Now That's What I Call A Music Blog

Tag: Simple Minds

  • NOW 15 – Cruel Summer

    NOW 15 – Cruel Summer

    Now_15For the second year in a row, NOW’s summer release would take the season as the inspiration for its cover. Sadly the content is about as anti-summer as it’s possible to get. When I think of summer pop I think of breezy, twangly guitar tunes, repetitive dance beats and swoony ballads. What NOW 15 gives you (at least to start off with) is one of Queen’s worst singles ever and an unlistenable Simple Minds track. In terms of opening moves, NOW 15 stumbles out of the traps like a three legged daschund at a greyhound race. I Want It All stands very far away from I Want To Break Free, whilst Kick It In is at least better than Belfast Child (and suggests The Minds were a year or two ahead of U2 in the obtuse, angular re-invention stakes) but it’s just not very well executed. I vividly remember Danny Wilson guest reviewing the singles in Smash Hits, and saying they would have taken the record back to shops thinking it was scratched. Their single of the week was the theme to the Batman TV series which had been re-released in the wake of Tim Burton’s Batman movie. That’s nice.

    Pop salvation arrives in the form of the majestic Good Thing by the Fine Young Cannibals. Its 60s vibe (a nostalgic theme runs through many tracks on NOW 15, oddly) was the result of its original appearance being in the underrated film Tin Men, which was set in the Mad Men era Baltimore. It works brilliantly in the song’s favour, as it’s now impossible to date, and is still wonderful.

    Almost as underrated as Tin men is Holly Johnson’s solo career. Eschewing Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s raw sex and aggression, his solo debut Blast! is a wonderful pop record, producing the huge hits Love Train and Americanos, which appears here. A supposedly jolly tune, again evoking nostalgia for 50s/60s apple pie America, it is also covered in barely concealed cynicism (“everything’s organised, from crime to leee-zure time”) hidden underneath a killer tune and a chorus which introduced a generation of kids to the joys of Oreos. Transvision Vamp’s Baby, I Don’t Care and INXS’ Mystify are solid, as is Roxette’s The Look, even if it fails to suggest just how big a deal they would become (at least everywhere else in the world; the UK tended to keep them at arm’s length, only allowing It Must have Been Love to break ranks and become a huge hit).

    We next get two very odd selections from a couple of dinosaurs, Stevie Nicks and ‘Thumbs Aloft’ Macca.  I’d forgotten how odd Rooms on Fire was, or that it was that big a hit. Yes, Fleetwood Mac had been, maybe surprisingly, successful in the late 80s with the album Tango In The Night, but was Nicks really that big a draw to the kids? It only reached number 16 but was a radio mainstay for months, probably saying more about Radio 1 DJs at the time, than what the listeners actually wanted, and remains Nicks’ only significant solo release.

    ...sigh...
    *…sigh…*

    Paul  McCartney ceased to be significant as a solo artist around the time of The Frog Chorus, so it was a surprise to see him kicking off side two of NOW 15 not once, but twice! My Brave Face is the first, co-written by Elvis Costello of all people, it appears to be some kind of dirge about the perils of fame (oh woe is me and my millions). It’s not really important, as the man who made more money than God just for fluking a song writing goldmine with Yesterday still continues to churn out this guff on an annual basis, whilst his contemporaries like Bob Dylan, Ray Davies and even, to an extent, The Rolling Stones, continue to evolve and create new, interesting music. McCartney’s guff cloud hangs over Ferry Cross The Mersey. Joining Holly Johnson (also making a second appearance), The Christians and original ferry passenger Gerry Marsden, this charity release was recorded in aid of the families of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster which had happened earlier in the year, and was produced by the now ubiquitous Stock, Aitken and Waterman. The far more fitting, in my opinion, You’ll Never Walk Alone, had been appropriated for the charity single for the victims of the Bradford City fire in 1985 (and also featured Marsden and McCartney), and this should also not be confused with the dreadfully named Ferry Aid single, a cover of The Beatles’ Let It Be, from 1987, in aid of the Zeebrugge ferry tragedy (also featuring Macca; for Christ’s sake, he gets about). Thankfully they resisted the urge to come up with some awful punning band name this time. Johnson has already covered this track once before, on Frankie’s debut album, and it’s a far better, and emotional, reading than this, a typically empty SAW production, with uninspiring vocal performances, topped by Macca screaming his head off towards the end and trying to pretend the song was his all along.

    The Beautiful South make their NOW debut next, with the wonderfully sardonic Song For Whoever, a song which confuses a lot of people, not least Philip Schofield, who in his capacity as presenter of the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party in 1989, picked it as his choice for worst single of the year. The idiot. Kirsty McColl’s lovely version of The Kinks’ Days is next, and an attempt to create a real summer feel is carried on with Danny Wilson’s Second Summer of Love. Their only non-Mary’s Prayer top 40 hit, and probably not very well known, it’s actually pretty good; a nice-foot-tapping number having a pop at the acid/ecstasy/rave generation then clogging up the motorways and charts at the time. It’s like an upbeat Mumford and Sons, so should be a due a revival by the Dalston hipsters soon. But only ironically, of course.

    "Yeah, I was like into Danny Wilson years ago, like, when the First Summer of Love came out"
    “Yeah, I was like into Danny Wilson years ago, like, when the First Summer of Love came out”

    Next comes the big forgotten track on NOW 15, at least by me, but sadly not an undiscovered gem: Cry by Waterfront. This is a truly odd piece which seems to have a slightly dodgy undercurrent. Any song which features like about “I know that you are not a child” and “your Daddy would kill for you” just conjures up images of a teenage girl being seduced by a (much) older man, who gets his jollies then dumps her because “of course, we’ve done nothing wrong but THEY won’t understand that”. The addition of a sleazy, Walk on the Wild Side riffing saxophone just adds to the sleaze. Uncomfortable. These guys were EMI’s big hope for ’89 and Cry was a big hit in the USA, hitting the top 10 (slightly worse in the UK where it only reached number 17) but they never followed it up and didn’t trouble the charts again.

    Side two then proceeds to fade into dreary obscurity with hue and Cry’s pleasant but unremarkable Violently and Cliff Richards’ The Best Of Me, a dreadful dirge of a ballad which managed to snag a number two spot thanks to a huge marketing campaign (and massive radio support) due to it being Cliff’s 100th single. Thanks to Jason Donovan’s Sealed With A Kiss, it still didn’t get to number one though, HAH!

    Sides three and four are dominated by dance tracks, and a few oddities that wouldn’t fit on the first half, reflecting the charts shifting away from pop to dance, both mainstream and underground varieties. We get the only absolute classic track on the whole compilation with Soul II Soul’s Back To Life, a song which seems to just get better and better with every passing year (back in ’89, I much preferred Keep On Moving or Get A Life). Neneh Cherry’s Manchild still sounds great too, and was a perfect follow-up to Buffalo Stance. Equally confident as it’s predecessor and infused with John Barry-esque strings, I’ve no idea what it’s about but it still sounds brilliant. The video features her young son, who was still, famously, unborn, when she appeared on Top of the Pops for Buffalo Stance.

    Neneh Cherry might be having another baby in this photo, I'm not sure
    Neneh Cherry might be having another baby in this photo, I’m not sure

    So with things picking up, it’s inevitable that the quality will dip, and it does quite spectacularly. Former New Edition singer (who had appeared way back on NOW 1) Bobby Brown’s Every Little Step sounds like a discarded B-side hastily promoted to single status in the wake of his enormous, and rapid, success. Unbelievable as it may sound now, Mr Brown was the most successful chart act of 1989, and managed just two weeks of the whole year not to feature in the top 40, and amazing feat, especially when you consider not one of his singles got to number one. Every Little Step is pretty poor compared to earlier hit My Prerogative (or even Don’t Be Cruel) and only features one verse and chorus, repeated throughout. That’s just lazy.

