gooddelta

Yes I loved it too, it's the first one I think I bought full price from the series rather than waiting for a reduction as I was so impressed by the tracklist. Some great pop remixes on it, and dance songs that didn't make it onto the main Now.

Set You Free to be fair was dual repromoted in 2001. CD1 lead with the Rob Searle remix and CD2 with the 1995 hit version, and Kelly Llorenna performed the original on Top Of The Pops at the time too. I expect Now chose to include the original hit version over the remix as 50 was such a celebratory kind of release so every familiar big hit helped to sell it. Now Dance 2002 featured the Rob Searle remix so they were aware of its existence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

That list is depressing for sure. It's crazy that only three artists this year have reached the top ten for the first time (Bella Kay, Prospa & Cloonee and ANOTR feat. 54 Ultra). Labels and A&R are surely absolutely tearing their hair out at the state of things, nothing is connecting outside of the big superstar releases, and even then many of those are underperforming against expectation too so we're stuck with old revivals and the same song at No.1 all year, it's actually crazy. Surprised the BBC, Guardian and Music Week etc aren't all over this with thinkpieces. I do wonder what has so drastically changed, it doesn't feel like there has been a single gigantic new 2026 release so far and we are in late July.

They've cast Paul Ready in this in a very similar way to his character in Motherland, i.e. a bit of a pushover. It's interesting that we have him and Diane Morgan in this while three other Motherland cast members are now in Amandaland. The cast has split off but various members are still working together. However, where I loved Kevin in Motherland (despite being a similar character in some ways he was more likeable in his desperation to fit in and bounced off the other cast better), I agree that Michael doesn't add a lot to this show other than a plot device of having a son. Diane Morgan and Sue Johnston are wonderful in it, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it so much but they're both such talents that maybe it was hard for it to miss. Sue! Sue! Sue! made me laugh every time.

I liked some of the other singles from Rita's debut, especially Radioactive which deserved a higher peak, but R.I.P. wasn't up to much for me so not sure I'd have it a lot higher.

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...

That's good news. Oh dear at my 2008 posts though. Longing for the days that 'indie won't rule the charts' 😂 2008 was more or less the last hurrah in the charts for it anyway, so I must have killed it off with that post.

Somethin' Stupid. A rather one note performance from Nicole, Robbie sounds nice on it but it's hardly essential.

I've put a 5-star review on iTunes to try and balance out these negatives, although it hasn't been published yet. It's not a 5-star album, but it's by no means a 1-star album, Disc 1 is a fair job for a start considering what they probably had available. The Now compilers won't be reading the 1-star reviews and even if they did see them they really won't care or take anything on board as feedback, partly because their hands will be tied anyway as to what they are able to include. However unfortunately consumers might well be reading them and be put off buying them, leading to even weaker sales and ultimately lowering Now's budget and making their job even harder to license hits. All the bad reviews are doing is hastening the decline of the brand and I don't want the series to fold before they get all the Yearbooks out.

Bravo Hits hasn't got ANOTR or Prospa either and they tend to be heavy on the dance, even dance that hasn't made the German charts they use for filler, and ANOTR has gone top 70 there so would be a prime pick. So perhaps licensing wasn't yet open to the compilers of Now and Bravo for these songs yet and they will be on Now 125 instead. I'm sure they will be on the MOS Annual too, no doubt there is some holding back from Sony going on of songs for that to give people more of a reason to buy it. The Eurovision exclusions are more puzzling to me, particularly Bangaranga. However this too is not on Bravo, and it got to No.1 in Germany, so who knows what is happening with licensing there.

I adore The Wrong Place, I voted for that in 2021 (having not been fussed on Release Me). I love the lyrics too and it was completely robbed with 3 points from the public. O Julissi is incredibly unique and charming indeed, I loved that. Judy Et Cie sounds nice, and good storytelling, surprised the juries didn't rank that higher.

Congratulations Spain, a just result after that performance for sure.

Hard to root for Argentina here, aggressive play and have had almost no possession. That red card was deserved, hopefully Spain can finish this off quickly now, they've been super unlucky not to score.

A very middling and forgettable No.1 for me but it was nice for Eva Simons to actually get a UK No.1 three years after many BuzzJack posters predicted she would with a song that never charted in the end. I far preferred the following will.i.am single, Scream & Shout, with another No.1 in the middle for him on Hall Of Fame to essentially give him a hat-trick.

That was Vanessa, and she's gone already :(

The 2001 show was strong and covered all bases pretty well compared to 2000 with a lot of the guests being behind the biggest hits. I think I’d have paid a bit more attention to Can’t Get You Out Of My Head but at least it opened the Big Hits show. I do love that story of how It Wasn’t Me came to be a hit, through internet sharing of an album track and then organic growth. Almost an early viral hit. All Rise is interesting in that the harmonica part and backing track was nearly wholesale lifted by Stargate from another song they had a hit in Norway with in 1999 called Not For The Dough by Multicyde. It was a little bit cheeky to just reuse it but I guess it was their property! Funny that the show made it out like that part (which ended up becoming a distinct part of Blue’s own sound too) was just something that came out of nowhere. I noticed some of the later year hits were finally widescreen so I suppose the show eventually went widescreen during the summer, maybe with the move to Television Centre they were talking about? All of the performances are starting to look a lot more modern now in the way they are filmed.

I liked Payphone myself, I do take the point about the whiny chorus vocal, but I thought the production and melody was strong and I found Wiz Khalifa's rap quite a nice laidback summery addition to it. But sure it works fine without it too. Funnily enough Payphone is their biggest song on Spotify, above Moves Like Jagger (2.7bn streams to 2.2bn) so while that song opened the door, Payphone was certainly hugely popular in its own right and remains so. I don't really consider it a halo hit (for me those are songs that pop in at No.1 off the back of a bigger song and then quickly disappear), more that MLJ reopened a door which had very nearly closed for them to continue the success they were having previously. A bit like Kylie's singles that followed Spinning Around in that manner.

Staying with Shakedown.

Not Vanessa 😭 one of my go to uplifiting anthems! Sticking with The Bravery.

Unexpectedly one of the best games of the tournament, it would have been such a worthy final. Nice consolation for England to get third place and Bellingham with that last ditch goal. Watch tomorrow's final be a low scoring snoozer now. Impressive win against the team that had been expected to win the tournament, and with all the chat of England never being able to beat teams ranked higher than them.

On the plus side, I have now finally achieved it all All that matters anyway (still missing a few lower half final positions).