Now Thats What I Call Music

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here in usa the series of cd's (which are pop music) is at #6. is this a series in england also and if so explain what you think about it..great idea? better then buying singles? mostly crap?

― Kevin Enas, Thursday, 24 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

They are up to about 50 over here. My sisiter has vol 2, which makes her very old.

― Robin, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

The thing that's great about them is they've always been rubbish. They carry whatever is riding high in the charts when they're released, and as most of that is kack so is the compilation. What's really funny is going back to Now! 1 or 2 from the '80s. Very few timeless pop classics there, and a lot of spank by completely forgettable losers like Tracie. Ugh.

― The Dirty Vicar, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I remember seeing vol. 1 of the UK series as an import when it first came out in 1984 or so, and I wanted it so badly... I had to settle for K-Tel's Star Collection, which I was so embarrassed to own that I was keeping separately from the dozen records or so that were my collection at the time. I'm in favor of compilations of current singles in theory and practice, especially considering how many hits are on otherwise unworthy albums - but that kind of straight unmediated chart-pop comp is indeed heavily dependent on how good chart-pop is at any given time. Does anybody have particularly great ones to recommend ?

― Patrick, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

We have so many of those Now albums, they used to be just those chart pop collections...now we have the best rock-ballad album in the world ever, the best bands beginning with D album in the world ever, the best on-hit wonders album in the world ever...or stuff like that, I guess with comps they always but a load of rubbish on them as well, stuff like BB Mak and Samantha Mumba, which didn't chart that well!

― James E L, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

The chances are that the majority of people's first ever record was one of these Now! Comps. My first one was Now!17 over ten years ago. At nine years old, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. They are essential for kids and pop fans seeing as singles are so over priced these days. I can't believe there are 50 of thm now (have they been making more at a time since 1990?).

― dog latin, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Yep, we are actually on Now 48 at the moment and as pieces of timeless pop wonder they cannot be beaten. Any pub jekbox worth its salt should have the last ten double CD compilations, a fantastic juker would have a random selection going back to the early days. For that cheap pop thrill in a pub it cannot be beaten.

Now Six over here was released in 1985 - Crivens.

― Pete, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Oh wow, I used to buy'em every year. I didn't have much money when I was a teen. So the only solution was to buy those instead of full records. I still have a couple (on VINYL, how cool am I?). I think it's a good idea but only for kids.

― Stevie Nixed, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Many years before Now That's you could get v.cheap K-Tel-lie collections called AS HEARD ON TOP OF THE POPS, where unknown session people feebly imitated whatever had just got into the charts... There'd be a girlie on the cover in red hot pants, or similar.

For a while I owned an LP on which unknown session people feebly imitated ENNIO MORRICONE, a prized so-terrible-it-was-awesome item. It walked, of course: so-terrible-it-was-coveted...

I say "feebly", but actually "weirdly" was often more like it. I wish this format wd be resuscitated.

PS Anyone who doesn't rate Tracie can just fuck off, Vicar or no Vicar.

I'm kidding. Kinda.

― mark s, Sunday, 27 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

This type of thing was my first experience in music ownership too. I think my first one was an old K-Tel vinyl comp called Dimenions. It opens unbelievably with fucking Kool and the fucking Gang's Celebration, and goes from there into Styx. heh. It had this garish loopy orangey geometric design on the cover. I think the next one was also a K-Tel one called Star Tracks, and had a painting of a big record shaped space station with a needle arm shaped spaceship 'docking' on the outside groove. Much more entertaining than what was inside (if memory serves was full of Thomas Dolby, Taco, and Billy Idol).

― Kim, Sunday, 27 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Oh, and the only series I own in full is Rhino's 15 volume New Wave Hits of the 80's. Saves you the purchase of a lot of mediocre albums, and makes most other 80's comps redundant.

― Kim, Sunday, 27 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

I have one cassette of the 2-cassette first Now That's What I Call Music. The other one got chewed up. It came out in 1983 and so has great things like 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', 'Baby Jane', 'Is There Something I Should Know?' and 'The Safety Dance' on it.

