Tag: Soul II Soul

NOW 22 – Something good is gonna happen

I suppose it’s typical of this endeavour that just as I was starting to feel that the NOW series was showing signs of having nothing left of any worth to offer, along with 1992 being, in hindsight, a pretty lousy year, NOW 22 arrives and blows those misconceptions from the water like Roy Scheider and so many rubber sharks. NOW 22 is easily the best NOW album since NOW 11. What is it with the repeated digit editions? Will NOW 33 equally deliver? I have no idea and frankly I’ll be amazed if I make it that far. For now I can say NOW 22 has revitalised my interest and it will make you smile, you sonofabitch.

Any pretensions of game-changing genres, era-defining trends and left-field inclusions can be pretty much put to bed now. NOW 22 has no time for such fancies, preferring to focus on pop, pure and simple. This is quite understandable given its window covered the summer of ’92 when nothing of any great worth happened bar me getting spectacularly drunk on my brothers stag do, and failing to follow it up at the wedding when one of the barmaids recognised me from school and refused to serve me as I was underage. Spoil sport. Nevertheless, the music was pretty good by all accounts.

Erasure reclaim top billing, scoring their first number one with their ABBA-Esque EP. Take A Chance on Me was by far the most played of the four tracks, though as Voulez-Vous is my favourite ABBA track, I always preferred Andy and Vince’s take on that. I feel a little sad that the boys had to resort to (almost) novelty tracks to bag a number one, but I suppose whatever works.

Erasure as Abba — **“Supa dupa, it’s supa dupa that we’re number 1 again.”**

Ce Ce Peniston’s Finally, er, finally became the hit it deserved in a (ever so slightly) remixed version after failing to breach the top 20 the previous year. While its ubiquity may have made it slightly unpopular in the intervening years, I still rate this very highly. KWS’ Please Don’t Go sounds much better than I thought it would, but was part of an unnerving trend over the year for ‘bands’ (i.e. dance producers) to make lucrative careers out of cover versions. Chart rivals Undercover were even more blatant about it, but their version of Baker Street (which, like the original, did not feature Bob Holness) didn’t hit the top like KWS did. It’s massively repetitive, and adds nothing to the original bar a fairly heavy bass line, but the singer is enthusiastic and has the knack of making you tap along, however begrudgingly.

Take That (including the NOW record holder for most appearances, Robbie Williams) make their debut with It Only Takes a Minute, and they’re followed by the return of the never-popular Nick Berry, somehow snagging another number one off another god-awful song from another god-awful TV show. Seriously, the UK, what is wrong with you? This man has more number ones than Bananarama, Depeche Mode and The Clash COMBINED. That’s inhuman. (EDIT: Thanks to Feel the Quality in the comments for putting me straight that Heartbeat didn’t actually reached number one. It got to number two.) It’s rather hilarious for a jangly 60s guitar to segue way into Rhythm is a Dancer though. A song now more famous for a poor choice of simile than for the song itself, it’s easy to forget how massive this was, topping the charts for weeks. It’s not as good as The Power though, though B&Q are currently doing their best to make everyone hate that one.

Things then take a very odd turn. Whilst Utah Saints continue the dance groove from Snap, they are a very different beast, and by god is Something Good fantastic. In fact it compelled me to revisit their back catalogue and I suggest you do too. Rumours of them snaffling the Kate Bush without permission are not true; Ms Bush loved it. For me, disillusioned with acid house and gangster rap, THIS was the sound of the future, picking up where KLF left off, combining hard dance with rock riffs and heavy bass, to be listened to loud.

The Cure’s Friday I’m Love doesn’t merit much time here since every knows it and you know if you like it, hate it because it’s popular, or just hate it because you think it’s a bit shit, like I do. It’s their Shiny Happy People as far as I’m concerned; it may be frightfully witty and ironic, but it’s also irritating and crap. Unlike Marc Almond’s Days of Pearly Spencer. I was frankly gobsmacked to see that on NOW 22, but even more staggered to discover it reached number 4! Personally, I think his cover version of Jackie from the same release window is much better, but it’s very welcome if only for the wonderfully wilful slow down ending. Bet this one got a fair few skips by the listeners. They may have also avoided the Beautiful South’s Bell Bottomed Tear, another of their so-ironic, lovely tunes about what bastards men are. They seemed to be on the slide commercially, and would continue to be for the next two years before their renaissance with their ‘every home should have one’ greatest hits, Carry On Up The Charts.

