Back to NOW! – Détails, épisodes et analyse

We’re going where the sun shines brightly,

We’re going where the sea is blue…

1986 really was very Cliff. He had celebrated his first No1 of the 80s with the cast of The Young Ones, featured in some devastating billboard action in the (rerun) finale of the aforementioned BBC comedy show, been covered by the TVam rat and gerbil, and even had one of his most famous songs feature on a rather unique (and quite frankly ghastly) novelty Euro hit. And in July of the very same year, this very prominent track (it’s Summer Holiday folks!), Cliff’s ubiquitous seasonal anthem to double decker buses and Una Stubbs, was sitting proudly as track 1 side 2 on the latest NOW, That’s What I Call Music album.

But wait!

The gloriously designed blue sky and beach umbrella that housed the latest variously compiled pop selection was not to feature such 1986 chart toppers as Wham!, Dr and the Medics and Chris De Burgh(!). This wasn’t the impending 7th volume of the (rapidly becoming) world famous series of compilations, this was NOW - The Summer Album, and it was…well, different.

Just as the wonderful team had done in November 1985 with NOW - The Christmas Album, here was the brand’s second venture into a ‘theme’. And what a theme it was! Four decades of summer anthems, summer hits, sizzling memories - phew what a scorcher!

But as it transpires, with guest Tim Worthington, we discover that the album announced from the pages of Smash Hits in July 1986 (featuring the most summery of acts, The Jesus and Mary Chain!) was much more than that just sun loungers and factor 30. Because growing up in the 70s/80s in the UK summer was often quite different indeed!

What NOW - The Summer Album perhaps did do, was provide a template of summers we all wished we’d known; a sixties summer of love, a fifties summer of rock n roll, a seventies summer of…cricket (?) and of course an eighties summer of Radio One roadshows, and quite probably, traffic jams.

It was an album that also provided a range of genres, new bands from the past to discover and a template for all summer soundtracks to come.

So, dive back into an iconic chapter in the NOW series. Find out how some VERY big pop names appeared (TWICE!), why sound effects always make summer songs better, how some songs were longer (and shorter!) than others and why John Menzies probably didn’t anticipate how well this summer set would sell.

And importantly, remember your Plymouth dealer is, indeed, a dealing man.

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“What we’re gonna do right here is go back, way back!”

If you were really down with the cool kids in 1984, you would have most definitely have been passing around the school prized C90 cassettes featuring much copied Streetsounds compilations. And somewhere in there was Kurtis Blow’s AJ Scratch track with those immortal sampled words from the Jimmy Castor Bunch in 1972. Straight out onto The BMXs and down to throw some funky worm shapes on that strip of lino!

Or, in this writer’s case, 1984 was mainly spent in a bedroom hovering over the play and pause button to catch a clean edit (without Simon Bates) of Two Tribes, still at number one after 5 weeks! But which mix would we get this week? Now, THIS was anticipation, pop kids!

1984. A pop year of decadence, contradictions, conflict, controversy and coming of age. A year that authors (and the BBC) told us would feature impending, inevitable Armageddon. Annihilation, it turned out, came in the shape of a plethora of 12” mixes, plastic smiles, snoods, 808 drum machines, hairspray, neon and (red) balloons. How was it for you?

In the third decade of the 21st century, a time surely we wouldn’t (a) remember 1984 or (b) still be around to remember 1984, the team at NOW Music HQ presented the second in a (now) glorious series of curated Yearbooks. And what an album (and accompanying extra volume!) we have to rediscover. The sun is most definitely shining brighter than Doris Day!

So for this special episode we’re joined by two poptastic friends of the show to take a deep dive into 1984. Journalist, DJ and author Ian Wade and journalist, author and broadcaster Jude Rogers.

Jude can be found contributing musings and writing about music, culture and much more in The Guardian, Observer and The Quietus amongst many others. Her first (best selling!) book, The Sound of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives is available through White Rabbit books.

Ian has written for Classic Pop, Record Collector, The Quietus, Official Charts, Sunday Times Culture as well as doing time at such titles as Smash Hits and The Face many years ago. He has worked as a PR on BBC’s Later… with Jools Holland and occasionally DJs at Spiritland and Duckie. And his debut book 1984: The Year Pop went Queer is published by NineEight Books in July 2024.

And whilst we don’t take a forensic look at every one of the 80 tracks on the 1984 Yearbook (and the further 60 on the extra volume) we instead provide you with an opportunity to explore the sights, sounds, culture, music, genres, tribes and (school!) fashion that makes this year so thoroughly iconic for so many reasons.

