An epic quest has ended

ICBM

As of today, I now own every NOW That's What I Call Music! album ever made .

I've been collecting them for years - I had a couple of the very early ones on cassette back in the day, but lost interest in them. I  started buying current ones on CD with Now 70 when my kids were first getting into music as it was a good way of getting all the chart songs they liked cheaply. Then for some reason I decided to go back in time and pick up the older ones when I found them in charity shops - easy at first, but it gets harder when you've got most of them! I used to have to carry a list of which ones I already had so I didn't buy the same ones again. In the last few years it really tailed off - and the very first few (up to Now 7) were never released on CD, only vinyl and cassette, but luckily someone at EMI spotted a gap in the nostalgia market, and starting at the same time as Now 101, they've re-released them in sequence from the first one, now on CD. I've been able to fill in a few gaps that way, bought a few on Ebay (although not at the daft prices some dealers want, not everything old is worth a fortune) and finally...

Today I bought Now 15 - the very last one I didn't have.

There are still a few which I could do with replacing as the copies I have are a bit rough, but apart from that I'll have to find something else to obsessively look for in every charity shop now .

Sporky

Congratulations.

How many Bros tracks are there in total? 

Moe_Zambeek

Congrats on reaching this significant life milestone!

You need to start in it’s sort-of-predecessor, the 70s Top of the Pops albums…

ICBM

Sporky said:

Congratulations.

How many Bros tracks are there in total? 

I don't know! Probably two or three. Not that I'd really want to listen to those... to be honest, there is quite a lot I delete when it's in my iTunes library.

It is actually interesting that the standard proportions of classics/good/forgettable/crap is quite well preserved throughout the whole series though.

Moe_Zambeek said:

Congrats on reaching this significant life milestone!

You need to start in it’s sort-of-predecessor, the 70s Top of the Pops albums…

I actually bought a reissue one on CD not long ago, out of curiosity - it went back to the charity shop the next week. While the talents of the session musicians who were able to learn and reproduce fairly complex arrangements of chart records accurately at the drop of a hat were astonishing, it was still quite horrific when you're at all familiar with the original records.

theatreanchor

Hey, congrats! I have a few of the first 10 or so. Love em. 

Kittyfrisk

Wow! Congratulations.
I'm equally happy that I have never bought or owned a single 'NOW That's What I Call Music!' album.
Thankfully, there's enough room here for every opinion to co-exist     

MrTee

Now 4 was the soundtrack to my early childhood. Ghostbusters, Neverending story, Hello, It's a hard life, Pride (in the name of love), Somebody's watching me. Belters one and all

tekbow

Congratulations! The will and perseverance on display is impressive!

Majorscale

There’s a bloke on Spotify who’s created a playlist of every Now album. I’m intending to wade through them and hopefully uncover some gems for the band repertoire….

Modulus_Amps

Wow, interested to know what started the fascination with them?

ICBM

Modulus_Amps said:

Wow, interested to know what started the fascination with them?

Just buying a few for my kids and realising that there was a fair amount of decent music on them that I wouldn’t want to buy whole albums by the artists to get, and at some point the completist in me got triggered . They actually give an interesting snapshot of popular music at any given time as well.

blobb

I'd wear out the 'skip' button on my remote pretty quickly I'm afraid to say. Well done though, quite a good achievement. I admire your dedication to the cause.

ICBM

blobb said:

I'd wear out the 'skip' button on my remote pretty quickly I'm afraid to say. Well done though, quite a good achievement. I admire your dedication to the cause.

The great advantage of loading them all into iTunes is that you can permanently delete the ones you skip.

On the other hand, I'm actually wondering whether I should be more open-minded now I've got the lot, and re-import them from the start and find out if I *really* hate the missing stuff or not... sometimes the passage of time makes me quite like things I couldn't stand back in the day.

munckee

My dad got a taped version of now 1 when we were kids and apparently accidentally wrote the name on the cassette box as “so you think that’s music”.  

guitars4you

Now that's what I call collecting - Many years ago I had a 1/2 hearted thought about this but never did anything about it - I think I have one or two vinyl copies

Sesh

Wow, that's impressive. 
Do you have all the derivative now albums like now that's what I call... running/Easy/euro vision etc? 

blobb

ICBM said:

blobb said:

I'd wear out the 'skip' button on my remote pretty quickly I'm afraid to say. Well done though, quite a good achievement. I admire your dedication to the cause.

The great advantage of loading them all into iTunes is that you can permanently delete the ones you skip.

On the other hand, I'm actually wondering whether I should be more open-minded now I've got the lot, and re-import them from the start and find out if I *really* hate the missing stuff or not... sometimes the passage of time makes me quite like things I couldn't stand back in the day.

Have to say, I went and checked out some track listings and you are right, it's not quite the cheese fest I remember it being originally. I probably draw the line at Jive Bunny though.

ICBM

Sesh said:

Wow, that's impressive. 
Do you have all the derivative now albums like now that's what I call... running/Easy/euro vision etc? 

No, only 60s No.1s, 70s Hits, Forgotten 70s, 80s and 90s, and Even More Forgotten 80s... and Xmas.



There are too many of the other ones to bother with, and there probably aren't many songs that aren't already on the main ones anyway.

EricTheWeary

Just looking at it on Wikipedia the number of spin offs is huuuuuuuuuuuuuge. Into the hundreds of Now compilations  plus market specific ones for the USA, Australia, Poland, France, Greece, Turkey,Japan,etc,etc. Plenty of dvd versions as well. Perhaps when I go on holiday I can look out for a copy of Now Esto si es música I (1984).

goldtop

Wow. That's so uncool that's actually quite cool.  

For my nostalgia hit (with world music) I just visit https://radiooooo.com/

cgumtree

MrTee said:

Now 4 was the soundtrack to my early childhood. Ghostbusters, Neverending story, Hello, It's a hard life, Pride (in the name of love), Somebody's watching me. Belters one and all

What a great eclectic mix of tunes. Don't get that on compilations any more!