    Do You Love What You Feel is the least remembered of Inner City’s four top 20 hits, and with good reason: it’s desperately dull. Is this really the same act that recorded Good Life? Equally forgettable is D-Mob’s irritating It’s Time To Get Funky, a piece of toy town-rap crap that has the nerve to criticise rave culture, after D-Mob made a mint of off We Call It Acieed months before. Somehow this also went down a storm with the same kids who had made the previous single such a hit. At the same time Public Enemy couldn’t buy a top 30 hit. A massive club hit in its day, but horribly dated now, Donna Allen’s Joy and Pain only stuck in my mind because it seemed to be on the Chart Show’s Dance Chart for about two years before it reached the top 10. It’s got that summer ’87 sound down to a tee, so maybe it was that old; cheap production, but with a big chorus that no doubt helped it become a hit, because the rest of it is massively forgettable and generic.

    Being generic is not something you could accuse of Gladys Knight, but her long overdue promotion to the ranks of Bond theme chanteuse is just that. It’s not that Licence To Kill is a bad Bond theme (there are plenty worse) it’s just bland and, like a-ha before her, it’s totally infused with the sound of its time. The whole thing is based around the trumpet sting from Goldfinger, so, like many of the worst Bond themes, it sounds like a Bond parody. Add to that the horrible twinkly synth noise all US dance music had at the time, and it becomes impossible to love. Knight’s vocal performance is great though. Equally good vocals come from Natalie Cole on I Miss You Like Crazy. Sadly that song is also horribly bland.

    An old, and horribly dated, Viz Crap Joke
    An old, and horribly dated, Viz Crap Joke

    With NOW 15 threatening to stumble into dullsville, it’s left to side four to salvage some dignity, which thankfully it does, with some style, despite it featuring Jive Bunny. The Pet Shop Boys’ It’s Alright may be their least played track, but it’s great. A cover of Sterling Void’s club hit, it failed to match the success of many of their earlier hits, as did other releases from the album Introspective, despite them being among their best work. Then there’s Jive Bunny. Now regarded as a bit of a joke and providing endless material for low rent comics and nostalgia clip shows, were they really that bad? What exactly is so wrong about a couple of producers talking loads of old songs and stringing them together under a dance beat to make a simple four minute party song? And then doing it again? And again? It’s essentially harmless, if not exactly an example of high art. I think people’s opinion of Jive Bunny is just based around the fact they were SO successful and SO omnipotent that summer (and on to Christmas 89) on the radio, that you couldn’t escape it. But people were buying the records! At the time Jive Bunny became only the third act in history (after Gerry and the Pacemakers and Frankie Goes to Hollywood) to have their first three singles go to number one. Even The Beatles didn’t do that. Now, of course, any act with a decent marketing budget can do it, and most do. But back in the 80s that was a big deal. Swing the Mood (based around Glenn Miller’s In The Mood… geddit?) is listenable to a point and at a party would probably still make a few grannies get up for a shuffle. Is it any worse than say, Coldcut’s Beats and Pieces? At least you can sing along to Swing the Mood. We-we-well-well…

    Be afraid. Be very afraid.
    Be afraid. Be very afraid.

    More oldie time fun is supplied by a returning Swing Out Sister, channelling Burt Bacharach on the grin-inducing You On My Mind, one of the few songs here that actually takes me back to the summer of ’89. There’s a lovely feelgood feeling to this that once again makes you wonder why they were never able to have sustained success. Bananarama managed to sustain for a good few years, but the tide was starting to turn on them by 1989. What better way to commemorate the sun going down on your career than by re-recording a song about how crap the summer is. Cruel Summer ’89 would be their last top 20 single, sadly, and it’s a sad epitaph to their career. One of their best early songs, it was re-recorded with new member Jacqui, and slathered with SAW production, limping its way to number 19. If you like the original steer clear of this; it’s bloody awful.

    The rest of NOW 15 is thankfully much better, and contains the best tracks on the whole album, a rarity when side four is so often the dumping ground. De La Soul’s anti-drug anthem Say No Go may not have won them any fans from the hardcore rap community, but they were a real breath of fresh air for the slightly awkward kids who were never taken seriously when they said they liked Public Enemy (yes, I’m talking about me). I mean, who samples Hall and Oates and hopes to retain their credibility? These guys didn’t give a stuff. Real innovators and the songs are still charming, witty and damn good to dance to. Fatboy Slim was still using his real name, Norman Cook, when he released Blame It On The Bassline (a double A-side backed by his version of Billy Bragg’s Won’t Talk About It) with vocals provided by the ludicrously named MC Wildski. The track would later appear on Cook’s Beats International album, Let Them Eat Bingo, along with the smash Dub Be Good To Me, but the version on NOW 15 fades out about 45 seconds early. Another cracking, fun, rap tune with heavy sampling (mainly from the Jackson 5, you wouldn’t get away with that nowadays without the lawyers coming a knocking) it’s refreshing to hear two fun rap tracks back to back. So how about three? Luckily Rebel MC is just crazy enough to pull it off. Introduced to the world by producers Double Trouble, Just Keep Rockin’ is another sample-heavy dance track, with fun running through it like a stick of rock. I don’t think rap was ever this much fun again, so I really love this snapshot of when it wasn’t all about beating 5-0, girls and bling. If I was as rich as some of these rappers I’d be going on about fun stuff, like buying a kitten or building a funfair in my back yard, rather than how hard life is in the ghetto that I wouldn’t been seen dead in now I’m rich and famous.

    A grumpy rapper. Probably MC Scat Kat.
    A grumpy rapper. Probably MC Skat Kat.

    I’m sure Robert Smith has a funfair in his back garden, but he has to wear a hair net just in case he gets his barnet caught in the workings of the waltzers. Quite why the NOW compilers decided to place The Cure directly after all that jollity, and closing the album to boot, I’m not entirely sure. Lullaby remains one of my favourite Cure tracks and can probably still give kids the willies (I will test this theory once my own are old enough to experiment on) but to finish off a summer compilation? Maybe it’s the grit in the oyster that NOW 15 needs, but that would suggest that NOW 15 is an oyster. It’s more of a limpet. Even “The Kid” seems to be struggling to drum up enthusiasm for this one.

    Oddly filled with nostalgic tracks and sugary blandness, when it pops it’s superb, but it’s not exactly memorable. This may explain why, in my teenage years, it was the album that signalled my defection (briefly) to the Hits series, and the far better Hits 10. Two albums in and 1989 is shaping up to be NOW’s most disappointing year so far. There’s nothing new on offer here at all, it’s just regurgitating what’s gone before. It sounds ridiculous but the refreshing track here is Kick It In. It’s completely unlistenable, but at least it’s different.

    There are three number ones on NOW 15, but I bet most readers would be hard pressed to remember which tracks they are, that’s how forgettable most of this is. Side four rescues it from being a complete dead loss, but things need shaking up. Would NOW 16 provide that? If it was going to, it would have to do it the hard way, as NOW 16 was to become the only album in the series to contain not one single, solitary number one hit…

     

     

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 15

    Release date

    14th August 1989

    Biggest tracks

    Back To Life – Soul II Soul

    Good Thing – Fine Young Cannibals

    Lost gems

    You On My Mind – Swing Out Sister

    Blame It On The Bassline – Norman Cook ft MC Wildski

    Forgotten tracks

    Kick It In – Simple Minds

    It’s Alright – Pet Shop Boys

    Just Keep Rockin’ – Double Trouble ft Rebel MC

    What’s missing?

