I would love to see Birdy - Skinny Love on Now 79 :wub:

My favourite Now is Now 74 :wub:.

 

That and Now 73 are my 2 faves! :wub: Everyone should oown them 2 albums - 2009 really was a great year in Music! :D

Nothings beats Now 45 & Now 46 :)

Nows 39-47 were all astonishingly good, my own personal highlights being 41 and 43...

 

They're not so great now but what can they do? The charts are samey and generic so the compilations are therefore samey and generic...

People are still interested in the Now! albums? I would have thought they'd have died out with the online boom?

My favourite run of Nows are the ones from 27-42. That was a real strong period for quality and variety of music, and thus the Now! albums were also incredibly varied. Of those, the ones that really stand out are 29, 33, 37, 39 and 40. It would be tough to pick a favourite and they all have their selling points (33 for the uber-alternative Disc 1 at the height of Britpop, 39 for the sheer number of classics packed onto it representing that massive sales period of late 1997 when there was a future million seller released basically every week, 40 for the nostalgia of the legendary summer of '98, etc) so I like them all in different ways.

 

43 was less good, but it does have my favourite single of 1999 on it (Basement Jaxx - Red Alert), plus career gems from Blur, Geri Halliwell, Backstreet Boys and a few good late 90s forgotten acts (Shanks & Bigfoot, Precious, New Radicals, Semisonic) so it's not all bad.

 

Post-42, my favourite was 61. Good time in my life, I guess, as everyone else hates it :lol:

 

People are still interested in the Now! albums? I would have thought they'd have died out with the online boom?

They sell faster than ever. Why would they have died out anyway? It's not like they haven't adapted to the digital climate :unsure:

My favourite run of Nows are the ones from 27-42. That was a real strong period for quality and variety of music, and thus the Now! albums were also incredibly varied. Of those, the ones that really stand out are 29, 33, 37, 39 and 40. It would be tough to pick a favourite and they all have their selling points (33 for the uber-alternative Disc 1 at the height of Britpop, 39 for the sheer number of classics packed onto it representing that massive sales period of late 1997 when there was a future million seller released basically every week, 40 for the nostalgia of the legendary summer of '98, etc) so I like them all in different ways.

 

43 was less good, but it does have my favourite single of 1999 on it (Basement Jaxx - Red Alert), plus career gems from Blur, Geri Halliwell, Backstreet Boys and a few good late 90s forgotten acts (Shanks & Bigfoot, Precious, New Radicals, Semisonic) so it's not all bad.

 

43 has so many of my 'favourites as a 12 year old who had just fallen in love with music' on it - I Want It That Way, Bring It All Back, 9PM (Till I Come), Red Alert, Say It Again, Love Of A Lifetime, Private Number, Greatest Day, Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen), In Our Lifetime, You Get What You Give, Saltwater, Coffee & TV, To Be In Love and most notably Better Off Alone :wub: Plus, seeing as the CD single of the latter bizarrely missed off the radio edit, Now 43 was the only way to get it on CD for quite a long time! It was one of the major selling points for me anyway!

People are still interested in the Now! albums? I would have thought they'd have died out with the online boom?

 

I disagree...I have only started buying the Now albums recently due to many songs not being released on CD single.

43 has so many of my 'favourites as a 12 year old who had just fallen in love with music' on it - I Want It That Way, Bring It All Back, 9PM (Till I Come), Red Alert, Say It Again, Love Of A Lifetime, Private Number, Greatest Day, Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen), In Our Lifetime, You Get What You Give, Saltwater, Coffee & TV, To Be In Love and most notably Better Off Alone :wub: Plus, seeing as the CD single of the latter bizarrely missed off the radio edit, Now 43 was the only way to get it on CD for quite a long time! It was one of the major selling points for me anyway!

I know what you mean there. Lots of songs from the late 1990s have that "one of the first songs I remember loving" kind of feeling. Although I usually find its the one-hit wonder kinda songs that I usually get more nostalgia over for some reason - like, say, Karen Ramirez - Looking For Love or something. Probably because I associate both the song and the act with a particular era, plus it was massive on the radio but doesn't get played as much as other songs now (in fact, I can't even remember the last time I heard it on the radio!) so it's very much associated with my memories of 1998 when I heard it all the time.

