the brand, but also the ingenuity of the various designers who would work on the series.

    After the legendary balls logo (and an almost suicidal rebrand at NOW 18, which we’ll come to in due course) NOW! has relied on the other classic design of bloody big blocky text in some abstract landscape. It works, otherwise they wouldn’t have continued with it for over 20 years. But back in the 80s, bright colours and lightning bolts were where it was at.

    Red, blue, green balls, Impact font (a design classic, if one that’s sadly overused) and a yellow lightning bolt. For my generation it’s as iconic as the Coke ribbon, the Nike swoosh or the Apple…er…apple. Within the design, ‘NOW’ remains the focus, with ‘Music’ secondary but still important. I think it’s clear, and the spines of the albums back this up, that at this point, the marketers were happy for us to approximate the unwieldy full title to the more compact ‘Now Music’. The public, of course, would soon have their own ideas in due course.

    Released at the end of July, just as the school summer holidays kicked off, natch, NOW 3 would have an extra month of chart hits to plunder over its sadly disappointing predecessor. Although only containing 3 number ones, it’s a significantly stronger line-up, and don’t forget, had Two Tribes not dominated the top spot for an astonishing nine weeks (!), there could have been a few more chart toppers to choose from (though as many of the number two’s from the period later turned up on the first Hits Album later in the year, maybe the rival record companies were a bit more reluctant to license their hits to the NOW! boys, despite appearances here for some of those same labels’ hottest artists like Wham and Howard Jones).

    Even given that, the track listing, at least for the first half is top drawer, and chock-a-block with winners, kicking off with the biggest players in town at the time, Duran Duran. Amazingly, in hindsight, The Reflex was only the Durans 2nd number one, and it would be their last too. Sales were no doubt helped by the fact the single version was massively re-worked from the version on their album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, from which this was the third single. It is brilliant though. Also benefitting from new versions was Frankie Goes to Hollywood, with Two Tribes being released in about 4,675 different formats and remixes, which no doubt helped it squat in the top spot for so long (its predecessor, Relax, would later join it by returning up the charts to number two). The third number one, and along with the Durans and Frankie, vying for the title of chart kings at the time, was Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, kicking off Side Four. When you factor in seminal tracks from Queen, Bananarama, Nik Kershaw and Tina Turner, this is getting on for one of the strongest line-ups in the series. And Ashley Abram does a brilliant job compiling it too, keeping the mood up for the first half of each side, before slowly mellowing out towards the end. Look at the track listing at the end and you’ll see, only a master of his craft could get you seamlessly from The Reflex to Against All Odds before you’ve even noticed. This is textbook stuff, and this style would continue through the series.

    Calm yourselves, ladies
    Calm yourselves, ladies

    Added to this is the fact that there’s no attempt at a themed side this time out. Everything is in the mix, but perfectly pieced together: who would have thought Sister Sledge would sit so comfortably between the synth noodlings of Nik Kershaw and OMD, or that The Weather Girls would be so cosy next to (whisper it) Gary Glitter. Or that the frankly bizarre (in NOW! terms) Dr Mabuse by Propaganda would be included at all.

    Now, I have nothing against avant-garde German synth acts, but this is perhaps the strangest thing to ever appear on a NOW! album. Looked at from a modern perspective it makes little sense: the track had made the charts months before, so was not included in the anticipation of it being a breakout hit; it was not Propaganda’s biggest hit either, that honour falling to the much-more chart friendly Duel, which oddly didn’t make the cut for NOW 5 a year later .(If there was any justice it would have been a massive hit too, but their label, ZTT, were using their meagre promotional resources for the unexpected success of Frankie Goes to Hollywood.)  Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that more esoteric stuff like this did make it onto the albums, and this is probably the best example of a decent tune that didn’t make the grade chart-wise, but was still considered worthy of inclusion. This must have been a personal choice for someone…

    Also filed in the ‘Huh?’ category, and conveniently finishing off the final side, we find the aforementioned Mr Gadd, with the dreadful Dance Me Up, sounding like a poppier version of Public Image Limited (his only NOW! appearance beyond a sampled appearance on Doctorin’ the Tardis on NOW 12), some rather painful, Dutch white reggae courtesy of one hit wonders, The Art Company (real name, the slightly more unwieldy, VOF de Kunst, and yes I checked the spelling there). There’s a brief respite with one of Madness’ serious tracks (and therefore one of their least successful), their ode to London’s homeless, One Better Day, before finishing up with Japan lead man David Sylvian’s first solo single (in credit at least), Red Guitar. It’s a lovely, smoky, 80s jazz tune completely out of place with anything else on the album. And like Propaganda, it seems a slightly off-kilter inclusion.