A couple of big hitters are up next, breaking up the dance groove, with Prince’s ludicrous Thunder appearing in its full album version, rather than the slimmed down single version, and U2’s Even Better Than The Real Thing. Whilst U2’s track is one of the best they ever released (even better in the similarly chart bothering Perfecto Mix), Thunder is diabolical. No one really remembers this beyond the chorus surely? Rumour has it Prince wrote it after a particularly troublesome acid trip. If that’s the case, he really should just say no.

The decision to include a full fat Thunder is intriguing, but more so was the decision to include The Shamen’s L.S.I. in a version which wasn’t even commercially available in the UK. Admirable as that may be, it may have been a good idea to promote that fact somewhere on the track listing. It certainly isn’t the version anyone who remembers it will recognise. Some hunting in the dark passages of online second hand record shops suggests this may be the ‘Shamen 7”’ version, only available in the USA. This is certainly the only version I can find with the same running time of 3’ 52” (ish) but can’t find an online version of that particular remix to verify.

Electronic’s Disappointed certainly did leave me feeling so, after the tremendous first album, even with the return of Neil Tennant on vocals. It’s no Getting Away With It. Much better is Shakespeare’s Sister’s I Don’t Care, a truly great forgotten tune. A great tune to follow Stay, it rode the coat tails of that massive success to score a top 10 hit it probably wouldn’t have been otherwise. This small section of quirky tunes continues with one of Carter USM’s worst tracks, Do Re Me So Far, So Good. It’s not a patch on their other 1992 tracks and seems a bizarre choice for inclusion. Less bizarre is the inclusion of the ridiculously popular Everything About You by Ugly Kid Joe. Hated everything about it then, hate everything about it now.

To polish off the first CD, we get two very contrasting dance tunes from opposite ends of the turntable. SL2’s On A Ragga Tip is not my thing at all. It sounds like a watered down version of whatever was the noisy reggae influenced variant of the day (there’s always a new one, I can’t keep up). Much more appealing, and the genuine shock inclusion on NOW 22, is The Orb’s Blue Room. Now the stuff of legend thanks to their Top Of The Pops appearance, this is wonderful after dinner mint of a track, cleansing the palate and drifting you off into the centre of the record. They definitely didn’t include the album version of this one though.

Anyone not convinced by the brilliance of NOW 22 will no doubt use CD 2 as their case for the prosecution. We’re very much in Dad country here, with a twist of dance at the end. But while, for the most part, there’s nothing particularly dreadful, there’s no stand out classics either. Things start badly with Richard Marx’s homage to the wonderful TV chiller Dark Knight of the Scarecrow, as the poor victim of a lynch mob baying for blood over the disappearance of a little girl. It’s a truly odd song since it never explains why everyone in town hates Marx and what, exactly, his relationship with the girl consisted of (he says she was the first person who looked at him with prejudice so of course they fall in love) but with so little extra detail, it can’t help but be construed as suspect. This isn’t a film of course, but if your song tells the story of the (implied) murder of a girl, and the subsequent man hunt, that’s pretty hefty stuff for a simple pop song. We need details, Dick. Like, did you do it? Go on, you can tell us. Your secret’s safe with us.

Richard Marx — **The blackest eyes… the devils eyes…**

Almost certainly not a serial killer, Baldy Reg offers one of his lesser known, but most over blown, tracks with The One. Full of seaside sound effects (and dolphins, natch) for no apparent reason, it’s a pretty good number, reminiscent of a slowed down version of Healing Hands. Though lines about “drunken nights in dark hotels” and “when sex and love no longer gel” conjures images in my head that big stadium ballads probably shouldn’t summon and leave a very icky taste. Reg is back later on using the sheer force of will to implant himself on George Michael’s arena destroying version of Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me, a cover so ubiquitous and successful that karaoke singers ALWAYS say “ladies and gentlemen, Mr Elton John” when they do it now.