 

Better Off Alone is good, I guess... but I never liked that trance scene much at all :lol: I don't think it was a song I particularly played much/at all on Now 43 either, probably because it was put right at the end of Disc 2, so I don't really get many memories from it. I do like a lot of the songs you mentioned but most of the acts had better songs on other Now albums, so it's hard for me to love a compilation of sub-par material for those acts, personally. Plus I can't forgive the Now compilers for that awful trio on Now 43 of Adam Rickitt-Lolly-Cartoons all in a row :manson: And in terms of britpop/indie it was a definite downturn too - Gomez and Cast?! Who the hell let them on? I swear that Gomez song wasn't even close to being a hit too. Shockingly bad song.

 

For me, 43 and 44 (despite it being the best-selling ever) was a bit of a downturn and I don't play either that much these days. 45 was a step in the right direction again, some really great songs on there. 46 was okay but I hated the dancier second disc, never paid much attention to that one. 47 is excellent too. I know what you mean about the post-47 ones though, there was a bit of a massive drop in quality from 47 to 48 for some reason and it kind of wobbled from then onwards, although I did like 50. The next high quality one for me was probably 56, which has some stonking pop gems on.

 

I disagree...I have only started buying the Now albums recently due to many songs not being released on CD single.

Yeah, I don't understand why they would have died in the internet era? :unsure:

 

It's just easy to buy these Now albums for a nice collection of all the recent hits in one place. I don't see that ever changing any time soon. I struggle to see why they'd ever die out, to be honest. It would have to be a forced retirement, probably, as their legacy is so strong now that no other compilation can even compete, anyway. Maybe the Hits series could have if they didn't get so random and start faffing about to confuse everyone.

Edited June 15, 201114 yr by superbossanova

I know what you mean there. Lots of songs from the late 1990s have that "one of the first songs I remember loving" kind of feeling. Although I usually find its the one-hit wonder kinda songs that I usually get more nostalgia over for some reason - like, say, Karen Ramirez - Looking For Love or something. Probably because I associate both the song and the act with a particular era, plus it was massive on the radio but doesn't get played as much as other songs now (in fact, I can't even remember the last time I heard it on the radio!) so it's very much associated with my memories of 1998 when I heard it all the time.

 

Better Off Alone is good, I guess... but I never liked that trance scene much at all :lol: I don't think it was a song I particularly played much/at all on Now 43 either, probably because it was put right at the end of Disc 2, so I don't really get many memories from it. I do like a lot of the songs you mentioned but most of the acts had better songs on other Now albums, so it's hard for me to love a compilation of sub-par material for those acts, personally. Plus I can't forgive the Now compilers for that awful trio on Now 43 of Adam Rickitt-Lolly-Cartoons all in a row :manson: And in terms of britpop/indie it was a definite downturn too - Gomez and Cast?! Who the hell let them on? I swear that Gomez song wasn't even close to being a hit too. Shockingly bad song.

 

For me, 43 and 44 (despite it being the best-selling ever) was a bit of a downturn and I don't play either that much these days. 45 was a step in the right direction again, some really great songs on there. 46 was okay but I hated the dancier second disc, never paid much attention to that one. 47 is excellent too. I know what you mean about the post-47 ones though, there was a bit of a massive drop in quality from 47 to 48 for some reason and it kind of wobbled from then onwards, although I did like 50. The next high quality one for me was probably 56, which has some stonking pop gems on.

 

I can appreciate your criticisms of Now 43, that horror trio was indeed a massive low point. I guess Britpop in general had almost completely died out by 1999, funnily enough I remember that Gomez song really well - we used to sing it in the playground at school :lol: On inspection it seems like it wasn't much of a hit at all, and I can't think why on earth we all knew it so well (note - didn't like it, his gruff voice was just fun to imitate). We'd break into song every time somebody was having a fight and said 'bring it on mate' or something! Cast never had any redeeming features for me, they very much rode the coattails of the success of Britpop without actually ever releasing anything truly of note themselves.

 

Obviously I completely disagree with your opinions on the dance disc of Now 46, I thought it was great! the 47 disc two is probably unbeatable for me though, I could listen to it all the way through easily without skipping (ok, maybe I'd skip the fake version of Who Let The Dogs Out :lol:). 48 was definitely a step down - disc 1 was packed full of average manufactured pop and whilst disc 2 was a lot more varied, there aren't many songs on there that I fondly remember - only really the Texas song and the dance trio of Planet Funk, Safri Duo and Dario G.