    The continued absence of Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue is telling. Both signed to PWL, maybe Pete Waterman didn’t want NOW appearances to take away from their own album sales?

    Another PWL absentee was the one hit wonder that was I’d Rather Jack by The Reynolds Girls. Maybe NOW didn’t want to include a song which criticised the kind of artists who still constituted a large proportion of their roll call.

    Track listing

    Side one
    I Want It All Queen
    Kick It In Simple Minds
    Good Thing Fine Young Cannibals
    Americanos Holly Johnson
    Baby I Don’t Care Transvision Vamp
    Mystify INXS
    The Look Roxette
    Rooms On Fire Stevie Nicks
    Side two
    My Brave Face Paul McCartney
    Ferry Cross The Mersey Gerry Marsden/Paul McCartney/
    Holly Johnson/The Christians
    Song For Whoever The Beautiful South
    Days Kirsty MacColl
    The Second Summer Of Love Danny Wilson
    Cry Waterfront
    Violently (7″ Version) Hue And Cry
    The Best Of Me Cliff Richard
    Side three
    Back To Life (However Do You Want Me) Soul II Soul Featuring Caron Wheeler
    Manchild Neneh Cherry
    Every Little Step Bobby Brown
    Do You Love What You Feel (Duane Bradley Remix) Inner City
    It’s Time To Get Funky D-Mob & LRS
    Joy And Pain Donna Allen
    Licence To Kill Gladys Knight
    Miss You Like Crazy Natalie Cole
    Side four
    It’s Alright Pet Shop Boys
    Swing The Mood (Medley) Jive Bunny & The Master Mixers
    You On My Mind Swing Out Sister
    Cruel Summer ’89 Bananarama
    Say No Go De La Soul
    Blame It On The Bassline Norman Cook & MC Wildski
    Just Keep Rockin’ Double Trouble & The Rebel MC
    Lullaby The Cure

     

  • NOW 14 – On and off and on again

    NOW 14 – On and off and on again

    Now_141989 was a year of major upheaval for NOW. They’d been turfed out of the official album charts into the compilation top 20, a chart no one ever saw, referenced or cared about. It looked like they’d seen off their biggest rival, the Hits Album series, whose disastrous rebrand around Christmas 1988 had seen sales plummet, whilst NOW’s corresponding NOW 13 had gone on to be one of the biggest selling albums of the year. (Hits would not die quickly however, but a series of rebrands, reboots and revisions would mean it was never a serious competitor again.)

    Although they probably never noticed, or cared, NOWs 12 and 13 had been pretty dreadful, at least looked at from a distance of 25 years as I’m smugly doing now. Honestly, could these people not see that two and a half decades later their obsession with Jellybean and Johnny Hates Jazz was going to look ridiculous? This is why I should be running a major record label, rather than being all picky and sarcastic about them from the comfort of my computer.

    NOW 14 feels much fresher, more exciting, than the turgid NOW 13. Ballads are few and far between, and a couple of tracks qualify as outright classics. There are also a couple of huge hits that have certain “huh?” factor about them. Cover versions abound again, but at least this time they are interesting and, more importantly, good. This may also be the first NOW album to feature a shockingly blatant piece of product placement. I was never entirely sure what was going on with that cover though. Any ideas?

    As usual, the opening to a NOW album is pretty good. Marc Almond’s brilliantly overblown cover of Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart (duetting with Gene Pitney, who despite rumours to the contrary was NOT the original artists to record it; that honour falls to David and Jonathan (?)) was perhaps a surprise hit, but history tells us it was an appearance on Terry Wogan’s chat show what won it, and sent hordes of baby boomers to Our Price to buy it. When you think of the crap that Wogan has plugged on his Radio 2 show over the years and turned into hits this kind of lets him off the hook. The nostalgia continues with Phil Collins’ Two Hearts, the second track to be released from the Buster soundtrack, a film where he gave a reasonable performance as an actor portraying a vicious East End gangster with a heart of gold (and probably loved his dear old mum). Two Hearts was an even bigger hit than its predecessor, A Groovy Kind Of Love. Well, it was everywhere except in the UK. Although an original composition, it shamelessly riffs on 60s Motown, sounding exactly like his earlier cover of You Can’t Hurry Love, a fact acknowledged in the video for this, where he again plays every member of a band. It’s a pop song you dearly want to hate but can’t. Unlike Erasure’s Stop! Which is a fantastic pop song which, had it not been released at Christmas, would have easily been a huge number one.

    Surprisingly not a number one was Bananarama’s Help! The band never had a number one in the UK, not even with this charity record at a time when anything charity related would be top of the charts in pre-orders alone. Backed by French and Saunders (and Kathy Burke) as Lananeeneenoonoo, a good natured pastiche of the band they’d performed on their TV show, Help! Is a reasonably shoddy treatment of a great song, with humour that doesn’t translate without the video, and even then it’s not particularly funny.

    Consider my ribs thoroughly untickled

    Hue and Cry’s Looking for Linda is much better, a nice surprise given it’s a song (I think) about an alcoholic woman fleeing an abusive relationship. Yeah, go pop! It does signal the inevitable drift towards the centre of the record, which continues with Yazz’s lovely, dreamy Fine Time. Her last top ten single, it’s very far removed from the Hi-NRG dance of her earlier hits, and it shows there was more to her than smiling and punching the air. Sadly, the public wanted her smiling and punching the air. Kim Wilde’s late 80s comeback continues with the anonymous Four Letter Word, before the side ends with the still amazing Stop from Sam Brown. The first time two different songs with the same title have appeared on the same NOW album, fact fans.

    Side two is again an attempt to collect together rock tunes, so of course it starts with Roy Orbison. You Got It is still pretty good, though to be fair, The Big O could sing Crazy Frog and make it sound great. Fine Young Cannibals returned in style with She Drives Me Crazy, a song that has now, very rightly, achieved legendary status, and another song on NOW 14 that you won’t believe didn’t get to number one. Like INXS’ Need You Tonight, which the foolish British record buying public needed TWO attempts to get it into the charts; it had originally stalled on number 58 when released in 1987. In one of the sloppiest errors on a NOW album ever, the end of the song (“You’re one of my kind”) is rather ignobly chopped off chopped off and the anticipation of the payoff is replaced by the introduction of Status Quo’s horrible Burning Bridges (On and Off and On Again). I’ll never understand why this track was such a big hit, but it’s becoming clear to me that the 80s record buyer would buy any old crap with a dreary, repetitive chorus that sounded like something from the terraces at Stamford Bridge. Interestingly, the song would gain a second life, in 1994, as a football chant, when the famously Spurs-supporting band took a big sack of Old Trafford cash to re-record the song with different lyrics for Manchester United, scoring a number one in the process. Unforgiveable.

    Status Quo

    I never thought I’d say it, but thank God for Then Jericho. Big Area was one of only two top twenty hits the band had (The Motive (Living Without You) being the other), and frankly, they should have been massive, managing to combine hard rock, pop and stadium sized tracks to surprisingly good effect, the best bits of Big Country, U2, Simple Minds and countless other bands they often get confused with (Cutting Crew, The Alarm). They had an added touch of glamorous sex appeal from lead man Mark Shaw, whose ego got the better of him (hey, sleeping with Belinda Carlisle will do that to the best of men) and he left the band in the lurch for a (no doubt) hefty solo contract with EMI. Where for art they now? The Butlins nostalgia tour and Shaw sometimes performs in an 80s ‘supergroup’ that includes Tony Hadley, Paul Young and Fish!