    David Sylvian: niiiice
    David Sylvian: niiiice

    In this respect NOW 3 does a much better job of balancing the massive chart hits with the slightly more left-field choices. It’s also probably the first album in the series to truly know its target market: kids and teenagers. Every self-respecting pop fan is going to welcome Duran Duran, Wham and Nik Kershaw into their record collection. The cooler kids will be happy to proclaim that they’ve also loved the post-Kraftwerk Kraut-Synth (I just made that up, but I think I might stick a copyright label on it) and the jazz stylings of former New Romantics.

    Dad rock is kept to a bare minimum, the initial stirrings of rap get a look in, good and bad reggae pop up, and, interestingly, British music dominates. If there’s an over-riding feel it’s of Roland synths and those god-awful electronic drums. It is definitely a snapshot of a moment, but thankfully it was a pretty good moment. And the public agreed, keeping NOW 3 at number for a staggering 8 weeks, long after the summer holidays had given way autumn. This was a record that would never be topped by a NOW! album while they were still permitted on the regular chart (they would be turfed out to a ‘Compilation Top 20’ after NOW 13). They didn’t call it “The Pig One” for nothing…

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 3

    Release date

    23rd July 1984

    Biggest tracks

    The Reflex – Duran Duran

    Two Tribes – Frankie Goes to Hollywood

    Wake Me Up before You Go-Go – Wham

    It’s Raining Men – The Weather Girls

    Lost gems

    Dr Mabuse – Propaganda

    Red Guitar – David Sylvian

    The stinker

    Susanna – The Art Company

    Forgotten tracks

    Don’t Tell Me – Blancmange

    Love Wars – Womack & Womack

    Dance Me Up – Gary Glitter

    What’s missing

    The Lebanon – Human League

    Absolute  – Scritti Politti

    Track listing

    Side One
    The Reflex Duran Duran
    I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me Nik Kershaw
    Thinking Of You Sister Sledge
    Locomotion Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
    Dancing With Tears In My Eyes Ultravox
    Pearl In The Shell Howard Jones
    Don’t Tell Me Blancmange
    Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now) Phil Collins
    Side Two
    Two Tribes Frankie Goes To Hollywood
    White Lines (Don’t Do It) (Furious Five) Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
    Nelson Mandela The Special AKA
    Love Wars Womack & Womack
    You’re The Best Thing The Style Council
    One Love Bob Marley & The Wailers
    Smalltown Boy Bronski Beat
    Side Three
    I Want To Break Free Queen
    Time After Time Cyndi Lauper
    Love Resurrection Alison Moyet
    Young At Heart The Bluebells
    Robert De Niro’s Waiting Bananarama
    Dr Mabuse Propaganda
    What’s Love Got To Do With It Tina Turner
    When You’re Young And In Love The Flying Pickets
    Side Four
    Wake Me Up Before You Go Go Wham
    You Take Me Up The Thompson Twins
    It’s Raining Men The Weather Girls
    Dance Me Up Gary Glitter
    Susanna The Art Company
    One Better Day Madness
    Red Guitar David Sylvian

     

    Video edition 

    now 3 video frontThe video version featured just 8 tracks from the accompanying album, and 12 additional tracks (marked with *) none of which were even top 10 hits.

    Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – Locomotion
    Simple Minds – Up On the Catwalk*
    Thompson Twins – You Take Me Up
    Madness – One Better Day
    Farmers Boys – In the Country*
    Helen Terry – Love Lies Lost*
    Loose Ends – Emergency (Dial 999)*
    Working Week – Venceremos*
    Tina Turner – What’s Love Got to Do With It
    Phil Collins – Against All Odds (Take a Look At Me Now)
    Talk Talk – Dum Dum Girl*
    Kajagoogoo – Turn Your Back on Me*
    Gary Glitter – Dance Me Up
    The Mighty Wah – Come Back*
    I-Level – Our Song*
    Limahl – Too Much Trouble*
    The Flying Pickets – When You’re Young and In Love
    Thomas Dolby – I Scare Myself*
    Blue Nile – Tinseltown In The Rain*
    David Sylvian – Red Guitar

     

  • Now! That’s What I Call Music II – More, more, more

    Now! That’s What I Call Music II – More, more, more

    now 2

    Almost four months to the day since it had crashed its way through the charts and teenage bedrooms of the UK, NOW! would launch a second onslaught on the nation. And whilst at first glance it seems just like more of the same (including the first use of the ubiquitous phrase “Top Chart Hits”), if you dig deeper, things do seem a little bit stranger this time around.

    Yes, there are the huge hits (Radio Ga Ga, Relax, Girls Just Want To Have Fun), but there’s also some things that have slipped through the cracks of time. As good a track as More, More, More is (and it’s not a cover of the Andrea True disco classic), I’d never heard of Carmel. Nor was I familiar with Julia & Company, Snowy White, Re-Flex  or Matthew Wilder (though his track Break My Stride is fairly well-known).

    So what’s happened here then? Has NOW! blown it already, and only on volume 2? Well, no. Of course not, otherwise I wouldn’t be planning to review all 80 odd albums in the series that has lasted for 30 years.

    What happened was the inevitable result of a shorter window in which to choose tracks from. Whereas NOW! had had a whole year to pilfer from, NOW 2 had the unenviable task of replicating that massive track listing from just four months of hits, ranging from November 1983 (The Thompson Twins’ Hold Me Now) to March 1984 (Culture Club’s soon to be released It’s A Miracle, which it would have been if that had been as successful as their previous singles). A task as difficult as this required a professional, and so Richard Branson brought one in: Ashley Abram.

    Now, Ashley Abram may sound like a runner-up on The X-Factor or Masterchef, but he is probably the most important person in the history of the entire NOW! series, being the compiler of the albums since NOW 2 all the way to NOW 81. He may not be the most recognisable name in pop, but thanks to him unsuspecting teenagers everywhere probably had their first taste of house music, heavy metal or garage. Not much is known about him, and trawling the net for info turns up more discrepancies than an MP’s account of an indiscretion. The most common story is that Branson brought in Abram’s Box Music, a professional music consultancy, to take the NOW! concept to the next level. Other sources say he was Ronco’s chief compiler in the 1970s, another says he was a record buyer for Woolworths, some say that Box Music was his company, others that he was simply an employee. It’s a minefield to be honest and unless I get to speak to him personally, I’m not going any deeper into the background. All I’ll say is, it’s Abram’s name on the back of the albums (at least from Now 4) as ‘Now Co-ordinator’, so he’s the man we thank.

    Whoever made the decision to increase the frequency of releases, it made sound commercial sense, but it was bound to affect the quality. NOW! had been such a huge, unprecedented success, the desire to quickly cash-in is completely understandable, but looking at the track listing here, you have to wonder if three a year (one every four months) was the wisest decision. But then you realise that the releases tie in with the major school holidays (Easter, Summer and Christmas) and of course it makes perfect sense.

    But as a result of the increased frequency, NOW albums would rarely hit as hard as that first release. Already with NOW 2, the quality threshold has dropped considerably, and where the hits may hit even harder than they did before (Relax, still banned by Radio 1 at the time is the masterstroke here), there are far too many duffers. Side 2 would have been swiped off most kids record players after the first two tracks (Nena’s 99 Red Balloons  and Cyndi Lauper), with its mix of mullets and tracks that were probably more popular with their parents, a theme continued later on with the inclusion of Slade, Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones (in the first of only two appearances in the series) . The other casualty is the volume of number 1’s, dropping from the massive eleven chart toppers on NOW! to just four here (Only You, 99 Red Balloons, Relax, Pipes of Peace(!)).

