The NOW series (UK version) has recently celebrated its 40th birthday. I’m not a collector of the series but I’ve had various volumes of them on CD. I only keep them if I like most of the songs. A while ago, no idea why, I felt like getting a NOW on vinyl, as used ones tend to be very cheap. The result is NOW 6, from an excellent year for chart music, 1985. The cover shows the logo as a badge sewn on to what might be a leather jacket, while the inner sleeve advertises other volumes in the series.
Record 1 side 1 opens with ‘One Vision’ by Queen, followed by ‘When A Heart Beats’ by Nik Kershaw, ‘A Good Heart’ by Feargal Sharkey, ‘There Must Be An Angel’ by Eurythmics and ‘Alive and Kicking’ by Simple Minds. Isn’t that an incredible line-up? Other great songs liberally sprinkled throughout the album include ‘Running Up That Hill’ by Kate Bush, ‘Body Rock’ by Maria Vidal, ‘You Are My World’ by The Communards, the Miami Vice theme, ‘Election Day’ by Arcadia and ‘It’s Only Love’ by Bryan Adams & Tina Turner. I could’ve done without songs by Cliff Richard, UB40 (twice), Baltimora and Mai Tai. An oddity is ‘Cities in Dust’ by Siouxsie and the Banshees, a dance track about Pompeii, which I thought was a bit niche but I find it did have moderate success in the charts. Generally this album is a very good listen and it must be a contender for one of the best volumes in NOW’s long history.
Gotta say I do like the cover of this album. And some great sounding songs in there. 🙂
It’s a good cover, better than the ones with the pigs on 😀