    (As a side note, while preparing this review I happened to catch a dreadful piece of TV about talent shows, which featured clips from Reborn in the USA, a show where 80s pop stars were sent on a tour of the States to try and revive their careers. Mark Shaw was one of the participants and was, undeniably, an arse. It seemed his only ally was one Tony Hadley, so maybe their supergroup fortunes were forged on that fateful and, for Shaw at least, truncated road trip.)

    Morrissey’s Last Of The International Playboys seems thoroughly out of place in this testosterone-fuelled, denim-clad company (though I’m sure many would argue he could challenge Mark Shaw in a “being an arse” competition). It’s a song I loved as a kid but now sounds very Second Division in Moz’s discography. Poison were always a bit Second Division in everything, and Every Rose Has It’s Thorn is an utterly dire attempt at a rock/country knock off of Guns n’ Roses.

    The first half of NOW 14 closes with possibly the most forgotten number one in the series so far. Even telling you it was Simple Minds’ only number one will not nudge your brain any. Belfast Child is, frankly, odd. This song has no business being a single, let alone a chart-topper. It’s trite, depressing, mawkish, of questionable judgement and, for the first half, almost listenable. I just don’t get it; maybe someone who bought it can enlighten me.

    Thankfully, side three brings back some fun to proceedings, providing our dance tunes for this episode. Neneh Cherry’s Buffalo Stance is still great, and Inner City’s Good Life sounds a lot better to my ears now than it did back in the day. I wasn’t a huge hit in 1989, but it’s aged well and still sounds surprisingly contemporary. Sadly, I can’t say the same for S-Express’ Hey Music Lover which is still good fun, but is let down by cheap 80s production far removed from the slickness of Theme from S-Express or even Superfly Guy (which failed to appear on a NOW album, sadly). Quite what Living In A Box are doing mixed up on this side is anyone’s guess, but here they are. Blow The House Down is a good, efficient, pop-dance track but is instantly forgotten long before it finishes. Thankfully this would be the last appearance for the Paul Weller imposter, as The Style Council sign off with their farewell single, Promised Land. No, I didn’t remember it either.

    Two brilliant, and very different, songs follow. Adeva’s stunning cover of Respect is up first, and it is bound to polarise opinion. Made famous (but not originally recorded) by Aretha Franklin, I must confess I hated this back then, really despising it. I now feel I was too hasty. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s cover versions which just replicate the original song. Adeva’s version of Respect is as different from Aretha’s version, as Aretha’s version is different from Otis Redding’s version. It certainly doesn’t replicate anything, though I’m not sure exactly what it does do, but it’s one of the most radical cover versions I’ve heard for a good long while. As brave as Scissor Sister’s version of Comfortably Numb, but without the camp theatrical winks, this is an artist saying “I’ve got the balls to take this classic track, and do it MY way, and screw you all!” It’s got a bit of a strange time signature and no melody, Adeva changes the lyrics, scats over parts of it… Bar the late 80s tinny drums this would be considered a classic. I love it.

    I also love Tone Loc’s Wild Thing. Not a big hit in the UK (it only reached number 21) it still kills with its drumbeat and sparse guitar stab melody (mostly stolen from Van Halen’s Jamie’s Cryin’), it also manages a nice line in self-depreciation: in two verses, Mr Loc fails to do the wild thing. The song feels like a humorous jibe at some of his contemporaries’ obsession with sex, but probably ended up becoming a template rather than a warning.

    Some wild things, yesterday

    Side three finishes rather oddly with Natalie Cole’s dreadful, turgid I Live For Your Love, which I hadn’t heard since I bought this album 24 years ago. It features a rather strained vocal performance from the talented Ms Cole, and is nothing to write home about. On the CD version of NOW 14, I Live For Your Love provides the stepping stone from the dance tracks into the balladry to follow, another indicator of the programming more for CDs than just the album and cassette versions.

    The biggest track on NOW 14 is not very well remembered now, but in 1989 Robin Beck’s The First Time was huge (or at least it was when it came out in late 1988). You may be struggling to remember it now, so why not have a sit down and pour yourself a brand-leading cola beverage and have a think. NOW 14 even provides you with a handy little advert next to Ms Beck’s mugshot for said fizzy, brown, tooth-rotting liquid. Having been played in Coke ads relentlessly for six months prior to release (and it seemed for months afterwards too!), I’m not sure it was necessary for NOW to include the product logo in the inner sleeve to remind listeners where it was from, but then it’s more likely it was Coke’s decision rather than NOW’s: “You want one of the biggest, most globally recognised songs of the year? Fine, but stick this half inch ad in your sleeve or no dice” was probably the conversation had between two fat men in pinstripe suits smoking cigars. It doesn’t matter whether The First Time is any good or not, but for the record it’s not. The fact that Ms Beck would never have another single (or even release an album in the UK) leads me to suspect she may have had a sex change and become a global superstar all over again, as Beck, though that may be a lie.

    Robin Beck

    Another track impossible not to include was Paula Abdul’s Straight Up. Now best known as a Simon Cowell hand puppet, Abdul had been THE go to choreography for the great and the good in the 80s (including Whitney and Madge). Straight Up was a surprisingly edgy debut single which still sounds great, and was wildly different to most mainstream pop-dance at the time. It had only just been released at the time of NOW 14’s appearance in the shops, so this was THE hot track on the album, so why it was buried away here god only knows. She never successfully followed through on this though, becoming a less-popular Gloria Estefan (flitting between forgettable pop and dreary ballads; come to think of it, pretty much like Jon Bon Jovi too). There was Opposite Attract, which we’ll come to on a later album, but we all know that MC Scat Cat was the true star of that one.

    Sam Fox’s I Only Want To Be With You is a Stock, Aitken, Waterman-produced abomination which warrants no further coverage here. But it does lead us into the pop-dumping ground of the remainder of side four. The biggest surprise here is, again, Brother Beyond. As with their appearance on NOW 13, I was shocked at how un-dreadful Be My Twin is. It’s teenage pop for sure, but it’s a bit more sophisticated, and shows a lot more pop nous, than the over-produced TV pop the kids get served up nowadays. What I’ve realised about Brother Beyond is, although the guiding hand of SAW hangs over their shoulder (the Hit Factory viewing them as a Bros sized meal ticket), they wrote all their own material. Be My Twin is therefore more reminiscent of, say, The Blow Monkeys than Bananarama, and as a result has aged much better. It’s a shame that they are now considered boy band has-beens as they, on this showing at least, had far more to offer than the Brothers Goss (and Ken). One of the band is now a massively successful writer, working with the likes of Adele, and won an Ivor Novello for Will Young’s Leave Right Now. What’s Matt Goss written recently, apart from his housing benefit application?

    Those perennial writers Climie Fisher return for the last time with the disappointing Love Like A River. It seems odd that the same pens that write Love Changes Everything could also write this, but you can’t win them all. It would appear their star was fading faster than anticipated. Duran Duran’s star had faded more than most, and All She Wants Is would prove to be their last top ten hit for a long while (they would manage just two more over the next two decades). A truly great song that sounded unlike anything else they’d ever done, and, to be honest, anything else tearing up the charts at the time. Looked at with modern ears (if you can look at something with your ears) you could argue it pointed the way to the likes of Curve and Nine Inch Nails, with its crunching guitar and industrial beat. Duran Duran, the forefathers of Industrial? I’m sure they’d rather that title than ‘the band The Killers wish they were’.