Sure beats 'So 80s' compilations for authenticity. It was my sister's orginally.

These albums used to feature heavily in the charts until the BPI got sick of them and asked Gallup to relegate them all to a seperate various artists compilation chart so that 'proper' albums like Enya's 'Watermark' could get the attention they deserved.

At the time there were questions raised how the rules were to be applied. "In which chart", asked the Record Mirror (I'm guessing) "can we expect to see the new Foster & Allen record appear? For although they are well known as a duo, their latest release sees them working solo, one side being taken by Foster's recordings and the other by Allen's"

I trust common sense prevailed.

― Nick, Tuesday, 29 May 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

I have a lot of Now That's What... I have No2,6,10,11,22,23,29,30,31,32,and every one until the most recent one. I also have some of the millennium editions like 1981-1985 and 1989-1993 and 1995 & 1997

― karen howard, Friday, 27 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Now 7, the new one in the US, is probably the best album of 2001.

― Otis Wheeler, Friday, 27 July 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

Now albums came out on vinyl and cassette only at first then cd's were introduced. I think the first one on cd was no 9

― JILL MAUN, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Those top of the pops LP's were seriously popular back in the early 70's some topping the album charts then the BPI changed the rules as *proper* albums were getting eclipsed. I think it was poor kids (coz they were cheap) and grannies who didn't know better who bought them. The weird thing is that a number of people who went onto bigger and better things were on them, certainly Elton John who had an LP of these covers released a few years ago (Reg Dwight goes pop ???) and possibly Brian May.

Anyway I'm just amazed Stuart Maconie hasn't done an ironic reappraisal of the gems within.

― Billy Dods, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Any self-respecting charity shop should have a good collection of old Now! cassettes. Charity shops are the bestest places in the world for buying music because they only charge about 50p tops.

As the only people allowed by law to work in charity shops are old women, they always have a standard price for tapes and CDs regardless of whether they're albums or singles because old women can't tell the difference. Therefore, it is possible to buy, say Post by Bjork for only 75p.

If it's a really good charity shop, then they should have a video which may or may not be Now! but it's a similar thing. I've not bought any of these yet, so I'm not sure if they are good.

But ANYWAY, those Now! compilations are good but they seem to be churning them out at an alarming rate. Perhaps they should release a double CD every week containing the entire Top 40? Or maybe not.

― jamesmichaelward, Tuesday, 18 September 2001 00:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

8 years pass...

revive

― Now That's What I Call A Pole, Saturday, 27 March 2010 03:31 (3 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Now-CD-Collection-/110929062067?pt=Music_Other_Formats&hash=item19d3e328b3#ht_500wt_1369

― smells like ok (soda) (dayo), Tuesday, 7 August 2012 12:20 (9 months ago) Permalink

life-changing:

― piscesx, Tuesday, 7 August 2012 12:32 (9 months ago) Permalink

I've still got that one on tape! Includes the full Daryl Pandy vocal freakout on "Love Can't Turn Around" so pretty indispensable.

― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin), Tuesday, 7 August 2012 12:44 (9 months ago) Permalink

The last time I remember hearing a "Now That's What I Call Music" CD was at a Kaplan office picnic about 10 years ago, when the douchebag head of teacher training insisted on cutting off Paul's Boutique and putting that on instead. I had just finished college, and something about that moment sticks with me as a rude awakening about the real world.

― Will Chave (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 7 August 2012 14:28 (9 months ago) Permalink

xp yeah! for 86 (or.. 85 in fact?) that vocal freak out was pretty 0_o. the version of Grace Jones' Pull Up To The Bumper that's on it
(that was sampled by A Tribe Called Quest a few years later) is fantastic and stupidly hard to get hold of anywhere at all these days.

― piscesx, Wednesday, 8 August 2012 17:56 (9 months ago) Permalink

i've got the "Love Can't Turn Around" 12inch on this

but that Now comp has some classic shit on there

― Shrimpface Killah (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 8 August 2012 18:00 (9 months ago) Permalink

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