I can appreciate your criticisms of Now 43, that horror trio was indeed a massive low point. I guess Britpop in general had almost completely died out by 1999, funnily enough I remember that Gomez song really well - we used to sing it in the playground at school :lol: On inspection it seems like it wasn't much of a hit at all, and I can't think why on earth we all knew it so well (note - didn't like it, his gruff voice was just fun to imitate). We'd break into song every time somebody was having a fight and said 'bring it on mate' or something! Cast never had any redeeming features for me, they very much rode the coattails of the success of Britpop without actually ever releasing anything truly of note themselves.

 

Obviously I completely disagree with your opinions on the dance disc of Now 46, I thought it was great! the 47 disc two is probably unbeatable for me though, I could listen to it all the way through easily without skipping (ok, maybe I'd skip the fake version of Who Let The Dogs Out :lol:). 48 was definitely a step down - disc 1 was packed full of average manufactured pop and whilst disc 2 was a lot more varied, there aren't many songs on there that I fondly remember - only really the Texas song and the dance trio of Planet Funk, Safri Duo and Dario G.

Yeah, it's true that Britpop had died out by then but there was still some dregs doing well in the charts. I just think it was a really poor selection from that genre, bar Blur. For me it would have been better if they put Catatonia's Dead From The Waist Down (which I adore, it reached #7 and Catatonia were included on 39 and 40 so I don't know why it wasn't on there), Suede's Electricity (another song they ignored even though Suede were on other Now albums) or even the Super Furry Animals with Northern Lites (although I'm not sure they had the rights, I have it on a Smash Hits compilation from the same time period). And I don't understand why they held back Shania Twain, Britney Spears and Sixpence None The Richer to Now 44, so random and it would have made Now 43 a lot better for me also. Now that I think about it, it also probably didn't help that two of my favourite songs back then - TLC's No Scrubs and Hepburn's I Quit (yes, I was a loon for girlbands in 1999!) didn't make it on in terms of my enjoyment of it.

 

Yes, Disc 2 of Now 47 is quite good. Although I have a minor gripe there too - WHY did they include the pre-release Walk Of Life (which flopped about a month after it was out) to the far superior career higlight that was Something Deep Inside for Billie Piper? Sorry, but these things bug me everytime I listen to it so it's nice to get them off my chest! :lol: Apart from that it's good though, I would probably only skip Steps (awful), Darude (don't get it, Sandstorm was alright though), Azzido da Bass (headache-inducing) and B-Boyz. Yes, despite my trance-hating, I even like the trance cover of Duran Duran, shockingly enough! :heehee:

 

I prefer Disc 1 of 48 to the second, actually. The Samantha Mumba and Britney Spears tracks there are probably two of my favourite pop songs of the early 00s, and Nelly Furtado, Shaggy, Gorillaz and Emma Bunton are all good. Disc 2 had a lot of bore "rock" on it and it's probably a challenge to stay awake through the first four songs, and while it gets better afterwards only Feeder, Jakatta, Melanie B and Mya are really highlights for me. Apart from those songs I mentioned it's consistently mediocre to awful though. That Dario G cover of The Cranberries is a particular lowlight for me, I'm afraid :( Although I don't even like the original anyway...

Edited June 15, 201114 yr by superbossanova

Yeah, it's true that Britpop had died out by then but there was still some dregs doing well in the charts. I just think it was a really poor selection from that genre, bar Blur. For me it would have been better if they put Catatonia's Dead From The Waist Down (which I adore, it reached #7 and Catatonia were included on 39 and 40 so I don't know why it wasn't on there), Suede's Electricity (another song they ignored even though Suede were on other Now albums) or even the Super Furry Animals with Northern Lites (although I'm not sure they had the rights, I have it on a Smash Hits compilation from the same time period). And I don't understand why they held back Shania Twain, Britney Spears and Sixpence None The Richer to Now 44, so random and it would have made Now 43 a lot better for me also. Now that I think about it, it also probably didn't help that two of my favourite songs back then - TLC's No Scrubs and Hepburn's I Quit (yes, I was a loon for girlbands in 1999!) didn't make it on in terms of my enjoyment of it.