    The Duranies appearance on Celebrity Masterchef did not go well

    80s survivors Level 42 are still hanging around with Tracie, a jolly but uninspiring midlife crisis ditty, before we reach the bitter end of NOW 14, Michael Ball’s Love Changes Everything. No relation to Climie Fisher’s epic pop anthem, the title was pilfered by Andrew Lloyd Webber for his latest blockbuster West End show, Aspects of Love. Despite the song being one of his biggest chart hits, the show itself was a huge flop, remembered more for the fact that Sir Roger Moore was meant to be in it, but pulled out at the last minute. All is, of course a massive star (if you like that kind of thing; personally I’d rather do something unpleasant to my private area than ‘take in a show’) and a huge talent, but this song is so dull you can almost hear Ball sighing “really, this is the best you can do, Webber?” at some of the lyrics. He doesn’t sound as if he’s particularly interested in the song at all, or even bothering to make an effort, perhaps a result of having to reign in a big theatrical voice in the confides of a tiny recording booth. It’s a sorry end to NOW 14. Show tunes have no place on pop compilations (but this won’t be the last) and makes you forget the hard work the album had already put in to try and make up for the poor quality of its predecessors.

    NOW 14 to an extent, does redeem the series, but the same nagging doubts remain. What is pop doing? Where is it going?

    Two more NOW’s in 1989 would attempt to answer those questions and neither gets any closer to answering them. Speaking of answers… it’s supposed to be an art gallery

     

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 14

    Release date

    20th March 1989

    Biggest tracks

    The First Time – Robin Beck

    Need You Tonight – INXS

    Somethings Gotten Hold Of My Heart – Marc Almond and Gene Pitney

    Lost gems

    Respect – Adeva

    Be My Twin – Brother Beyond

    Forgotten tracks

    Fine Time – Yazz

    Promised Land – The Style Council

    What’s missing?

    Angel of Harlem –U2

    Especially For You – Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan

    My Prerogative – Bobby Brown

    I Don’t want A Lover – Texas

    Track listing

    Side one
    Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart Marc Almond & Gene Pitney
    Two Hearts Phil Collins
    Stop! Erasure
    Help! Bananarama
    Looking For Linda Hue And Cry
    Fine Time Yazz
    Four Letter Word Kim Wilde
    Stop Sam Brown
    Side two
    You Got It Roy Orbison
    She Drives Me Crazy Fine Young Cannibals
    Need You Tonight INXS
    Burning Bridges (On And Off And On Again) Status Quo
    Big Area Then Jericho
    The Last Of The Famous International Playboys Morrissey
    Every Rose Has Its Thorn Poison
    Belfast Child Simple Minds
    Side three
    Buffalo Stance Neneh Cherry
    Good Life Inner City
    Hey Music Lover S-Express
    Blow The House Down Living In A Box
    Promised Land The Style Council
    Respect Adeva
    Wild Thing Tone Loc
    I Live For Your Love Natalie Cole
    Side four
    First Time Robin Beck
    Straight Up Paula Abdul
    I Only Want To Be With You Samantha Fox
    Be My Twin Brother Beyond
    Love Like A River Climie Fisher
    All She Wants Is Duran Duran
    Tracie Level 42
    Love Changes Everything Michael Ball


     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Now That’s What I Call Music 7 – Let’s make lots of money

    Now That’s What I Call Music 7 – Let’s make lots of money

     

    now 7To talk about NOW 7, you have to have a copy to hand. And I don’t mean a digital copy, or a playlist made from the track listing. You have to have an actual physical copy that you can listen to at your disposal. There are two reasons for this, the second I’ll come onto later, but the first is because of a cheeky decision made in the song selection that would be lost if you only had the track listing to hand rather than actually hearing the album.

    A friend recently told me that as a kid he had NOW 6 on tape, and when side one started with Queen’s One Vision, he was convinced the tape was being mangled in his cassette player. Well, I’m sure a similar problem occurred in teenage bedrooms across the country with NOW 7 following the unusual, but very welcome, decision to include the album version of Sledgehammer as side one, track one. You see, most people think Sledgehammer starts with that killer, loud, saxophone sting, because that’s how they would normally hear it on the radio, on VH1 or on some 80s compilation (a sting, incidentally, borrowed from John Coltrane’s Chronic Blues). But the song actually starts with around 30 seconds of barely audible synthesised shakuhachi flute, which no doubt prompted many to turn up their stereos, thinking there was nothing on their shiny new record, only to find when the sax did kick in they’d probably buggered their speakers and/or jumped back across the room in fright.

    Sledgehammer, somehow, didn’t get to number one, but it’s probably the biggest track here, in terms of longevity. In fact, despite containing four number one’s (one of which, Lady in Red, hadn’t even reached the top when the album went to press) they are among the least well-remembered of the decade. Or in the case of Lady in Red, among the least well-liked. Many of the other tracks here are far more fondly remembered. You have to wonder about a nation which sends Spirit in the Sky to number one rather than Bananarama’s Venus.

    Now 7 picks up where NOW 6 left off and is pretty much a carbon copy; for the most part it’s a solid pop compilation with an acceptable number of duffers and a disappointingly bland final, dance-orientated, side. There’s few outright classics but for the most part it’s impressively solid and would have satisfied the contemporary buyer.

    Things take an early wobble after Sledgehammer, with the ubiquitous appearance from UB40, this time with the particularly dull, even by their standards, Sing Our Own Song. The light was going out on the Brummie boys, and this would be their last original top ten hit, relying for success for the rest of their careers on collections of karaoke cover versions to keep them out of the dole office. I believe they released Labour of Love Volume 62 last year.

    Improvement comes next with Sly Fox’s Let’s Go All The Way. An odd combination of a former Parliament-Funkadelic member (Gary ‘Mud bone’ (eeew!) Cooper) and a Puerto Rican vocalist (Michael Camacho), brought together by a British producer to basically create a prototype boy band, with only two members. The idea of two coke-head New Yorkers singing songs about ‘going all the way’ to wet-knickered teenage girls should have been a licence to print money, but after the success of the first single they never again recaptured the brilliant cross-over potential that made this such a hit. It’s one of those songs that you’ll remember if you were there at the time, but looked at now it has all the hallmarks of an 80s cash-in. Which of course it was, and that’s why it was a hit, it sounds like everything else successful at the time, but all in one song.

    Things continue to get better with Level 42 (a sentence I never saw myself writing when I was in my youth) and The Pet Shop Boys wonderful soundtrack to a million 80s documentary montages, Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money). This was their first NOW appearance, but they would become reliable regulars for the next decade and a half. Pete Wiley’s Sinful! is a welcome addition to what is traditionally the pure pop side of a NOW album. His first single without the Mighty Wah, it’s no Story of the Blues, but it’s still a bit of a corker despite the horribly dated 80s production. he’s also got one of those voices I love: not flash, no messing about, just a bloke bellowing from the bottom of his very soul.

    Then before we get to the odd but enjoyable Paranoimia (Art of Noise featuring Max Headroom!), there’s a problem, by the name of Stan Ridgeway. Well, I say he’s the problem, that may not be entirely fair, as he sounds like a genuinely talented and interesting guy. He’s worked with people like Stewart Copeland, Roger McGuinn, and even Frank Black, so he can’t be all bad. But, he sadly also wrote and recorded Camouflage. And it’s bloody awful. I hated it when I was kid (just as nobody’s Dad did) and I hate it even more in adulthood. I never understood (and still don’t) the 80s obsession with all things ‘Nam. There were the endless films, the songs (19, I Wanna be Your Drill Instructor), even a bloody magazine, Nam!, which built weekly into your own personal journal of the ‘Nam experience.  It was inescapable. It’s been suggested that some people didn’t take kindly to Paul Hardcastle cut-and-pasting genuine Vietnam veteran interviews into a trendy dance track for 19, but to fair, for a lot of kids it was the first they’d ever heard about Vietnam (bar the introduction to The A Team, obviously) and they may have learnt more from it than any history lesson on the subject. But somehow, Camouflage gets away scot-free, and I’m not sure why.