Roy Orbison’s take on I Drove All Night may have been better being sequenced after did-he-or-didn’t-he Marx, as it too creates a rather creepy atmosphere that maybe pop should leave alone. Far better than the Cyndi Lauper original, being sung by a man it does rather sound a bit more sinister than probably intended. Released four years after his death it was originally recorded BEFORE Lauper’s version, but was eventually released after being picked up by Jeff Lynne for production fairy dust duties on an album of unreleased material. Jennifer Connelly and (slightly less excitingly) Jason Priestly appear in the video.

Some would argue the real crime on show here, as opposed to the ones I’m dreaming up when listening to these innocuous songs, was that Jimmy Nail’s Ain’t No Doubt was such a big hit. Those people are idiots. Ain’t No Doubt, which to be fair is rarely heard these days, except perhaps ironically (ffs!) is a brilliant song. Nail does sing, and sings well. It’s far better than his horrible Crocodile Shoes nonsense which would fill the charts in the subsequent years, and it’s certainly original. Dad-friendly chart bothering continues with Joe Cocker’s “90s version” of Unchain My Heart (a Ray Charles standard) which sounds suspiciously similar to the version from 1987, but was re-released to plug a greatest hits album. It’s a cracker.

Lady Gaga's new 'Geordie' look alienated a few fans — **Lady Gaga’s new ‘Geordie’ look alienated a few fans**

Less of a cracker is the only other Curtis Stigers song anyone remembers after I Wonder Why appeared on NOW 21. You’re All That Matter To Me is much better but still has a whiff of someone who’s been caught doing the do where he shouldn’t and a bunch of flowers just won’t cut it. I’m just suspicious of any man with more hair than a lion’s mane. While Stigers is pretty much forgotten now, I’m sure he’s still better remembered than Wilson Phillips’ You Won’t See Me Cry. Amazingly this was their second biggest UK hit after Hold On, but Christ knows why. The usual faultless harmonies are present and correct but it’s so bland to the point of sleepwalking. Structurally it’s identical to the more famous song, but done at a snail’s pace. I could well imagine this being popular with those American shows that have end of episode montages. It’s got a touch of the three-bottles-of-wine-down-air-punch about it, but is ultimately as cheesy as the sax solo I’d forgotten was there until I listened again just now.

This brings us to the most depressing sequence of songs on a NOW album so far, as Californian pop royalty’s long forgotten lament to lost love gives way to Crowded House’s Four Seasons In One Day and Annie Lennox’s Why. The New Zealanders’ track is one of their best, demonstrating their Rutles-like ability to craft songs which sound like White Album-era Beatles rip-offs but still retain their own unique identity (a trick shared by their near neighbours, the not-at-all-lamented Jellyfish). Lennox’s first solo track maybe caught people a bit unawares as it’s so different to her Eurythmics stuff. It’s a straight out tear-jerker, which is sadly lacking Dave Stewart’s knob twiddling and now sounds rather dated.

Following George and Reg’s duet, we get another horrendous Diana Ross track plugging the DOA album, the Force Behind the Power. Whilst When You Tell Me That You Love Me’s chart success warranted its inclusion on NOW 21, there are no such excuses for the drivel that is One Shining Moment. It may have scrambled its way to number 10, but it was the SEVENTH single from the album and there can’t have been too many casual listeners who would have complained had this not been included. Vanessa William’s gravy-flogging Save the Best Til Last demonstrates how bland pop could be at the time, and many fans of Desperate Housewives (or even the Arnie movie, Eraser) may be surprised that she had a successful career knocking out this kind of cotton wool before Hollywood beckoned.

Luckily things improve for a final flurry of dance-related pop which gives some hope for the rest of the year. En Vogue provide one of the best tracks on the compilation with My Lovin’, doing what Salt n’ Pepa should have been doing for the previous couple of years; sassy, sexy and bold without being vulgar. Christ I sound like an old man, but this is a world away from Let’s Talk About Sex. It’s got that New Jack Swing sound down to a tee (before it became the soundtrack for every boy racer cruising the seafront of my home town) and has lasted well. It’s a song of great moments (‘oooo….bop!’, ‘never gonna get it, no you’re never gonna get it’, and that wonderful doo-wop breakdown) but the whole is so well produced it was copied by so many acts over the years, including our own Eternal (of which we’ll hear more from later in the series).

