FEATURE:
NOW That's What I Call Music at Forty
Rewind/Fast Forward: A Time to Revive the Archive and Think to the Future
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LET us start off…
with some information and background from Wikipedia when it comes to an iconic and hugely popular album series. The NOW That’s What I Call Music series is forty later in the year. I know I am looking ahead and the anniversary is not until 28th November, but I do wonder whether there are going to be anniversary celebrations or a new album. The numbered series has reached 114 (released on 14th April). Maybe they will do a special compilation for the fortieth anniversary. Before going on, here is some background to the compilation series:
“Now That's What I Call Music! (often shortened to Now!) is a series of various artists compilation albums released in the United Kingdom and Ireland by Sony Music and Universal Music (Universal/Sony Music) which began in 1983. Spinoff series began for other countries the following year, starting with South Africa, and many other countries worldwide soon followed, expanding into Asia in 1995, then the United States in 1998.
The compilation series was conceived in the office of Virgin Records in London and took its name from a 1920s British advertising poster for Danish Bacon featuring a pig saying "Now. That's What I Call Music" as it listened to a chicken singing. Richard Branson, owner of Virgin, had bought the poster for his cousin, Simon Draper, to hang behind Draper's desk at the Virgin Records office. The pig became the mascot for the series, making its last regular appearance on Now That's What I Call Music 5, before reappearing in 2018, 2021 and 2022”.
You can get some of the ‘Yearbook’ series on vinyl, but I don’t think you can for the numbered series. Maybe there are some second hand, but I would love the possibility of the series coming to vinyl. Cassettes would be awesome too. Maybe it would cost too much and not be practical, but I bought NOW That’s What I Call Music 24 on cassette when it came out in 1993. I have written about this before – and I will do again -, but a cool NOW That’s What I Call Music pop-up shop with a vending machine that dispenses cassettes of the series. Old adverts of the albums running, and merchandise and C.D.s. That would be pretty cool! It may be an impossible task but I wanted to expand on that a little.
I was originally going to do a feature that selects the ten best NOW That’s What I Call Music compilations. That is a tough choice, but there are some classics that everyone should hear. Other articles like this that rank the U.S. series (it started later there, and there are different artists featured on the compilations each year compared to the U.K. version); this that decides NOW That’s What I Call Music 44 (1999) is best; this one, that holds a special place in its heart for NOW That’s What I Call Music 50 (2001), and this interesting feature. The U.K. website used to have a feature whereby you could select every album in the series by number or the year it came out. That made it easy if you had to put together a compilation – as there are not necessarily Wikipedia entries for each or tracklistings online -, and you could also see adverts relating to each of the albums. I know that special series’ and compilations are now working alongside the yearly numbered ones, but I do wonder why the archive and that essential resource has been retired. Maybe it is somewhere but, as it is such a useful and crucial source of information and archive for those maybe new to the compilations series, it is a shame that it is not available online. I do hope that run the series and maintain the website think about returning that incredible portal.
It is wonderful that NOW That’s What I Call Music has expanded and you get these yearbooks that compile the best tracks from a previous year. That is what the numbered series does too, but here you get a slightly different take. In so much as I think it is important to have the archives restored and make it easy to navigate back to old albums and find detail about them, it would also be nice to have some of the best examples of the series committed to tape and vinyl. I guess it comes back to that argument that, as people have nothing to play cassettes on, what is the point of manufacturing them? It seems like the NOW That’s What I Call Music compilation is almost born to be on cassette! I would love to see every one of the series on the format, but I realise that could be unfeasibly foolish. However, there is definitely now a demand for cassettes, and the NOW That’s What I Call Music series is not going to dwindle or lose any of its audience. In fact, with its Yearbook editions and people snapping up the latest editions of the numbered series, the empire is expanding. I do not think that it is retro and people only like it for nostalgia. For those who were not alive when particular edition of NOW That’s What I Call Music were released, it is a useful and accessible introduction to popular music of the time. Of course, there is an element of nostalgia, but it is a way of preserving the best music moments from throughout the years.
As this legendary series turns forty in November, it makes me thinking about the past and how we need that important archive where one can look at details about every NOW That’s What I Call Music album from the numbered series. The release date and the advert that went with it, in addition to the tracklisting. I hope that we do get some restoration. Also, as it will soon be forty years, there is likely to be anniversary retrospection and some new releases. I know that NOW That’s What I Call Music will keep going for decades more. It is so wonderful that it continues to resonate with music lovers. Buying the physical album when they could stream songs from it instead, clearly people have that need for physical music - and they also love that treat of having so many quality songs on the one album. Keeping that album in their collection, years from now, they can revisit the time they bought it and get a vivid sense of what the music scene was like. I have done that myself. I would snap up any opportunity to order any of the great NOW That’s What I Call Music albums from the past, as I would keep them for years and really treasure them. A cherished compilation series that has provided conversation, connection, and delight for four decades, we all have particular albums in the series that…
MEAN so much to us.