    Joe Fagin and Matthew Wilder aim to take Limahl's title for 'Most Ridiculous Hairstyle Ever Featured on a Now! Album'
    Joe Fagin and Matthew Wilder aim to take Limahl’s title for ‘Most Ridiculous Hairstyle Ever Featured on a Now! Album’

    Side Three would see the first attempt to theme a whole side (remember this was back in the day when the albums would have four sides, rather than two CDs, a CD still being as futuristic as a jetpack to the average Woolworths customer).  These would generally be undertaken when a particular musical style dominates the charts for a certain period. I first became aware of it on NOW 11, where a whole side was devoted to the burgeoning House scene, and goes some way to making that album one of the best in the series. Here, Side Three is almost entirely devoted to post-New wave acts, an odd mix of alternative electro-pop, guitar bands and just general oddness of a kind that wouldn’t normally be seen bothering the charts which at the time were dominated by the likes of Duran Duran. But is that true? As is so often the case people like to misremember the past. Of the eight tracks on Side Three, five of them were top ten hits and Relax is still one of the biggest selling singles ever in the UK. The appearance of The Smiths is rather special though; they would never appear again, though Morrissey’s solo career was a good standby for the series, at least until he stopped having top ten hits at the end of the 80s.

    No idea who’s doing the voice over here, so if anyone can enlighten me I’d be most grateful. I suspect she  was a DJ  on either Radio 1 or Capital, but it’s not a voice I recognise.

    It does a great job of convincing you that you have to have it, reeling off the list of winners with great pride, and any self-respecting pop fan would have killed for this album at the time.  Sadly, NOW 2 has not aged well, appearing to modern eyes exactly like the kind of cheap cash-in that NOW! itself would have to contend with in the months and years ahead. It was going to take something special to convince the record-buying public that this was more than a fly-by-night operation…

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC II

    Release date

    26th March 1984

    Biggest tracks

    Relax – Frankie Goes to Hollywood

    Radio Ga Ga – Queen

    Lost gems

    More, More, More – Carmel

    Forgotten tracks

    Bird of Paradise – Snowy White

    Breaking Down (Sugar Samba) – Julia & Company

    Politics of Dancing – Re-Flex

    What’s missing

    Doctor Doctor – The Thompson Twins (would later appear on NOW 4)

    Holiday – Madonna

    Track listing

    Side One
    Radio Ga Ga Queen
    Wouldn’t It Be Good Nik Kershaw
    Hold Me Now The Thompson Twins
    Get Out Of Your Lazy Bed Matt Bianco
    More, More, More Carmel
    Michael Caine Madness
    Only You The Flying Pickets
    Side Two
    99 Red Balloons Nena
    Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Cyndi Lauper
    My Guy Tracey Ullman
    Break My Stride Matthew Wilder
    Breakin’ Down (Sugar Samba) Julia & Company
    That’s Livin’ Alright Joe Fagin
    I Gave You My Heart (Didn’t I) Hot Chocolate
    Bird Of Paradise Snowy White
    Side Three
    Relax Frankie Goes To Hollywood
    Here Comes The Rain Again Eurythmics
    What Is Love? Howard Jones
    What Difference Does It Make The Smiths
    Feels Like Heaven Fiction Factory
    The Politics Of Dancing Re-Flex
    Hyperactive! Thomas Dolby
    Wishful Thinking China Crisis
    Side Four
    Modern Love David Bowie
    It’s A Miracle Culture Club
    Undercover (Of The Night) The Rolling Stones
    Wonderland Big Country
    Run Runaway Slade
    New Moon On Monday Duran Duran
    Pipes Of Peace Paul McCartney


    Video edition     

    The video version is even more of a mixed bag than for NOW!

    20 tracks, but only eleven of them are on the accompanying album. One track (Victims) is from NOW!, one that would appear on NOW 4 (Doctor, Doctor) and seven that never appeared on any NOW! album (Help, Marguerita Time, Let The Music Play, Birds Fly, Breaking Point, Cry and Be Free, The Lion’s Mouth).