    Camouflage is the tale of a ghost (or zombie) soldier rescuing another who has been mortally wounded in battle in Vietnam. Chuck in a few racial references as well, and you’ve got yourself an honest to goodness flag-waving, patriotic winner. OK, so big hit in the States, I can accept, despite what my overturning stomach says, but top 5 in the UK? That’s just a bit odd.

    Amazingly though, Camouflage isn’t the song I dislike the most on NOW 7. That accolade is reserved for Chris de Burgh, kicking off side two with the thoroughly unlikeable, and downright creepy, Lady in Red. “Unbelievably,” goes the blurb “this is Chris de Burgh’s first top 40 single”. Why was it unbelievable? He writes insipid, dull and creepy songs which no one likes. People pretend to like them, or buy them for people they think like his music. No one buys Chris de Burgh for themselves. The same goes for all those tedious ballads that hang around the charts like bad smells (Everything I Do, Love is All Around, My heart Will Go On), they are always bought for other people, who no doubt send them to the nearest charity shop when they split up with that person. No one chooses to listen to songs like that… ever.

    chris de burgh
    The public are urged NOT to approach the man if they see him, and to alert their nearest police station immediately

    Anyway, once he’s whispered his last, in one of the most unnerving fade outs in recorded history, side two gets good. Bowie’s Absolute Beginners is one of his all-time best (and another song you can’t believe wasn’t a number one), whilst Invisible Touch and All The Things She Said are listenable enough tracks from bands capable of better. Happy Hour is still brilliant (though The Housemartins best stuff was always less successful) and I amazed myself by enjoying Big Country’s Look Away. I never got Big Country as a young ‘un, but they’re attempt to create a truly unique, Scottish kind of rock is really interesting and it’s easy to see why they were so successful during this period.

    One band who were very far from successful during this period was Furniture, who fill the “token left of centre slightly alternative track” slot. I’ll admit I knew very little about Furniture beyond this song. turns out they were the victim of record company shenanigans, and ultimately bankruptcy, internal differences and general bad luck. Brilliant Mind remains their only hit single (not another single or even an album made the top 75 despite gathering popularity) before they eventually split in 1990. Several members went on to form the more successful Transglobal Underground.

    Call of the Wild closes out side two, one of the most forgettable tracks on any NOW album. Who was that by again?

    The big guns are out for side three, with NOW licensing tracks from three of the Hits album’s stable, Wham, a-ha and Simply Red. Wham in particular was  bit of a coup being as it was Wham’s farewell single (no concurrent Hits album was out at the time to snag the track for itself).To be fair, Edge of Heaven is a bit bland for a much-promoted final single; the previous release, I’m Your Man, is much better, and much better remembered. It’s certainly better remembered than Owen Paul, whose My Favourite Waste of Time may have been a massive top three hit, but it would prove to be his only hit. Apparently he gave up a promising football career (he was on Celtic’s books) after seeing the Sex Pistols, and decided to become a singer. He’s probably best known now for an embarrassing appearance on TV where he (and, to be fair, his band) completely failed to mime along to the track. Things like that can completely damage someone’s career, and so it was for Paul, who was seen performing backing vocals for Mike and the Mechanics.

    Amazulu’s fun cover version Too Good To Be Forgotten still sounds good, and it makes a nice change to hear pop reggae sound by someone black for a change, rather than a nice middle-class boy.

    And then we come to Spirit in the Sky. What is it about this bloody song, that whoever records it, it goes to number one? Three times by three different artists: Norman Greenbaum, Dr and the Medics and Gareth bloody Gates and the bloody Kumars. George Osborne could probably record it and hit the top. It seems the only version which didn’t get to number one was the best one, by Fuzzbox,  which unfortunately was released around the same time as The Medics’ version. It never stood a chance.

    Bananarama’s Venus is just pop genius, I don’t need to add anything about that. a-ha’s remix of Hunting High and Low is infinitely better than the version which appeared on the album of the same name, but it’s still a bit dreary, enlivened somewhat by some over-dramatic production on this single version. They were huge enough at the time to warrant inclusion if they just released a version of the alphabet, but this doesn’t show them in their best light. Holding Back the Years continued Simply Red’s run of hits, but it would be another five years before they had a top ten single with an original hit despite massive album success. I’m not a fan.

    Which leaves one track on side three to discuss, and it’s a doozy. New Beginning by Bucks Fizz does not immediately get the blood pumping. Yes, for a year or two at the start of the decade, they were pop royalty, with a string of fun, pure pop hits, and a couple of number ones along the way. If you only know Making Your Mind Up or Land of Make Believe, you literally will not know what hits you when you hear New Beginning. It’s not perfect, but as one of those songs by a band desperate to change its image it’s right up there with U2’s The Fly or Duran Duran’s Notorious. Reportedly it took months to record, and cost quite a bit too, but the band were determined to try something grown up, as they saw it. It’s got a lush, rich production sound to it, rather than the then-omnipotent 80s synth sounds; whereas everyone seemed to be using drum machines, this sounds like it’s got proper drums on it. And not just one set either, a whole town full of drums. It also uses African influences, of a kind that would become de rigueur after Paul Simon made them commercial. It reached a very respectable number eight, their biggest hit for four years. Sadly, the accompanying album flopped (as did the subsequent singles) and the band fell into a spiral of holiday camps, coach crashes, splits, lawsuits and endorsing diet plans.

    But wait! There is actually one more song to discuss on side three, though you wouldn’t know it from the track listing, which finishes with Simply Red. It’s also the other reason why you have to have a physical copy of NOW 7 lying around to properly review it. Curiously, the front cover of NOW 7, at least in its original release, featured a sticker on the front proclaiming that it contained a bonus track, one A Kind of Magic by Queen. Why they would keep a top three hit, one of the most popular songs of the year so far, as a bonus track is unclear. It features prominently in the TV ad as being on the album, but it is not listed anywhere. Many sources say it was a bonus track on ‘some’ copies of the album, but those same sources list it as being the final track on side three, so what constitutes it being a ‘bonus’? That normally suggests it was only on certain copies, or on a certain format, but it seems to have been on the cassette as well. It’s all a bit baffling, and maybe, dare I say it, suggests a last minute cock-up on someone’s part, that the song was never listed, but was always meant to be there?

    now 7 bonus
    So when is a bonus track NOT a bonus track?

    Anyway, shall we dance?

    When the Going Gets Tough is the oldest track on here, having been released in January (NOW 7 itself came out in August) but was bound to be included as it was number one for four weeks and one of the year’s biggest sellers. Today it’s considered something of an 80s classic despite being horrifically dated, but it’s not for me. I much prefer Get Out of My Dreams, but we’ll have to wait for NOW 11 for that one. Jaki Graham makes her third consecutive appearance, this time with the track she’s probably best known for, Set Me Free. It’s pretty good too, easily the best of her NOW appearances.

    We then to three tracks so of their time, the only people who will have heard of them, let alone like them, would have had to have been avid chart listeners in 1986. Nu Shooz I Can’t Wait somehow managed to get to number two, though I’ve no idea how. It’s the sound of a wine bar distilled through a Roland 808 and onto vinyl. It’s dull, goes on forever and is thoroughly annoying.

