7 minutes ago, awardinary said:

Tell us all please about all the impeccable 5 star reviews that your bespoke business has? The point? There isn't one.

This is not a business masterclass and negative iTunes reviews only drive this "business" further into the ground so that it's gone forever. Is that what you want to happen Hadji?

Can you honestly believe that your complaints, whether on this forum, or anywhere else you may choose to share them on the internet, are really going to make a blind bit of difference to the "business model" of a compilation series that has existed longer than you have been alive on this planet?

If my business was getting negative reviews, I’d stand up and do something about it rather than sit back and do nothing and let it get run into the ground. Negative reviews are not putting Now out of business, streaming is. No wonder none of their pointless spin-offs are doing nothing because people are waking up and are sick of them repeating the same songs over and over again. If you wanna do a spin-off for everyone, do something that hasn’t been done before rather than something that’s been done to death. When I bought the 1991 yearbook, the person who served me asked what their obsession with George Michael being track 1 is. I said the label have been obsessed with him being track 1 since he died. Also, which is it? One minute you’re saying that my negative reviews are putting someone out of business and you’re also saying that my negative reviews aren’t making a difference to a 43 year old compilation series

Edited Tuesday at 01:045 days by Hadji

Still there is a somewhat gain in buying physicals also in younger people. And I still can't hear that they should keep hits for later issues. Now ANOTR and Prospa are peakig, so it would help to have these songs NOW on the compilation to increase sale and not in the winter edition when the hype is gone. They seem to miss also major trends in music recently and did nearly not include any of the ALT-pop chart hits - if Bella Kay is not signable, than try to sign at least Stella Lefty, Temper City, Alyssa Grace or Audrey Hobert. And please fill the CD's completely - if I buy such a double CD, I would like to have at least 150 minutes playtime. There is a lot fresh pop stuff to choose from, eventhough no chart hit, which should not be to to expensive to license. It seems the compilers are a bit too lazy to look out which might be trending in the future. Just relying on radio playlists is not sufficient as the younger generation hardly listens to linear radio nowadays.

I do agree with many of the points raised but I also think it's important to note that Now albums still retail at £12.99, whereas e.g. Bravo in Germany is €22.99 (£19.50). That is a much larger budget for them to include space fillers and other songs. I think I'd be far more critical of Now if the prices had climbed to £20. I bought Now 46 in 2000 for £14.99, 26 years later I'm paying £2 less for the equivalent summer release, whereas by inflation terms it should be nearly £33 by now.

CDs are more or less the only product that hasn't risen in line with inflation (in the UK anyway) and they remain great value. However, it means profit margins are wafer thin so every tracklist is a balancing act. If they did increase the price to £19.99 then sure they could fill it up more, maybe get 2 or 3 more big hits too, but sales are already so low so I expect they have worked out that such a price point would put off a large percentage of remaining collectors and make it unviable. So a few hits get delayed adds to make licensing cheaper, others don't appear at all etc...

8 hours ago, Hadji said:

If my business was getting negative reviews, I’d stand up and do something about it rather than sit back and do nothing and let it get run into the ground. Negative reviews are not putting Now out of business, streaming is. No wonder none of their pointless spin-offs are doing nothing because people are waking up and are sick of them repeating the same songs over and over again. If you wanna do a spin-off for everyone, do something that hasn’t been done before rather than something that’s been done to death. When I bought the 1991 yearbook, the person who served me asked what their obsession with George Michael being track 1 is. I said the label have been obsessed with him being track 1 since he died. Also, which is it? One minute you’re saying that my negative reviews are putting someone out of business and you’re also saying that my negative reviews aren’t making a difference to a 43 year old compilation series

But if they can’t afford to do anything about it, what then?

57 minutes ago, T Boy said:

But if they can’t afford to do anything about it, what then?

They can. On Now 124, they quite clearly chose not to include dance music when it’s a summer edition and dance music is very popular in the summer

10 minutes ago, Hadji said:

They can. On Now 124, they quite clearly chose not to include dance music when it’s a summer edition and dance music is very popular in the summer

But how do you know this? What would their rationale be for doing this?