Join us then, as we turn up the neon and dance through mutually agreed destruction in celebration of 1984! 

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La, La, La.

Autumn 2001. In many ways, it has been a challenging year. 5ive and Steps split, Hearsay don’t.

Pop, just like the most boybandish of the latest boybands, Blue is (all) on the rise. The new millennium has most definitely set up its shiny new stall and is fully decked out in its cargo pants, vest tops - and that is just the boys. Mobile phone ringtones were being catapulted into polyphonic ringtones thanks to those boffins at Nokia (who?) so that our train journeys became even more annoying.

And a significant cultural milestone was met. No, not the 1000th episode of Family Affairs on Channel 5 or the return of Crossroads (really?). 

November 2001 saw the release of the 50th volume of NOW! A half century of celebrating the variously compiled world of pop since 1983 and showing no signs of slipping away. In fact, NOW 50 was positively flying out of your local supermarket as the wonderful UK music buying public couldn’t get enough of the year’s biggest hits (and Victoria Beckham) as the album rocketed its way to a six times platinum No1 position as the 2nd biggest selling NOW EVER!

And was it any wonder? 44 Top Chart Hits from Kylie, Westlife, Britney, Destiny’s Child. 8 Number Ones, pop, rock, dance, animated building contractors, Austrian Schlager - this had it all! 

The singles chart was moving faster than a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire audience coughing fit with artists catapulting into (and often back out of) the Top 40 within minutes. 31 number ones in 12 months, with Ms Minogue coming out on top with the years biggest track and FOUR whole weeks at the top. How did we cope?

Joining me for this rollercoaster return to 2001 is music compiler, curator and author Lee Thompson. As the head of The Box music channel in 2001 he was instrumental in making and breaking many of these hits - yes he is to BLAME for the likes of DJ Otzi amongst others and openly admits it here!

Along the way we discover what was really going on at the HQ of The Box/Smash Hits in 2001, whose Smash Hits award turned up on Lee’s desk, Halloween School Discos(!) with Allstars, how Geri and Robbie channelled Led Zeppelin (possibly), how to pronounce ‘iio’ (probably) and some of those dazzling sales figures from the latest chart war between Kylie and Victoria (you may want to look away now listeners!)

As the latest NOW Millennium Yearbook testifies, 2001 was quite a year - and this ‘flawless’ (you’re welcome) episode for NOW 50 is a wonderful reminder of some fabulous pop times.

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It’s a Saturday night in April 1985 and a queue is gathering outside Raffles nightclub in, well pretty much every town and city across this sceptred isle. Feverishly excited boys and girls wait and dream of Malibu and coke, Quatro and ice, whilst expectant beams of pink neon shoot out from beyond the velvet rope and the intimidating bouncers (possibly both called Dave). 

Through the door, past the cloakroom, up the stairs and then it happens - the anthems of Saturday night come together with the vibrant buzz, dry ice and positively sticky underfloor carpet to create the magic of the weekend. This is CLUB CULTURE and the beats are going to hit you!

However, if you were too young to experience this evangelical experience of mid 80s provincial nightclubbing, then you needed a guiding hand to take you onto the metaphorical dancefloor. And in 1985, there was only one team that us teens would trust to keep us moving all night long (as long as it wasn’t too late and didn’t impact on a school night or watching The Tube.)

Step forward, NOW Dance - The 12” Mixes!

Following four genre defining compilation albums, 1985 saw the release of the first ever non-numbered NOW and it shone a disco filtered light across the club anthems of the mid 80s. And importantly, presented them in extended, longer, remixed and - yes - 12” form. 

Pop! Soul! Funk! Disco! Go-Go! Belouis Some! If they were big on the dancefloor, they were here!

The big chart names like Phil Collins, The Power Station and Eurythmics flexed their beats and rhythms alongside era defining club tracks by the like of Loose Ends, The Cool Notes and more. 

Here was a snapshot of a defining moment in club culture - as the UK charts were only months away from the coming of House in the form of Colonel Abrams, Farley Jackmaster Funk, the beat was still going on, but would probably never be the same again.

Join writer, broadcaster and Clangers expert, Tim Worthington as we revisit NOW Dance - The 12” Mixes. Along the way also discover what pop tracks frightened Tim as a child, the connection between Channel 4’s animation Pob and dance culture, which NOW album caused him to spill Dr Pepper all over a brand new sofa and why TV themes of the 80s are more closely linked to this album than you may think!

And also discover why remixer and producer Ben Liebrand will probably not be re-re-returning our big, chunky 80s mobile phone calls.