    Now 2 video

    Nik Kershaw – Wouldn’t It Be Good
    Thompson Twins – Doctor, Doctor
    Howard Jones – What is Love?
    Duran Duran – New Moon on Monday
    China Crisis – Wishful Thinking
    Tina Turner  – Help
    Status Quo – Marguerita Time
    Carmel  – More, More, More
    Shannon – Let the Music Play
    Icicle Works – Birds Fly
    Bourgie Bourgie – Breaking Point
    Re-Flex – The Politics of Dancing
    Thomas Dolby – Hyperactive
    Matt Bianco – Get Out of Your Lazy Bed
    Big Country – Wonderland
    Marilyn – Cry and Be Free
    Snowy White – Bird of Paradise
    The Flying Pickets – Only You
    Kajagoogoo – The Lion’s Mouth
    Culture Club – Victims

     

     

     

  • NOW! That’s What I Call Music – Total Eclipse of the Charts

    NOW! That’s What I Call Music – Total Eclipse of the Charts

     

    now

    And lo, it came to pass that on the 28th day of the 11th month of the year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Three, that Lord Richard of Branson did declare “Let there be pop!”, and the British music charts, and the record collections of the nations’ teenagers would never be the same again. From the first bass note of You Can’t Hurry Love, to the final “ooh” of Victims, NOW! was determined to be the definitive collection of the year’s biggest hits, and by jove, did it succeed.

    Glancing through the track listings of later albums in the series you often find yourself staring blank-faced at names that no longer mean anything to anyone. One hit wonders abound, and even some successful artists will elicit the question “what were we thinking?” rather than  “they were great, weren’t they?” Not here.

    Maybe 80s stars were more hard-wearing, maybe I’m being kind to the music I grew up with, but if a contemporary compilation can hit harder than this, I’ve not found it yet: Duran Duran, Madness, Culture Club, Phil Collins, Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, Human League, The Cure, UB40… You can argue the individual merits of the artists, or the song choices included here, but you can’t deny the sheer number of pop titans in attendance here. And that’s looking at it at a remove of 30 years. Imagine how this must have seemed at the time!

    And looking at the track listing (at the end of this post), it’s about as close to “all killer, no filler” as you are going to get. Even the less well-remember tracks would come flooding back with a brief burst of them on the radio.

    Most kids of my generation would record the charts off Radio 1 on a Sunday afternoon, or at least those tracks we liked. The appearance of NOW! almost made that redundant, because they were all here. All we had to do was wait until Christmas, and, if you dropped enough hints when the advert was on the telly, someone would buy it for you (or you could always use that Crimbo money burning a hole in your pocket, and get something tangible rather than blowing the lot on Sherbet Dib Dabs).

    Speaking of adverts:

    Thrilling stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. Odd to hear Gary Crowley, a legendary alternative DJ, plugging an album of pop hits and telling people to head to Woollies to pick it up, but at the time Crowley was the youngest DJ in the country, ploughing his trade on Capital Radio in London. So he’s down with the kids, but regional? Well, no, he was also presenting a kids show on ITV (Fun Factory, not to be confused with Pat Sharpe’s Fun House), so he would have been a familiar voice.

    A more familiar voice, being as she was one of the hottest young stars on TV, and a successful recording artist in her own right, was Tracey Ullman, here promoting the album in a slightly more dynamic fashion:

    The difference in these two ads is astonishing. One is conservative, to the point; the other is fun, playful. Guess which route the advertising would take after this.

    The official NOW! YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/nowmusic25?feature=watch) note that the Tracey Ullman advert was the first to be shown, and the Crowley ad was second. Far be it from me to suggest the official NOW! people are wrong, but this does seem slightly odd, for a couple of reasons. The first, as stated above, is that the Crowley ad is very conservative, as if the marketing team hadn’t quite found their feet yet. Being unsure how to flog the thing, they simply got a hot DJ to reel off a list of the artists on it, with the cover featuring prominently. The Ullman advert is a lot more confident, as if the suits realised “we can have fun with this”. it also features snippets of videos, which would have required additional clearance to use in the advert, which takes time, and then right at the end, there’s mention of a video collection too (featuring 18 of the 30 tracks). Would they really have left that out of the second advert if it was available?

    But like I said, I’m just speculating on this, and I’m sure the young whippersnapper running the show on YouTube knows their stuff.

    So, back to the album.