    The complete opposite is (Bang Zoom) Let’s Go Go. Now, I’m no scholar of rap music, and I’m sure there are those out there who will dismiss this as chart-friendly pop trash compared to what Run DMC and the like were doing in 1986, but as far as introducing rap to the masses this is near perfect (horrible synth Fred Astaire breakdown accepted). The Real Roxanne was a respected New York hip-hop MC, who was involved in some nonsense over answer records (like all that Fuck You business at the start of the 2000s) which I’ve got no idea about. It’s on the internet if you need to know more.

    I’m sure you don’t want to know more about the incredibly ugly Lovebug Starski who for some reason thought the path to stardom involved recording a rap record based on a horror film released a decade before, and include loads of unfunny impressions of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Maybe it was the legacy left by Ghostbusters and Thriller, but forgetting that those songs were actually good.

    lovebug
    Come on, who really thought this would make a good publicity shot?

    Headlines and You and Me Tonight and just wisps of songs, stuck in the middle ground between the death of disco and the new emerging dance scene, which, to be fair, had yet to find a proper sound. Both are completely forgettable, by completely forgotten artists. We finish off with On My Own, a sugary ballad, that of course was a huge hit, lifted by Patti La Belle’s lovely voice, and Michael McDonald, an artist I can never listen to a straight face anymore since his contribution to the soundtrack for South Park: The Movie

    And so, yet again, the album kind of dissipates in a puff of undistinguished guff. But at least you now know what a  synthesised shakuhachi flute sounds like. It wasn’t what the advert had promised.

    That does, however, answer my query for years about what the hell that was supposed to be on the cover. Obviously the influence of the Clothes Show, and fashion culture in general, was being felt even in the hallowed halls of NOW Towers. The ‘Feel the Quality’ tagline would be dropped after NOW 7 as would the design team who created it. But that wouldn’t be the only change for the NOW series. Christmas 1986 would see them renew their battle with Hits, and this time it would take place in the future! And the future was NOW.

    Or something.

     

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 7

    Release date

    11th August 1986

    Biggest tracks

    A Kind of Magic – Queen

    Sledgehammer – Peter Gabriel

    Venus – Bananarama

    Lady in Red – Chris de Burgh

    Lost gems

    New Beginning (Mamba Seyra) – Bucks Fizz (sadly, this video will do nothing to convince you it’s a good song)

    Brilliant Mind – Furniture

    Forgotten tracks

    Call of the Wild – Midge Ure

    Headlines – Midnight Star

    You and me Tonight – Aurra

    What’s missing

    Rock Me Amadeus  – Falco

    I Heard it Through the Grapevine – Marvin Gaye

    The Chicken Song – Spitting Image

     

    Track listing

    Side one
    Sledgehammer Peter Gabriel
    Sing Our Own Song UB40
    Let’s Go All The Way (Short Blix Mix) Sly Fox
    Lessons In Love Level 42
    Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money) Pet Shop Boys
    Sinful! Pete Wylie
    Camouflage Stan Ridgway
    Paranoimia The Art Of Noise And Max Headroom
    Side two
    The Lady In Red Chris De Burgh
    Absolute Beginners David Bowie
    Invisible Touch Genesis
    All The Things She Said Simple Minds
    Happy Hour The Housemartins
    Look Away Big Country
    Brilliant Mind Furniture
    Call Of The Wild Midge Ure
    Side three
    The Edge Of Heaven Wham
    My Favourite Waste Of Time Owen Paul
    Too Good To Be Forgotten Amazulu
    Spirit In The Sky Doctor & The Medics
    Venus Bananarama
    New Beginning (Mamba Seyra) Bucks Fizz
    Hunting High And Low A-Ha
    Holding Back The Years Simply Red
    A Kind Of Magic Queen  (Bonus Track)
    Side four
    When The Going Gets Tough Billy Ocean
    Set Me Free Jaki Graham
    I Can’t Wait Nu Shooz
    Bang Zoom (Let’s Go Go) The Real Roxanne With Hitman Howie Tee
    Amityville (The House On The Hill) Lovebug Starski
    Headlines Midnight Star
    You And Me Tonight Aurra
    On My Own Patti Labelle And Michael McDonald

     

    Video version

    now-7-video_trimmedThe video version contained three tracks not featured on any NOW album (marked with #). Interesting that one of those tracks was by Culture Club, who just two years previously were one of Virgin records cash cows. They were obviously feeling they were not warranting the same kind of profile and promotion as before, or it was felt including them on NOW 7 would damage the sales of their current album.

    Two further tracks (marked with *) would later appear on NOW 8.

    Queen – A Kind of Magic
    UB40 – Sing Our Own Song
    Sly Fox – Let’s Go All the Way
    Level 42 – Lessons in Love
    Pet Shop Boys – Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)
    Pete Wylie – Sinful!
    Stan Ridgway – Camouflage
    Art of Noise with Max Headroom – Paranoimia
    Jermaine Stewart – We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off*
    Culture Club – Move Away#
    Simple Minds – All the Things She Said
    The Housemartins – Happy Hour
    Big Country – Look Away
    Midge Ure – Call of the Wild
    Sigue Sigue Sputnik – Love Missile F1-11#
    Doctor and the Medics – Spirit in the Sky
    Jaki Graham – Set Me Free
    Samantha Fox – Do Ya Do Ya (Wanna Please Me)#
    Genesis – Invisible Touch

     

  • 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 5 – Harold Faltermeyer is 5 foot 11 inches tall

    Now That’s What I Call Music 5 – Harold Faltermeyer is 5 foot 11 inches tall

    now 5After losing Christmas 1984 to The Hits Album, NOW! took a short sabbatical in the new year. Clearly they were no longer the only game in town and things were going to have to change. Rather than rush release another NOW! album straight away and try to reclaim the crown quickly, they sat back and watched as Hits strutted its way to Volume 2 in April 1985, attempting to consolidate their position. For NOW! watchers, April brought a surprise in the shape of NOW Dance, a collection of 12″ mixes which would be the first of many ‘special NOW! releases. (NOW Dance would itself become a complimentary series alongside the regular releases. These will be discussed elsewhere.)

    NOW 5 finally arrived in the summer. With no Hits album around the way was clear for NOW! to strike back and make a bold statement that they were still top dog. But in reality, it seems a tad lazy in comparison to some of its predecessors, and, to be fair, even compared to Hits 2, which featured four chart toppers among its fairly strong line-up, compared to just the one on show here (Sister Sledge’s Frankie).

    While initial thoughts are that NOW 5 will be a strong return to form, its deficiencies become apparent pretty soon, on side two, and continue throughout. But before you even get to the music, there’s  the small matter of the artwork, possibly the worst in the entire series.

    Retaining the pig, for what would be his final appearance, seems a solid decision, but the design is dreadful. For the first time in the series, artist photos are ditched in favour of names and logos, which are emblazoned across the pig’s garish stripy yellow shirt (the NOW! balls making up the shirt buttons) whilst shapes, streamers and paint splatter explode in the background, along with a series of incomprehensible arrows. Thankfully the NOW! Balls are also fairly prominent, just in case an unsuspecting record shop patron should mistake the sleeve for some piece of long forgotten pop art, of a kind it so desperately wants to emulate. It’s truly ghastly. The rear of the sleeve replicates the image as if seen from behind. The reversed NOW! logo is a nice touch, but other than that, it just looks like a fat pig in a badly fitting shirt. The theme continues inside the gatefold where a rather creepy looking sketch shows the pig (still in his horrendous shirt) sitting on the edge of a diving board watching someone diving (badly) into, presumably, a swimming pool. But it’s so badly conceived (and the diver appears to have twisted awkwardly mid-dive) that’s it’s hard to know exactly what’s supposed to be going on here. But thankfully, it doesn’t take up much room and is easily missed if you didn’t know it was there.