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It’s summer 1991 and school’s out which means it’s time for your latest compilation! It was probably on cassette, possibly from your local high street and most definitely slotted straight into your parent’s car stereo for that sweet-fuelled, motorway exodus to the sun!

But WAIT!

After NOW 19’s release in the spring, the horizon isn’t delivering the nation’s favourite 20th variously compiled selection until NOVEMBER!

As the young set frantically scan the racks of Woolworths, Dad point-blankly refuses entry to the big cassette box entitled Deep Heat (turn that racket off!). 

However all is not lost - ladies, gentlemen, girl behind the counter - we give you AWESOME!

20 Massive Hits from the team at EMI that looks, very familiar indeed. Some may even say NOW-adjacent! Kerrr-ching! £6.99! A Snip!

Join friends of the show, Johnny Kalifornia and Ian Wade in this special summer edition of Back to Now. We explore the frankly bonkers compilation landscape of summer 1991 that gave us not one but TWO Awesome compilations (well, one came out in November too, but lets not split comp hairs) from our fab friends at NOW. 

But what was going on, I hear you ask?

Well, who knows? Ian, Johnny and I ruminate on the dance, indie, pop landscape of season 1990/91 and how the compilation market was reacting to the dayglo wonders such as Soho, PWEI, EMF, KLF. Could it be that our favourite compilation album was facing some ‘young scene’ competition? Were there wobbles at NOW HQ? Was it time for a rethink? 

Can I ask anymore questions?

As this is a summer ‘spesh’ expect much end of term chaos, diversions, and plenty of fun pop memories with Kalifornia and Wade as we weave our way among 40 ‘devastatin’ choons across two Awesome albums! And along the way we also share our favourites summer songs past and present, reveal some all-time favourite compilations, discover what ‘regional dance’ is and, AND, there’s a free poster included too! 

Dive into the Back to NOW Awesome summer supplement at your local newsagent now!

(poster offer ends 31 August 1991)

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WARNING!

This episode contains scenes of graphic and often gratuitous pop perfection. Listener discretion is advised.

Summer 2004. 

The wettest summer in the UK for fifty years, and with it being another three years before Rihanna invents the umbrella, there is a need for something more drastic to help dodge the dampness. 

So where does one shelter from the storm? 

Well, certainly not the World Cup, at the cinema it’s a web-spinning yawn with Spider-Man 2 and TV offers up the first Strictly winning couple….who were of course…erm…shuffles notes…any-way…

Of course, the real protection from a soggy summer is always POP and who better to serve up a slice of the latest and greatest top chart hits, than the ever resplendent NOW, Thats What I Call Music team, with it’s 58th wonderful offering of 42 tracks. Phew, what a scorcher!

(Adopts serious journalistic look) 

But what was the state of the pop landscape in the year 2004?

Actually, let’s not beat about the proverbial bush, Smash Hits would have confirmed at the top of its glittery lungs, Very Healthy Indeed, thankyouverymuch.

The wizardry of pop’s perfect professors such as Richard X and Xenomania were dazzling us with their weird and wonderful masterpieces as served up deliciously by the likes of Rachel (it’s not anything like Goldfrapp) Stevens, Girls (who sang that line, Miranda?) Aloud and Sugababes version 2.0 (or was it 3.4?). 

Jamelia, Kelis and Christina Millian were proving that the girls could indeed more than hold their own with their ‘flavas’ (really - ED?) of r’n’b. And ver lads McFly and Busted (only slightly conjoined, obviously) were reclaiming power pop, silly hairstyles, big eyebrows and reinventing the boyband in the process - again, with full apologies to anyone who was on ‘that’ Air France flight (yeuch!)

And of course there was SO much more! Franz Ferdinand and Scissor Sisters continuing to sell supermarket CDs to everyone, George Michael flying a flawless flag, Britney being weird, delicate and dead all at once and some couple called Eamon and Frankee, who weren’t a couple at all, were very potty mouthed and (checks notes) WON STRICTLY! Possibly.

So, who better to steer us through this spectacular summer of sonic supremacy than writer, journalist and tall person Michael Cragg. In celebration of Michael’s utterly smashing book Reach For The Stars, Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party 1996-2006, we explore the stories behind many of the tracks on NOW58, a time of pop perfection but as always much, much more behind the curtain. Michael also reveals his first (king of) pop passions, how he escaped a shoe shop to discover his own musical journey and why Louis Walsh (and not for the first time) was very wrong about pop indeed!