    The cover design is excellent; NOW! in huge letters has obviously come to be the main focus of the albums over the years, and this was clearly an early design decision. Filling the word with pics of the biggest stars on it helps as well. Don’t forget, in 1983, NOW! didn’t mean anything to anyone, so a hook was needed to get the punters to part with their cash. And that hook, unsurprisingly, was the stars. Notice how the focus is on the artists rather than the songs. I believe this was a deliberate choice, to steer NOW! away from the murky waters of Top of the Pops and Hot Hits, who would adorn their covers with track titles, only for the unsuspecting buyer to discover they’d bought an album of session musicians knocking out chart hits at a rate of about four a day.

    Here, there’s no danger of being ripped off. You want the biggest chart hits by the original artists, you are going to get them.

    And check out that strap across the top left hand corner:

    now-1-strap

    It would be a long time before a NOW! album could again boast eleven (11!!!) number one singles. They were so proud of the fact that inside they list the other, unfortunate number ones that didn’t make the cut, all 5 of them: Billie Jean (Michael Jackson), Let’s Dance (David Bowie), True (Spandau Ballet), Every Breath You Take (The Police) and Uptown Girl (Billy Joel). There was a sixth, Only You by the Flying Pickets which reached number 1 after NOW!’s release.

    It’s easy to speculate on why these would be excluded over say two UB40 tracks, but these were all successful and more importantly POWERFUL artists (with the exception of Spandau Ballet) who didn’t need, and probably didn’t WANT to appear on a compilation album. Jackson and Sting would only ever appear on one NOW! album each, whilst Spandau Ballet and Billy Joel would never appear. Being as their respective record companies were happy to license other artists to appear (for instance Jackson’s Epic Records was also home to KC and the Sunshine Band) you have to assume it was the artist, or more likely his representatives, choosing not to appear.

    Bowie is an odd one. He was signed to EMI, so contractually there was probably no reason why Let’s Dance couldn’t appear. It was a huge hit, so surely NOW! would have wanted it to be included. The fact that Bowie tracks would appear regularly throughout the 80s further adds to the mystery.

    If all this seems unnecessarily trivial, well, you’ve got NOW! to blame for that, thanks to their decision to include a snippet of trivia about each track on the inside of the sleeve. Open up that sumptuous gatefold (along with b-side, another phrase at least two generations will never use) and you’ll find a wealth of pop facts like Mike Oldfield’s Moonlight Shadow reached number 4 on June 29th and stayed there for 3 weeks. Or that Duran Duran’s Is There Something I Should Know was only available on this album (and this single version would remain so until the release of Decade, in 1989). Or best of all that Victims by Culture Club was “Almost certain to be No.1 by the time you have this LP” (would you settle for number 3?). Alongside these nuggets would be the name of the album the song came from, just to try and get a few more pennies out of the kids.

    Culture+Club
    Culture Club: the record company were even more disappointed than they are

    How this inclusion came about, I’m not sure, but somewhere between NOW! and NOW 2, a change came about and a handy compilation of the biggest tracks of the year added the opportunity for EMI and Virgin to start plugging artists that maybe needed a little extra push. The seeds are here with the inclusion of Waterfront by Simple Minds. The little blurb is notable for its brevity “Released from forthcoming LP & cassette” (sic). No mention of chart placing, no mention of an album title… nothing. And this wasn’t included in the anticipation of it being a hit as they had done with Victims. At this point Simple Minds had had only two top 20 hits, and were knocking on the door of success, but by no means breaking it down. Was the inclusion of Waterfront in such distinguished company an attempt to get some of the success sparkle of Culture Club, Duran Duran and Kajagoogoo to float their way?

    Kajagoogoo are an interesting bunch, even more so in their relation to NOW! Famous these days for one song, and one song only, Too Shy (here as Side 2, Track 3), just as they seemed destined for greatness, lead singer Limahl jumped ship and enjoyed a brief spurt of success on his own, whilst the Kaja’s themselves bravely carried on in the face of public indifference, before finally the public decided they didn’t really like either the group or Limahl and his stupid Crufts-winning haircut.

