Track Listing

Disc 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
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

Disc 2:

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
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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2832 in Music
• Released on: 2009-01-12
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Collector's Edition, Special Edition
• Dimensions: .14 pounds

Customer Reviews

Poptastic Now! that's what we call music
Ignore the earlier reports, there is nothing wrong with the track run, its the same, two discs, same balance of tracks, i think what the moaning minnies are going on about is that the LPs had two sides.
(CD1 & CD2 instead of Side 1, 2, 3, 4)

what youre getting is the same thing basically, which is great

though, its shame it isnt in a jewel case as our other CD's, maybe thats a later issue ??

hope they issue the following 9 CD's, plus the dance, summer and xmas also

Where it all began...
I suspect there are others reading this review who originally bought this when I did - Back in 1984, on good old vinyl. This was the start of a series that I couldn't have dreamed would still be running today, having seen just a handful of volumes released on similar series before disappearing forever ('Out Now', 'The Hits Album' etc.).

The 'Now That's...' series was a refreshing change from most of the hits compilation albums available back then, in that its tracklisting was focused purely on significant chart hits, whereas the majority of similar albums at that time contained a lot of "filler" material - Tracks which either made the lower positions on the top 75, or didn't chart at all. The Now series did away with that idea, and brought us a selection of tracks which had all been in the top 40, and could all properly be called "hits". Also, you'd get a brief commentary on each track, including its highest chart position, which is something you wouldn't have found on any of those old K-Tel and Ronco albums you bought in the seventies and early eighties.

The first disc is by far the stronger of the two - Ten of the sixteen tracks here are chart-toppers, and most of those that aren't made the top ten. This album is pretty much as good a review of what was big in '83 as you'll find anywhere - Phil Collins (You Can't Hurry Love'), UB40 ('Red Red Wine'), Men At Work ('Down Under') and Bonnie Tyler ('Total Eclipse of the Heart') provide just a few of the No.1s on offer here.

However, like a lot of the earlier, 'Now' albums, it's the second disc where you get the feeling that they were having to dig a little deeper into the barrel (though not scraping it, as other compilations were prone to do) - Most of the songs here are top twenty or thirty, rather than top ten, and some of these ('Big Apple', 'Let's Stay Together', 'Kissing With Confidence', 'The Sun And The Rain', 'Victims') have never been favourites of mine. I've subtracted a star because of this weaker disc, just as I would have done if I'd been writing a review for the vinyl release 25 years ago.

I don't think I'd recommend this to a fan of eighties music, simply because it's highly likely that most of the tracks contained on it would be in their collection already, but if you know someone who had the original album and played it to death, as I did, then it would make a nice little nostalgic gift.

This Is Where It All Started
Now 1 was released in December 1983, and showcased all the best pop music could offer back then. Artists such as Duran Duran, UB40, Culture Club, and Rod Stewart were on it, and it came on double vinyl, and cassette. There wasn't a CD edition back then, so having this now, 25 years on is pretty cool.

The great thing about Now compilations back in the day, was they were varied and had a lot of music you enjoyed from the radio and Top Of The Pops, even the genres were varied, from the progressive rock of Genesis right through to UB40's laid back reggae - even a bit of new romantic for you too.

This CD has the best of 1983, including the remake of The Supremes "You Can't Hurry Love" from Phil Collins, UB40's cheesy "Red Red Wine" right through to darker tracks by The Cure, and lighter romantic stuff from The Human League.

This might not mean much to the younger generation, but Now was a breakthrough for us, it was the only compilation available that took all the best of 3 months music and made it available for a decent price. OK, a lot of the music is cheesy on it, but at least most of it was made by the artists, and written by songwriters, and actually performed by the people who wrote it.

The packaging is rather old skool too, a gatefold packaging, which reminds me of the vinyl I used to get back then.

Great to see this back, well worth a place in your collection.