Along the way expect memorable and possibly even knowing nods towards Popjustice, MySpace, CDUK, Geri Halliwells’s dogs, Kimberley the BOSS and absolutely nothing about The Rasmus, O-Zone or Fatman Scoop. 

Was it all a sugar-induced, pop fever dream? Possibly, but isn’t it fun after all these years later heading back for one more bite…? 

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Welcome to the middle of ‘the nineties’! Sort of! Spring 1994, to be exact. And indeed, the popworld is revelling in the ‘seed of the new breed’.

Again, sort of…

You know the drill by now, the glorious NOW, That’s What I Call Music 27 steers you though the wonderfully choppy waters of the UK charts. Sometimes the shore is graced with the wonders of perfect pop from the likes of Swedish Global grabbers Ace of Base. Life can indeed be demanding, without - who knows - understanding.

Further along the journey we find Eternal being fabulous and poppy, still as a classic foursome, and - wait - can it be Peter Cunnah and D:ream celebrating all things positive and possible, whilst popping in for a cuppa in Derry?

You’ll need to listen in for THAT one.

Leaving the shoreline/boat analogy behind (running out of examples, sorry), you’ll find Meat Loaf with THREE choruses, Primal Scream stuck between two rocks (you’re welcome) and Gin Blossoms having just the one. (Can you remember anymore of their songs?)

And of course, as it’s the 90s, NOW27 moves into dance Maximum Overdrive (wrong volume, that was 26!) with the likes of Culture Beat, Capella, Reel ‘2’ Real and everyone’s favourite Charleston aping techno Dutch duo Smashing Pumpkins DOOP!

And there’s much, much more across these 38 Top (mostly) chart hits!

Join award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster John Aizlewood as we head back, Back, BACK to 1994 for stories aplenty of pop adventures from his days with the doorstop music authority magazine that was Q (RIP), including how he attempted to stop Ace of Base leave a room, ordered everything on the menu with Jim Steinman and tried to find Tony Mortimer’s imaginary record collection.

Also, discover which record started it all for John (clue, it’s not on NOW27) and which group has captured his heart more than any other (clue, it’s not Doop).

And find out which acts on the album could (possibly) provide the perfect Pointless answers and which track almost (well, not really) brought our blossoming podcast friendship to a violent end! Yes, it’s that dramatic (again, really not).

In the words of the Urban Cookie Collective, let’s Sail Away folks! (Another boat analogy - REALLY?)

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It’s the summer of 1992!

The UK had accidentally voted in the Conservative government again but to make amends wins lots of medals at the Freddie and Monserrat Olympic Festival Sporting thingy in Barcelona, so everyone forgets for a while.

Alan Shearer becomes the most expensive soccer star in the whole of history and the English FA celebrate their winning bid for Euro96 - spoiler, it still doesn’t come home.

And, AND, everyone was glued to the BBC’s newest and sauciest soap opera Eldorado - what we all now recognise as the greatest TV turning point of the century. Must we throw this telly filth at our kids, said absolutely no-one.

The new pop decade was coming of age as the third year of, what some called ‘the nineties’ was providing yet another glittering array of….(checks notes)….erm, we’re not really sure.

But wait, this is not a problem! NOW, That’s What I Call Music 22 was on hand and available in all formats to bring you 34 (yes, 34!) toppermost chartiest hits that would make sense of everything we needed to know!

Coming at you like an overexcited ministerial briefing from Maastricht, every conceivable genre of music reminded you that there was indeed no genre whatsoever in 1992. Erasure dug up the Blue Peter-esque garden and found ABBA in a biscuit box, Utah Saints dug behind the sofa and found Kate Bush raving in a sweater, Electronic continued to be the best supergroup since forever and, ha, ‘disappointed’ no-one (too cheesy, take this out in final draft) and whilst the Orb played chess on TOTP (checkmate, Alex!) a huge shoulderpad of serious adult rock from the likes of Cocker, Stigers and Marx was selling bucket loads of expensive CDs and trying their hardest to overshadow the pop kids (they’ll never get away with it!).

Join podcaster, writer and promoter Catrin Lowe as we head back to this crazy summer of 1992 to revisit the hits, headlines and otherwise that make up the gloriously non genre-specific volume 22 of the world famous NOW series!

Along the way discover which band Catrin wrote a poem about on Teletext, how Turbo B infiltrated a fireworks display in Cheshire, which NOW22 act pretended to be farm animals on a recent TV talent show and why gravy is so important when considering your power ballad.

To quote Simon Bates - 1992: Sexual Crusader or just a Big Girl’s Blouse? You decide!