16 minutes ago, Hadji said:

They can. On Now 124, they quite clearly chose not to include dance music when it’s a summer edition and dance music is very popular in the summer

We have Calvin Harris, Sonny Fodera and Chemical Brothers, so dance music hasn't been excluded. I expect it's just that a few of the dance hits probably weren't up for licensing yet.

When the album tracklist was compiled Free Your Mind and Talk To You would have both been hovering around the low top 20 or just outside area too, so they might have decided to wait to see if they took off more. Alternatively, Sony may have decided to hold them for The Annual, and not offered them to the Now compilers.

Now 123 had six dance hits in a row, so there's no reason they'd suddenly decide to ban dance for no reason.

There will be a reason for every decision and the only people that know it are the compilers, not us.

Edited Tuesday at 10:294 days by gooddelta

12 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

We have Calvin Harris, Sonny Fodera and Chemical Brothers, so dance music hasn't been excluded. I expect it's just that a few of the dance hits probably weren't up for licensing yet.

When the album tracklist was compiled Free Your Mind and Talk To You would have both been hovering around the low top 20 or just outside area too, so they might have decided to wait to see if they took off more. Alternatively, Sony may have decided to hold them for The Annual, and not offered them to the Now compilers.

Now 123 had six dance hits in a row, so there's no reason they'd suddenly decide to ban dance for no reason.

There will be a reason for every decision and the only people that know it are the compilers, not us.

You forgot On 2nite. Another dance song that missed out and as for RAYE, she had 2 songs post-WIMH and they both missed out

In your opinion Hadji, what is the best compiled Now That's What I Call Music compilation where you feel the compilers did a decent job at including as many hits at the time with a variety of genres well represented, together with a beautiful artwork?

I ask @T Boy the same question just so we have something to compare Hadji's response to.

1 minute ago, awardinary said:

In your opinion Hadji, what is the best compiled Now That's What I Call Music compilation where you feel the compilers did a decent job at including as many hits at the time with a variety of genres well represented, together with a beautiful artwork?

I ask @T Boy the same question just so we have something to compare Hadji's response to.

In this decade, I’d say Now 109 to Now 115 were all decent apart from the reuse of Tom Odell on 113. I could say Now 106 was bad but that weren’t their fault because of Now 105 being pushed back and they only had 2 months of hits to include in between

Edited Tuesday at 10:524 days by Hadji

6 minutes ago, Hadji said:

You forgot On 2nite. Another dance song that missed out

Again, it was charting low when this tracklist would have been compiled. I expect at least two of the three will be on Now 125 and let's face it, with the way the charts are so slow now, no doubt they will all be top 40 until Christmas songs push them out, so they won't look out of place on that album either, as they are all still peaking now. If they are not on Now 125 but appear on The Annual, then we will have our answer, that Sony decided to hold them for that instead.

Some of the dance tracks could also be in reserve for the Ministry of Sound Annual that comes at the end of the year. It wouldn't surprise me if certain songs only allow one appearance on Compilation CDs now-a-days. @Hadji you don't work for NOW, you don't work for their record labels, you don't work for any other record label, you don't work for A&R, Management, Licensing, or anything else like that. So you need to STOP thinking you have all the answers for this.

NOW has such limited resources now, and things have changed since 2016, let alone 2006/1996/1986.

I'm just happy so many songs that are only digital/streamable get some sort of physical release thanks to NOW. Could there be improvements? Yes! Every 124 volumes have room for improvement - but it's not their fault (or not ALL their fault). Just be happy they still release physical copies. NOW US gave up, South Africa only do playlists, and other countries gave up loooooong ago.

They could easily reuse the old chart re-entries as filler too as they’re easy to license but they choose not to

1 minute ago, Hadji said:

They could easily reuse the old chart re-entries as filler too as they’re easy to license but they choose not to

Why? You just said you didn't like Another Love being reused on Now 113.

Surely they have taken the right approach by only using the older songs that weren't previously on Now, Go and Beauty And A Beat. Collectors will have the other recent chart re-entries on previous Nows and would surely prefer new songs in their collection.

