Now II Conclusions

I know I said I was going to stop doing these conclusion posts, and I probably will after this one, but I thought I should apologise for the time it's taken to get through Now II. Part of this is for practical reasons unrelated to the music, but I did find it far more of a slog than I expected, even though I was pleasantly surprised by some of the music. I'm not really sure what to make of that, except that maybe I should leave the 80s for a while.

Rest assured, I'll be back on here soon, but it's time for a few days off to get a few other things together.

Now 34 conclusions

I'm thinking about discontinuing these conclusion posts, because I put off writing this one for so long. Much as I've enjoyed revisiting some of the tracks from 1996, I can't really say I've learnt a huge amount from the experience, except for the factoids I looked up on Wikipedia about individual songs, and if any of that seemed worth posting I posted it at the time. Still, I'm relieved that I wasn't embarrassed by much of the Britpop stuff I liked at the time.

The next album is due to start on Monday. In keeping with my self-imposed rule, it will be from a different decade. In the meantime I'm going to try and post something on the Hit Parade blog. Brace yourselves, etc.

Metapost: Now 44 conclusions

It feels like a terribly long time ago that I started going over this album (it's actually about five weeks) but part of the reason I chose it in the first place was because it's the biggest seller of all the Now! albums and at last count remained among the all-time Top 50, despite having been on sale only briefly; it is, apparently, their policy to delete the albums after three years or so. Forty-two tracks later, do I understand why this happened?

Well, I don't think it was the exceptional quality of the music. Listening back now (admittedly from a 2009 perspective) confirmed my suspicion that some of the album is really good, some poor and some simply forgettable - but that's surely the case for any volume in the series. It could hardly be otherwise really. Neither could it really be said that this one offers an exceptionally broad range of musical styles: there's no hard rock, no hip-hop (unless you count 'S Club Party') and even the typical segment of "alternative" is reduced to three tracks, one of which is by Tom Jones. My best guess, beyond pure luck, is that it happened to hit a rich vein of not-very-album-focussed pop (it was rumoured at the time that some record labels intentionally held back big album releases for 2000, presumably because they thought people would be too busy paying to get into pubs on New Year's Eve to afford any records at the end of the year). Assemble enough of those and it's a strong commercial proposition.

If you can contain your excitement, I've already decided where I'm going next with this blog.

Now 1 conclusion

Thirty tracks down, and what have we learnt? Well, I've discovered that I'd heard more of them than I thought I had. Will I be picking up a copy of the re-release on the way home from work? No. But I do think I have some sort of understanding of some of the songs now, even if I wouldn't claim to like any more of then than I used to.
Since Now 1 (as it was retrospectively called) is the only one in the regular series that tries to cover an entire year, I suppose we have to ask how accurate a reflection of the time it is; well there's certainly more Kajagoogoo than I remember. Also no Spandau Ballet, who had one of the few Number One singles of 1983 not represented. What I think has struck me most is how much of the album seems to conform to a stereotypical sound of the time.

One interesting comparison point: a series of digital-only compilations were released a couple of years ago, so we can get a sort of 21st-century perception of the year (admittedly compiled exclusively from the vaults of EMI and Universal). Here's what they came up with:

1 Red Red Wine - UB40
2 Karma Chameleon - Culture Club
3 Is There Something I Should Know - Duran Duran
4 Let's Dance - David Bowie
5 Beat Surrender - The Jam (this is actually from 1982, although it was still in the charts in January 1983)
6 Steppin' Out - Joe Jackson
7 I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me - Nik Kershaw
8 Temptation - Heaven 17
9 The Sun Goes Down (Living It Up) - Level 42
10 Tonight, I Celebrate My Love - Peabo Bryson & Roberta Flack
11 Too Shy - Kajagoogoo
12 (This Is Not A) Love Song - Public Image Ltd
13 Dear Prudence - Siouxsie & The Banshees
14 Speak Like A Child - The Style Council
15 Pale Shelter - Tears For Fears
16 Our Lips Are Sealed - Fun Boy Three
17 Only You - The Flying Pickets (this is on Now II)
18 Every Breath You Take - The Police
19 The Sun Goes Down (Living It Up) [extended version] - Level 42
20 Too Shy [12-Inch version] - Kajagoogoo

Draw your own conclusions there.
Meanwhile, my vaguely-defined mission to understand the success of the Now albums continues. So you'll be "pleased" to hear that I shall be doing another one shortly as soon as I've got some more material on the Hit Parade blog.

EDIT: It turns out James Masterton, who unlike me did buy the thing, has had the same idea