 

Yes, Disc 2 of Now 47 is quite good. Although I have a minor gripe there too - WHY did they include the pre-release Walk Of Life (which flopped about a month after it was out) to the far superior career higlight that was Something Deep Inside for Billie Piper? Sorry, but these things bug me everytime I listen to it so it's nice to get them off my chest! :lol: Apart from that it's good though, I would probably only skip Steps (awful), Darude (don't get it, Sandstorm was alright though), Azzido da Bass (headache-inducing) and B-Boyz. Yes, despite my trance-hating, I even like the trance cover of Duran Duran, shockingly enough! :heehee:

 

I prefer Disc 1 of 48 to the second, actually. The Samantha Mumba and Britney Spears tracks there are probably two of my favourite pop songs of the early 00s, and Nelly Furtado, Shaggy, Gorillaz and Emma Bunton are all good. Disc 2 had a lot of bore "rock" on it and it's probably a challenge to stay awake through the first four songs, and while it gets better afterwards only Feeder, Jakatta, Melanie B and Mya are really highlights for me. Apart from those songs I mentioned it's consistently mediocre to awful though. That Dario G cover of The Cranberries is a particular lowlight for me, I'm afraid :( Although I don't even like the original anyway...

 

I loved Dead From The Waist Down and No Scrubs too. Less so Electricity but both appeared on either Hits or Top of the Pops compilations I bought at the time so it made no difference to me (ah the days where there were a number of different chart compilation series' to choose from :drama:). No Scrubs was a big miss on all of them though. Indeed, it made no sense to hold those three big hits back, likewise Steps' Tragedy which should really have been on Now 42 or 43 at the very latest if they were after the Better Best Forgotten exclusive for 42.

 

Yeah I also agree about the Billie Piper song, I guess they thought it would be a big hit and thought it would be an exclusive, even I recall being shocked when it missed the top 20! I love Feel The Beat far more than Sandstorm so no complaints there, agreed about the other songs though :lol: Ordinary World was one of my favourite songs of 2000, fantastic well accomplished trance cover :wub:

 

Dream To Me was another favourite of mine, but it was my sort of music back then. As for the Gorillaz song, I know the Ed Case remix was the one mostly played on the radio but I'd take the original over it anyday!

What I mean about the Internet era is, why would people wait for the Now! albums to cherry pick their favourite songs when they can do so online at any time?

I loved Dead From The Waist Down and No Scrubs too. Less so Electricity but both appeared on either Hits or Top of the Pops compilations I bought at the time so it made no difference to me (ah the days where there were a number of different chart compilation series' to choose from :drama:). No Scrubs was a big miss on all of them though. Indeed, it made no sense to hold those three big hits back, likewise Steps' Tragedy which should really have been on Now 42 or 43 at the very latest if they were after the Better Best Forgotten exclusive for 42.

 

Yeah I also agree about the Billie Piper song, I guess they thought it would be a big hit and thought it would be an exclusive, even I recall being shocked when it missed the top 20! I love Feel The Beat far more than Sandstorm so no complaints there, agreed about the other songs though :lol: Ordinary World was one of my favourite songs of 2000, fantastic well accomplished trance cover :wub:

 

Dream To Me was another favourite of mine, but it was my sort of music back then. As for the Gorillaz song, I know the Ed Case remix was the one mostly played on the radio but I'd take the original over it anyday!

I do wish I had bought more of the Hits compilations, but I never knew when they were out! Plus the constant rebranding didn't help. I only have about four of them, and only one of them after 1998! I have loads of Top of the Pops compilations though as I always saw them advertised in the TOTP magazines I bought so it was easy for me to keep track of them. But the TOTP series was always far more similar to the Now albums than the Hits series. I only have two Smash Hits albums but they're even MORE similar to the Now albums with some utter pop flops thrown in - and I'm not just talking minor flops, I'm talking songs that missed the top 20, and a handful that missed the top 40 - and mostly deservedly, I should add!

 

I wasn't shocked when Walk of Life flopped as much as I was gutted :( I didn't care about her first album much bar Honey To The B, which was lovely, but I really thought she was going up a notch with Day & Night and Something Deep Inside both being pop gems for me and I loved the R&B touch she added to her music. I didn't like WOL anywhere near as much but it just annoyed me to see all the wasted potential, gah! I think the same with Samantha Mumba, who was totally f***ed over by her record label even though she never actually had a flop single - really unfair her second album was canned - and had far more potential for future prospects than most other pop acts of that time.

 

What I mean about the Internet era is, why would people wait for the Now! albums to cherry pick their favourite songs when they can do so online at any time?