I was very happy to get Chemical Brothers on the last volume. Less so about Justin's old song.

Just now, gooddelta said:

Why? You just said you didn't like Another Love being reused on Now 113.

Surely they have taken the right approach by only using the older songs that weren't previously on Now, Go and Beauty And A Beat. Collectors will have the other recent chart re-entries on previous Nows and would surely prefer new songs in their collection.

That part yes. I only agree with old songs being included if they haven’t appeared before as you pointed out Beauty And A Beat, Sure Thing and Go. They did miss out Every Breath You Take off Now 123 when that re-entered earlier this year due to Stranger Things. I do disagree with them including old songs if they’ve already appeared ie Live Forever, Another Love and Murder On The Dancefloor. Another thing that ruins the albums is who they choose as track 1. Calvin Harris kicking off Now 121 spoiled the album and George Michael kicking off all their spin-offs ruins the albums too, especially when Queen get ignored as a result

Edited Tuesday at 11:114 days by Hadji

3 minutes ago, Hadji said:

They could easily reuse the old chart re-entries as filler too as they’re easy to license but they choose not to

YOU JUST SAID YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO DO THAT!!!

Hadji - stop being so critical! We've had several threads about the NOW albums, and I don't think you've said ANYTHING positive in any of them. Why even bother talking about these if all you're gonna do is constantly moan about them. I'm getting so annoyed by you! You drag down each page with your negative criticism.

Also - leaving 1 star reviews on iTunes is does more damage than anything else!! There'll be a time when we reach NOW 135 and it'll be one hit and 35 flops, "radio hits", etc. and you're gonna miss the effort they put in now.

For reference. Here's an example of what you could say:

"Oh cool, shame they couldn't get Harry Styles. But love the inclusion of Katseye, Jennifer Lopez, and glad Bruno finally got included. I was worried for a bit. And great inclusions of Chemical Brothers & Justin Bieber's older tracks. Nice to see them finally make their first NOW appearance. Can't wait to get it".

That's it - no "it's got no Rap acts", "where's the dance tracks", "okay - so what about NOW 125 and the release of Yearbook 3002", or "idiots - they releasing the same week as Moana 4: Surfing some more".

Another Love and Murder On The Dancefloor had at least re-peaked so I didn't mind that, maybe their policy at the moment is to only include old songs reaching or matching new highs or that they haven't featured before. I don't think adding old No.1s popping back for another run outside the top ten (like many from Stranger Things) would be a great addition to the albums personally.

Just now, SuperWooper said:

YOU JUST SAID YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO DO THAT!!!

Hadji - stop being so critical! We've had several threads about the NOW albums, and I don't think you've said ANYTHING positive in any of them. Why even bother talking about these if all you're gonna do is constantly moan about them. I'm getting so annoyed by you! You drag down each page with your negative criticism.

Also - leaving 1 star reviews on iTunes is does more damage than anything else!! There'll be a time when we reach NOW 135 and it'll be one hit and 35 flops, "radio hits", etc. and you're gonna miss the effort they put in now.

For reference. Here's an example of what you could say:

"Oh cool, shame they couldn't get Harry Styles. But love the inclusion of Katseye, Jennifer Lopez, and glad Bruno finally got included. I was worried for a bit. And great inclusions of Chemical Brothers & Justin Bieber's older tracks. Nice to see them finally make their first NOW appearance. Can't wait to get it".

That's it - no "it's got no Rap acts", "where's the dance tracks", "okay - so what about NOW 125 and the release of Yearbook 3002", or "idiots - they releasing the same week as Moana 4: Surfing some more".

I just said if you pay attention that I only accept old songs appearing if they haven’t appeared before 🤦‍♂️ and I don’t criticise all their albums. I love their yearbooks, extras and vaults

Edited Tuesday at 11:144 days by Hadji

Just now, Hadji said:

I just said if you pay attention that I only accept old songs appearing if they haven’t appeared before 🤦‍♂️

I don't care. NOW have done it in the past - waaaaaay before streaming was a thing. Look at 34/57 - Peter Andre. 2/26 - Frankie Goes to Hollywood. 6/23 - Simple Minds.