    Now-5-gatefold

    So does the content do anything to make up for this pictorial abomination? Not really.

    About the only thing people remember about music in the summer of 1985 is Live Aid, so maybe all the big stars were too busy plugging their albums to a worldwide audience… sorry… giving up their free time for a worthy cause to be releasing their biggest and best hits.

    The best remembered songs here, were not necessarily the most successful at the time. Whilst things kick off with A View to a Kill (the last Duran Duran appearance with their original line-up) it’s the other movie theme on side one that is probably the bigger song, Axel F, from Beverly Hills Cop. As the blurb helpfully, and pointlessly, informs us Harold Faltermeyer is “5 foot 11 inches tall”. Slightly more helpfully, it tells us he used to work with Giorgio Morodor and Axel F took four months to reach its number two slot after first charting in march ’85 at a lowly number 73. (Incidentally, that itself was one place higher than that reached by the infinitely superior Fletch Theme, which charted a few weeks after the release of NOW 5. But that’s irrelevant here. Anyway…)

    Scritti Politti finally make an appearance, and would probably have been more successful before The Word Girl if NOW! had given them a bit of a push, and future perennials, Fine Young Cannibals make their debut with Johnny Come Home. Dead or Alive and Stephen “Tin Tin” “Was the singer in Duran Duran before Simon le Bon” Duffy both appear with lesser known as Hits 2 had snagged both You Spin Me Round and Kiss Me earlier in the year. To be fair I’ve always liked Duffy’s Icing on the Cake more anyway, as it sounds like a far more cynical pop song (and attack on the industry) than Kiss Me. If anyone can name another Dead or Alive track, you’ve got one over on me, so I was pleasantly surprised that their In Too Deep was not dreadful, and a perfectly good pop track. Kool and the Gang’s sickly Cherish and Paul Young’s textbook Every Time You Go Away round off things a safe, serviceable way.

    Simon le Bon yesterday
    Simon le Bon yesterday

    Then to side two, where inertia, and a desire to tear one’s own ears off is briefly abated by the soothing sounds of Don’t You Forget About Me and The Power Station’s ludicrously overwrought cover of Get It On. This lovely filling is however sandwiched between Marillion, China Crisis, Phil Collins and David Bowie’s This is Not America, a song I’ve only ever listened to all the way through once. If I don’t want it on a Bowie compilation, I certainly don’t want it here.

    We are into dance territory on side three. The blurb even mentions a “resurgence of dance music” in their piece on The Conway Brothers, who were so ineffectual at following up their number 11 smash Turn It Up, that they haven’t even got a Wiki entry). It’s shrugs all round to be honest, with Mai Tai, Steve Arrington, and more frequent top 40 botherers Loose Ends and Jaki Graham along with the Conway Brothers. Mai Tai’s History is particularly catchy, even if it sounds criminally ripped off from the act that precedes them, Sister Sledge, here ditching their disco roots for possibly the most annoying song on the whole double album, Frankie. Maybe it’s because it was always played at least five times at every school disco I went to, or because it seemed for three years girls would walk around the playground singing it… for whatever reason Frankie is an awful song. The fact that it’s the only number one on show here, proves that no one buying records in 1985 has any taste whatsoever. Graham’s track is pretty decent too, but nowhere near as memorable as her earlier duet with David Grant (later a judge on Fame Academy) Could It Be I’m Falling In Love.

    And why the side finishes with Rory Bremner impersonating Richie Benaud is anyone’s business. It still brings a grin though, and Paul Hardcastle now admits producing the spoof of his own hit, 19 (which, oddly never appeared on a NOW or Hits album).

    The final furlong initially promises things will pick up. A stunning quartet of Unforgettable Fire, Walls Come Tumbling Down, a ruthlessly cut short Walking on Sunshine (which only got to number 9!) and the speaker blowing combination of Gary Moore and Phil Lynott on Out in the Fields. Things mellow slightly with The Damned’s Shadow of Love, another of those odd choices that pepper the series, before the album collapses in on itself. Howard Jones’ dreadful Life in One Day is one of those insufferably chirpy songs you just want to punch in the face (particularly when, like me, you’ve been listening to it on your dreary, snow-delayed commute to work) but unlike, say, Walking on Sunshine, it has a sense of smug self-satisfaction which somehow depresses more than it inspires. It’s astonishing how angry synthesised penny whistles can make you.

    And finally there’s Jimmy Nail absolutely murdering Love Don’t Live Here Anymore. Or at least that’s what I thought from hazy memories of hearing it as a kid, and wandering why that ugly bloke from Auf Weidersein Pet was on Top of the Pops. Nail has got a good voice, like a more delicate version of Joe Cocker, but, although this is much better than I remember it, this is not the right song, and he’s not helped by a smoky, BBC detective drama production going on behind him. Jimmy would have his day in a few years time, which we will come to in due course. But this is a distinctly, almost oppressively, downer ending for a pop compilation. Particularly one that promises so much hot summer fun from it’s cover and equally stomach-churning advert.

    NOW 5 is pretty forgettable all round, its highlights simply enhancing the awful anonymity of the rest. With one side of dreary MOR ballads, and another of forgettable dance music, half the album is written off before you even start. Having stars next single after their big hit has been snaffled by your rival is unfortunate, but that doesn’t mean you HAVE to include them. And maybe, for once, the programming of the tracks seems to have been badly managed resulting in too much of a “side of this” and a “side of that” rather than the melting pot of hits and misses and genres we’d been used to.

    It was time for a re-think. NOW! would need to own Christmas again, and in November they would strike back with a one-two that Hits wouldn’t see coming…

    NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 5

    Release date

    5th August 1985

    Biggest tracks

    Axel F – Harold Faltermeyer

    Don’t You (Forget About Me) – Simple Minds

    Walking on Sunshine – Katrina and the Waves

    Forgotten tracks

    In Too Deep – Dead or Alive

    Feel So Real – Steve Arrington

    Turn it Up – Conway Brothers

    Magic Touch – Loose Ends

    What’s missing

    19  – Paul Hardcastle

    Head Over Heels – Tears for Fears

    I Feel Love (Medley) – Bronski Beat and Marc Almond

    Track listing

    Side One
    A View To A Kill Duran Duran
    The Word Girl Scritti Politti
    Axel F Harold Faltermeyer
    Johnny Come Home Fine Young Cannibals
    In Too Deep Dead Or Alive
    Icing On The Cake Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy
    Cherish Kool & The Gang
    Every Time You Go Away          Paul Young
    Side Two
    Kayleigh Marillion
    Slave To Love Bryan Ferry
    This Is Not America David Bowie & The Pat Metheny Group
    Don’t You (Forget About Me) Simple Minds
    Get It On (Bang A Gong) The Power Station
    Black Man Ray China Crisis
    One More Night Phil Collins
    Side Three
    Frankie Sister Sledge
    History Mai Tai
    Money’s Too Tight (To Mention) Simply Red
    Feel So Real Steve Arrington
    Round And Around Jaki Graham
    Turn It Up The Conway Brothers
    Magic Touch Loose Ends
    N-N-Nineteen Not Out The Commentators
    Side Four
    The Unforgettable Fire U2
    Walls Come Tumbling Down The Style Council
    Walking On Sunshine Katrina & The Waves
    Out In The Fields Gary Moore And Phillip Lynott
    The Shadow Of Love The Damned
    Life In One Day Howard Jones
    Love Don’t Live Here Anymore          Jimmy Nail
      

    No video version appears to have been released, but if anyone has any information I’d love to know and update this entry.

     

  • 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