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Alexa, show me 1984.

If you were to ask a certain searchable device (others are, obviously available), there’s a high probability that the year George Orwell predicted would see us living in a terrifying future nightmare would instead be adorned with a wash of neon, colour and an array of sunshine pop. 

And the character staring back at us wouldn’t be Big Brother, it was a pig in shades. Of course!

(And is there anything cooler?)

Yes, it’s here! July 1984, and the third volume of the world famous NOW That’s What I Call Music series had arrived and quite literally rocketed - locomotion style - to the top of the charts. And for sure, the compilation album was back, Back, BACK!

A glittering selection of the pop’s finest (and The Art Company) lined up to highlight why 1984 is often (argue with us here) cited as one of the greatest music years. 

From Duran Duran’s worldwide fl-fl-flexing monster smash, to Wham! shining brighter than Doris Day, NOW3 features some of the decades biggest hits. Take a look at Phil Collins, wait for pizza (talking some Italian, probably) with Bananarama, even stay up way beyond bedtime to catch falling men with The Weather Girls. Wow!

But WAIT!

Underneath the streamers and balloons of summer 1984, wasn’t there just a hint of darkness?

Of course there was! Global annihilation never looked or sounded so fabulous (and we’re not talking Threads, thanks again BBC)! Nik Kershaw wasn’t letting the sun (or his snood) go down, Ultravox had tears in their eyes (shortly before humanity was vaporised) and of course Frankie Goes To Hollywood were on top of the whole mushroom cloud as Two Tribes (and just a smidgeon of Trevor) ruled the airwaves, charts and the 12” mixes whilst we listened to Patrick Allen’s public information messages. Chilling? Yes it was, and we haven’t even got to The Art Company yet! Brrr! 

So, let’s jump back to summer 1984 with the BBC’s music correspondent, Mark Savage to explore the many faceted pop kaleidoscope of 30 Top Chart hits that is Now Music 3. Along the way also find out how Mark discovered pop growing up in Northern Ireland, memories of sun kissed holidays and which record had the neighbours banging on the wall.

Plus, the mystery of a very strange cassette tone is - after 30 years - revealed! 

Geeky? Us? Of course we are!

As Cyndi Lauper said, we all have a suitcase of memories - time after time.

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Welcome to 1993. Autumn, to be exact. 

And how was it all looking?

Well, it wasn’t really baggy like 1990, or rave-y like 1991, but it wasn’t Britpoppy like 1995. It was all a bit…well, who knows? Can we say, a bit of a pop hinterland?

And were there any clues across our ever reliant pop culture landscape for how ‘93 had shaped up? Well in a year that saw the launch of two modern icons - the Vauxhall Corsa and QVC - actually, perhaps, we’ll come back to them later. Not!

Back to the hinterland then. We had the ever reliant and still relatively imperial Neil and Chris, resplendent in their dayglo uniforms marching to the Village People in Moscow. Or perhaps your CD single (with 6 extra dance mixes) was celebrating the glorious invasion of Europop of Culture Beat, 2 Unlimited and Haddaway. Or maybe you were, frankly too cool for school and had bunked off to the shimmering r’n’b from SWV, Janet and Eternal.

And where was Indie? What even was indie in 1993?

One thing is for certain, your musical tribe in 1993 was considerably, undeniably, very untribal. 

But isn’t waiting for the Next Big Thing - and spotting the red herrings along the way - so terribly exciting?

So if it’s autumn ‘93, it’s definitely time for NOW That’s What I Call Music 26! 

And joining us for this excursion back 30 (!) years, none other than author and chief rock & pop critic for The Times Will Hodgkinson. 

Will selects his highlights from the wonderfully packaged 40 Top Chart Hits as well exploring the wider pop culture landscape of 1993. Along the way, we discover Will’s inspiration for his, quite frankly wonderful exploration of 1970’s pop ‘In Perfect Harmony’ and how 1973 and 1993 really had a lot more in common than you may think.

We also take excursions into some of 1993’s other memorable musical moments, courtesy of Bjork, London’s eclectic club scene and (unashamedly) Bowie’s Buddha of Suburbia (with a real cameo from Will, no less!)

Expect starring (and a few understudy) roles from Meat Loaf, The Shamen, Lawrence from Denim, Stakka Bo (only a bit Stereo MCs), Crustys, Frank Farian, Hacky sacks(!) and some illicit colour photocopying - you will be shocked!

All of this and much, much more!

And find out why the Spin Doctors (amongst a few others) will not be returning our calls.

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