In an era when classic albums (and plenty that weren't much cop to begin with, to be honest) are being re-issued left, right and centre, the humble compilation album has, it seems to me, had a bit of a raw deal. But no more! Yes, 80s pop fans everywhere will be rejoicing at the news that EMI have this week re-released the original volume in the Now That's What I Call Music series, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its original release. So, for the first time ever, Now 1 is available in the new-fangled compact disc format. Fancy!For those of you who weren't weaned on these albums, the Now That's What I Call Music series traditionally provides a snapshot of what the UK pop charts look like in the month or two before any given Now release. Released at the fag end of 1983, Volume 1 had an especially strong track listing, bearing in mind that it had the pick of the whole of the preceeding year's chart output to choose from (rather than, as with later albums, just the last few months' worth). Here's how the runners and riders lined up:
Side 1
1. Phil Collins - You Can't Hurry Love
2. Duran Duran - Is There Something I Should Know
3. UB40 - Red Red Wine
4. Limahl - Only For Love
5. Heaven 17 - Temptation
6. K.C. & The Sunshine Band - Give It Up
7. Malcolm McClaren - Double Dutch
8. Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse Of The Heart
Side 2
9. Culture Club - Karma Chameleon
10. Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance
11. Kajagoogoo - Too Shy
12. Mike Oldfield - Moonlight Shadow
13. Men At Work - Down Under
14. Rock Steady Crew - Hey You (Rock Steady Crew)
15. Rod Stewart - Baby Jane
16. Paul Young - Wherever I Lay My Hat
Side 3
1. New Edition - Candy Girl
2. Kajagoogoo - Big Apple
3. Tina Turner - Let's Stay Together
4. Human League - Fascination
5. Howard Jones - New Song
6. UB40 - Please Don't Make Me Cry
7. Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack - Tonight I Celebrate My Love
Side 4
8. Tracey Ullman - They Don't Know
9. Will Powers - Kissing With Confidence
10. Genesis - That's All
11. The Cure - The Love Cats
12. Simple Minds - Waterfront
13. Madness - The Sun And The Rain
14. Culture Club - Victims
And now all this can be yours - yours! - on the fancy two-disc re-release. I'll certainly be buying myself a copy anyway - at the time the album came out originally my pocket money just wouldn't stretch to it, and I had to wait until Now 2 before I was finally able to get my grubby little mitts on one of these albums, when I received it as a birthday pressie. (First album I ever owned, that was, and I played it to death!)
Anyway, no mp3s today, but here're some of my favourite Now 1-related vids.
Malcolm McClaren - Double Dutch
Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance
The Rock Steady Crew - Hey You (The Rock Steady Crew)
Tracey Ullman - They Don't Know
Buy the album
11 comments:
just love the way Macca shows up at the end of "They Don't Know" to add a dash of star power. I'm (still) really just a fool for that.
result!
Think I must have been too old, or too bleedin cynical to find much on ntwicm, shame really.
Collins, Heavens 17, Human League, Ullman, Cure & Madness - they're ok.
Actually, it is a shame; I tend to either love or hate music - need some of the liberal-democrat ethos.
I recently got asked to find a rip of the Now 25 yrs 3CD thing, before release, & dutifully did so; finding out while checking the very few decent tunes that the whole thing was just some guy's home-made version... culled from the web after seeing a track listing - very strange, it musta taken (relatively) ages.
The early ntwic ad's were ace tho, in a Barratt Homes fashion. (sigh)... whatever happened to Slade?... & Glitter's not on t'wireless any more, oh 'eck.
Wot, no Smiths?! Arf!
PS: According to this, wot I am currently reading, Stiff Records overdubbed Tracey Ullman's vocal onto Kirsty MacColl's original backing track for that record. The hi-pitched 'Baby!' half way through is Kirsty (uncredited). True.
Stone the flamin' crows, Ailse!
Poor fat Boy George. Incarcerated for torturing a rent-boy.
Do you really want to hurt me? Too fuckin' right sonny.
It doesn't get much better than Kissing With Confidence.
Brilliant
x
freaky! i was just talking about THIS VERY RECORD (i.e. the original vinyl one) on Thursday night over some beer and wine, and there you were posting about it at ALMOST THE EXACT SAME MOMENT. Sometimes life if excitingly spooky with those coincidence things.
Woah, that was the very first compilation album I ever got (on cassette! Four of them I think there were!) and, of course, not having much else to listen to, I learnt all those songs by heart. Scary thing is, I still remember them.
Carry on.
I spose I should say in support of ntwicm, that regardless of content, they were a huge, huge improvement on compilations around when I was a kid; woolies & more were full of 'hot hits' & similarly titled volumes ( usually with bikini'd dolly-birds on the cover ) that actually had hastily concocted cover versions, tho' the sleeve didn't reveal that fact.
Not to mention churlish indie snobbery...
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