Soul II Soul’s Joy is not as fondly remembered (if at all) as Jazzie B’s 1989 vintage, but it’s passable enough as a summer tune. But the real gem of NOW 22 is the final track. Incognito’s Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing frankly knocked my bloody socks off. Another of those tunes that was embedded in my brain from drunken under-age sessions in the ‘fun’ pubs of my youth (I swear it was played on loops in every bar) I hadn’t realised how good a tune it was. Songs don’t get much more uplifting and joyous as this. It’s got slightly cheap production (I don’t deal well with synthesised brass) and the vocal could pack a bit more of a punch, but this is hands down the best track on CD2, if not the whole album.

Maybe it was the surprise and warm fuzzy feeling that Incognito leaves that led me to so play up NOW 22 as a masterpiece at the start of the review. It’s not a masterpiece, and CD 2 does threaten to turn into a sad sack, drunken nightmare with your Dad standing in the corner tapping his feet asking what you’re listening to. Taken as a whole NOW 22 is the best entry since at least NOW 17, maybe even 11. And that’s without a game changing genre like House, or baggy to provide it with half a side of truly classic tunes. What it’s got is a brilliant selection of great pop tunes; few classics, but mostly these are tunes that have drifted form the public consciousness, or been replaced by other tunes by the same artists. Lose Nick Berry and a few of the tear jerkers from CD 2 and you’ve got a damn good party record here. Though it seems the makers didn’t agree. NOW 22 seems to have been all but abandoned if the TV ad is anything to go by.

Two songs plugged? Both of which had already been bought by anyone who wanted them?

With a third instalment incoming for Christmas, this would be the first time for three years NOW had released three albums in a year. Maybe they were keeping the marketing money for the big Christmas push?

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 22

Release date

27th July 1992

Biggest tracks

It Only Takes a Minute – Take That

Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me – George Michael and Elton John

Lost gems

I Don’t Care – Shakespear’s Sister

Something Good – Utah Saints

Don’t Worry ‘Bout a Thing – Incognito

Forgotten tracks

Days of Pearly Spencer – Marc Almond

One Shining Moment – Diana Ross

Joy – Soul II Soul

What’s missing?

The Life of Riley – The Lightening Seeds

Midlife Crisis – Faith No More

Track listing

CD 1
Take A Chance On Me	Erasure
Finally	Ce Ce Peniston
Please Don’t Go	KWS
It Only Takes A Minute	Take That
Heartbeat	Nick Berry
Rhythm Is A Dancer	Snap!
Something Good	Utah Saints
Friday I’m In Love	The Cure
The Days Of Pearly Spencer	Marc Almond
Bell Bottomed Tear	The Beautiful South
Thunder	Prince & The New Power Generation
Even Better Than The Real Thing	U2
L.S.I.	The Shamen
Disappointed	Electronic
I Don’t Care	Shakespears Sister
Do Re Me So Far So Good	Carter USM
Everything About You	Ugly Kid Joe
On A Ragga Tip	SL2
Blue Room	The Orb
CD 2
Hazard	Richard Marx
The One	Elton John
I Drove All Night	Roy Orbison
Ain’t No Doubt	Jimmy Nail
Unchain My Heart	Joe Cocker
You’re All That Matters To Me	Curtis Stigers
You Won’t See Me Cry	Wilson Phillips
Four Seasons In One Day	Crowded House
Why?	Annie Lennox
Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me	George Michael And Elton John
One Shining Moment	Diana Ross
Save The Best For Last	Vanessa Williams
My Lovin’	En Vogue
Joy	Soul II Soul
Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing	Incognito

July 1, 2014

NOW! 18 – The pompatus of love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Legend — **Utterly utterly utterly utterly brilliant**

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

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

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

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

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

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC 18

Release date

19^th November 1990

Biggest tracks

Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor

It Must have Been Love – Roxette

Unchained Melody – The Righteous Brothers

Forgotten tracks

Little Brother – Blue Pearl

Missing You – Soul II Soul ft Kym Mazelle

Hidden gems

Hold On – Wilson Phillips

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

To Love Somebody – Jimmy Sommervile

What’s missing

King of Wishful Thinking – Go West

Kinky Afro – Happy Mondays

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

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

Track listing

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

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

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

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

August 1, 2013

NOW 15 – Cruel Summer

For 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.

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 100^th 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**

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…

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

14^th 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

June 2, 2013