    On NOW!, the collective of Kajagoogoo make up 3 tracks! That’s 10% of the album! (This kind of dominance would not be seen again until the various Spice Girls ruled the world, fleetingly, at the turn of the millennium. ) So, alongside Too Shy, there’s Limahl’s first solo effort, the long-forgotten Only For Love, which reached the dizzy heights of number 16 (but in fairness was climbing the charts well at the time of NOW!’s release; this was back in the day when records took time to find an audience and could take weeks to reach their highest chart position) as well as the post-Limahl Kajagoogoo’s first release, the rather bland Big Apple, which would trump Limahl by at least going top 10 (the dumper would beckon soon afterwards).

    limahl
    Limahl: Best of Breed Winner 1983

    Multiple appearances by artists on a NOW! are not unknown, but are still relatively rare. NOW! would feature 4 multiple appearances: the aforementioned Kajagoogoo/Limahl, as well as Phil Collins (solo and with Genesis), Culture Club and UB40. In future cases, multiples would generally occur when an artist has two massive hits in separate guises (usually as a solo artist, and another with a group or a duet), so the double bubbles here of UB40 and Culture Club are very unusual, and would suggest either last-minute filler (possibly for the number one’s listed above that they couldn’t get) or bigger attempts to plug the artists’ albums.

    So, a legend is born. NOW! would end up as the 7th biggest selling album of the year. Not bad considering it was only released 7 weeks before the years’ end. And 1984 would bring bigger and better things, as well as the first sighting of the coolest even-toed ungulate you’ve ever seen

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC

    Release date

    28th November 1983

    Biggest tracks

    Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonnie Tyler

    Karma Chameleon – Culture Club

    Forgotten tracks

    Only For Love – Limahl

    Kissing with Confidence – Will Powers

    What’s missing

    Let’s Dance – David Bowie

    True – Spandau Ballet

    Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) – Eurythmics

    Blue Monday – New Order

    Track listing

    Side One
    You Can’t Hurry Love Phil Collins
    Is There Something I Should Know Duran Duran
    Red Red Wine UB40
    Only For Love Limahl
    Temptation Heaven 17
    Give It Up KC And The Sunshine Band
    Double Dutch Malcolm McLaren
    Total Eclipse Of The Heart Bonnie Tyler
    Side Two
    Karma Chameleon Culture Club
    The Safety Dance Men Without Hats
    Too Shy Kajagoogoo
    Moonlight Shadow Mike Oldfield
    Down Under Men At Work
    (Hey You) The Rock Steady Crew Rock Steady Crew
    Baby Jane Rod Stewart
    Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) Paul Young
    Side Three
    Candy Girl New Edition
    Big Apple Kajagoogoo
    Let’s Stay Together Tina Turner
    (Keep Feeling) Fascination The Human League
    New Song Howard Jones
    Please Don’t Make Me Cry UB40
    Tonight, I Celebrate My Love Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack
    Side Four
    They Don’t Know Tracey Ullman
    Kissing With Confidence Will Powers
    That’s All Genesis
    The Lovecats The Cure
    Waterfront Simple Minds
    The Sun And The Rain Madness
    Victims Culture Club


    Video edition

    The video version released at the same time contained 21 tracks, including 3 which didn’t feature on the actual album: IOU by Freeez, Never Never by The Assembly and Hold Me Now by The Thompson Twins, which did appear on Now 2.

    Now 1 video

    Phil Collins  – You Can’t Hurry Love
    Duran Duran – Is There Something I Should Know
    UB40 – Red Red Wine
    Limahl – Only for Love
    Heaven 17 – Temptation
    Malcolm McLaren – Double Dutch
    Culture Club – Karma Chameleon
    Men Without Hats – The Safety Dance
    Kajagoogoo – Too Shy
    Mike Oldfield – Moonlight Shadow
    Rock Steady Crew – (Hey You) The Rock Steady Crew
    Tina Turner – Let’s Stay Together
    Freeez – I.O.U.
    Howard Jones – New Song
    UB40 – Please Don’t Make Me Cry
    Will Powers – Kissing with Confidence
    Genesis – That’s All
    Kajagoogoo – Big Apple
    The Assembly  – Never Never
    Thompson Twins – Hold Me Now
    Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack – Tonight I Celebrate My Love