Now That's What I Call Music! 20

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After all, these are albums that shaped my music tastes, so I guess they have to be early on in the collection. Following a vaguely similar buildup as Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", this song just keeps you listening until the end. If I bought an LP with no times, I would get the stop-watch out and slip a yellow sticky on the front with the durations of each track. They are also notable as being the first time a Now series had released a compilation of hits from the years 1980 to 1982.

These were all released on CD and magnetic cassette, but with the 1993 and 1994 volumes also being released on the vinyl format. Never did it occur to me until right there and then that my voice may not be the smoothest of instruments. Much prefer the version of “Always look on tbe bright side of life” included here to the one on the “Monty Python Sings” album. My brother, though, simple-minded and Simple Minded as he was, became an avid collector of the form.It’s fair to say that Now 20 is relatively light on dance music with Now Dance ’91 picking up a lot of the slack in the absence of the main series’ summer release. As well as being the last one to have a VHS release this is the last one where the track information on the inlay reads “From LP/Tape/CD”. But then, one quick CD change later, it was off to Middle Earth with elf queen Enya on the aching “Caribbean Blue”. A hit during late spring and for a few weeks around Easter 1991, a permanent feature in my friend’s car stereo.

Fatman Scoop's random screaming in the background wasn't essential, but it at least adds some energy to the track. This was a hi-fi built at a cost, and obviously 30 years later, it really does show, but being able to play records and takes, and listen to the radio, was all that mattered to me. The rest of the CD pretty much holds on it's own, however, the Coldplay song may make some pop fans fall asleep. Phil Collins, Heaven 17, Duran Duran, the preposterous Kajagoogoo, the inescapable Men at Work (is there a more insidious Eighties earworm than “Down Under”? It is a game of two halves and in the second instalment, you really don’t know what you’re going to get.

I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me. Since the release of Now 102 in Easter 2019, the corresponding Now album from 100 volumes ago has been re-compiled and re-issued on 2-CD sets on the same day.