Oh right. I see your point there. I guess the cherry-picking is done by a different kind of person though - someone with a bit more of a casual interest, I guess. That's the only reason I can think of really. I'm sure most of the kids do already have all the songs they want.

I do wish I had bought more of the Hits compilations, but I never knew when they were out! Plus the constant rebranding didn't help. I only have about four of them, and only one of them after 1998! I have loads of Top of the Pops compilations though as I always saw them advertised in the TOTP magazines I bought so it was easy for me to keep track of them. But the TOTP series was always far more similar to the Now albums than the Hits series. I only have two Smash Hits albums but they're even MORE similar to the Now albums with some utter pop flops thrown in - and I'm not just talking minor flops, I'm talking songs that missed the top 20, and a handful that missed the top 40 - and mostly deservedly, I should add!

 

I wasn't shocked when Walk of Life flopped as much as I was gutted :( I didn't care about her first album much bar Honey To The B, which was lovely, but I really thought she was going up a notch with Day & Night and Something Deep Inside both being pop gems for me and I loved the R&B touch she added to her music. I didn't like WOL anywhere near as much but it just annoyed me to see all the wasted potential, gah! I think the same with Samantha Mumba, who was totally f***ed over by her record label even though she never actually had a flop single - really unfair her second album was canned - and had far more potential for future prospects than most other pop acts of that time.

 

I now own all of them from Hits 96 through to the final one - Summer Hits 06, but I agree that the rebranding was a pain - I liked when they started again at Hits 50, although they literally did put 50 songs on it so many of them were chopped to buggery on 50 and 51. But I pretty much bought all of the Now and Hits albums on the day of release from March 1999 onwards - it's what I saved all of my pocket money for during the year :lol:

 

I'd go as far to say I prefer some of the Hits albums to the Now ones. Hits 55 was a particular favourite of mine - it missed LOADS of the late 2002/early 2003 hits that Now couldn't get the rights to - Beautiful, Stole, I Begin To Wonder, The Opera Song, Family Portrait, Jenny From The Block, Complicated, Born To Try, You're A Superstar, Scandalous, A Little Less Conversation and Spirit In The Sky to name just a few...we're lucky now that Hits has folded the Now albums are far more representative of the time period - it's just a shame that the charts at the moment are so one dimensional meaning that the Now albums are by default :(

I now own all of them from Hits 96 through to the final one - Summer Hits 06, but I agree that the rebranding was a pain - I liked when they started again at Hits 50, although they literally did put 50 songs on it so many of them were chopped to buggery on 50 and 51. But I pretty much bought all of the Now and Hits albums on the day of release from March 1999 onwards - it's what I saved all of my pocket money for during the year :lol:

 

I'd go as far to say I prefer some of the Hits albums to the Now ones. Hits 55 was a particular favourite of mine - it missed LOADS of the late 2002/early 2003 hits that Now couldn't get the rights to - Beautiful, Stole, I Begin To Wonder, The Opera Song, Family Portrait, Jenny From The Block, Complicated, Born To Try, You're A Superstar, Scandalous, A Little Less Conversation and Spirit In The Sky to name just a few...we're lucky now that Hits has folded the Now albums are far more representative of the time period - it's just a shame that the charts at the moment are so one dimensional meaning that the Now albums are by default :(

 

I have pretty much every HITS album, right from the very first in 1984 (The HITS Album 1) to the last two (Essential Hits/Summer Hits 06). The first one i bought was The HITS Album 6 (1987), since got the earlier ones

second-hand. A very good series as you usually got tracks which never made the NOW album so it was always something to have.

I recommend seeking it out the earlier ones if you're a collector.

 

I have every single NOW album (1-78) plus the millennium editions, and a few of the 30th anniversary series. I have a couple of others in the series, but mostly the regular numbered editions.

 

I don't understand how these still sell?!

I felt with some of the old Now! albums (like the 60's) that the 2nd disc was always very indie or darker than the first! Not anymore!

I know it'll never happen but I'd love to see Blue's I Can on here! It was more successful than some songs they put on these, plus Blue were always included before with pretty much every release!

I know it'll never happen but I'd love to see Blue's I Can on here! It was more successful than some songs they put on these, plus Blue were always included before with pretty much every release!

 

If the 'hits' albums were still going, 'I Can' would be one of the first few tracks on Disc 1. I could just see it now. Damn, I miss them CDs.