it is so that, ostensibly, the decision to issue the Now That's What I Call Music compilations on CD, with it being for the first time ever in this fancy new format for many of them, was welcomed as a very good idea indeed. this, for the most part, remains so, look you see. no matter how much they try to thwart or undermine it all with fiddled variations of the releases, and indeed now that they have elected to (in a partially forced on them way) muck about with the timing of releases.
here we are, then. the sixth volume of these re-issues, handily called Now That's What I Call Music 6, is now available. it came out on the penultimate friday of july 2020, when it was intended to be later on in the year. strange that they pulled it forward when the previous, Now That's What I Call Music 5, was pushed back a bit due to all that coronavirus stuff. well, here we are now, so let us move on. partially.
the original release of Now That's What I Call Music 6 was November 1985, which was why it made perfect sense for the plan to be to have the re-issue on CD (and tape and record) November 2020, but never mind. it was so that this was the first post-Live Aid "big" compilation. generally, or strictly, speaking, the opening track of the set, One Vision by Queen, is interpreted about being written in celebration of (Irish Sir) Bob Geldof and his extraordinary (assisted but still) achievement. some of us, though, associate the song with its presence on the soundtrack for the film Iron Eagle, which was basically Top Gun imagined as less of a homoerotic love story and lacked Val Kilmer.
from a nostalgia driven sense of sentimental hygiene, this is the last, or final, of the series i can accurately, or fondly, recall owning. my memory is of getting the lp (which yes i still have) as a Christmas present that year. somewhere i have one later volume on vinyl, although that one belonged to either Richard or Gillian originally, and i "borrowed" it, so to to speak. red cover, i think.
as has been the case, regrettably and woefully for the purists, they have played around with the songs which form the set. many of the re-releases on CD have had some omissions. one or two make a degree of sense, and here i am speaking about a Gary Glitter tune being removed. in other instances, less so. the previous re-issue, 5, for example, excluded the magnificent This Is Not America, which is strange as Bowie's people had happily allowed his stuff to appear on the other re-issues. we shall have to see how this goes with the later ones, as quite soon they shall reach the volume which should feature Absolute Beginners.
here only one song from the original is missing in its entirety, which was the duet between Tina Turner and Bryan Adams, It's Only Love (i think that was what it was called). a vague explanation for it being absent was issued, with the label saying they were unable to get clearance to use it in time for their rushed, a few months before intended release. considering that another Tina Turner song features on the set, the magnificence of We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) from the magnificent film Slightly Cheesed Off Max Beyond Thunderdome, we have to take it as a given that it was the other 50% of the duet who held up the song being included. it would strike me, then, as being accurate, acceptable and apt to refer to him now exclusively as "that twat Bryan Adams".
further folly and flaw exist, of course. it has become a sad and unfortunate standard for these sets in their shiny new compact disc format to feature the "incorrect" versions of certain songs. what got quite a few people who had the originals excited about these re-issues was the fact that, in theory, many rare 7" versions of songs would be on CD at last. alas, they have opted to be less than faithful with this. the worst crime committed in this regard (thus far) was on Now That's What I Call Music 3. rather than use the somewhat rare mix of Two Tribes which graced the 7" picture disc of the single, as was the case on vinyl, they "just" went with the standard 7" mix. it would have been fantastic to have had the rarer version on disc, but not to be.
what about what we actually have, though, instead of constant lament of all ills that are wrong or incorrect with the release? a considerably better selection than featured on 5, but of course still nowhere near quite so good as my all time favourite Now set, the brilliant number four one.
as was pretty much the case with all volumes released from (and very much including) five onwards, the pattern followed here is that the crown jewels, the very best of the best, are all on the first disc, or for nostalgia first lp or first tape. beyond the Queen and Tina Turner tunes mentioned, one gets the song what was unequivocally the pinnacle of Feargal Sharkey's solo career, the audacious, talent showcasing number one single from Eurthythmics, Kate Bush's absolute personification of matching arty abstracts with stunning accessible pop, Elton John not being a shouty twat, the wonders of Marillion and one of the finest moments of the career of Simple Minds. and more on top of that.
by comparison disc (or tape or lp) two is not necessarily bad, but does not do well by comparison. favourites i would pluck from it are Blue off of Fine Young Cannibals, and yes, of course, the outstanding Miami Vice theme by Jan Hammer. on the disc, the Lloyd Cole song shall never ever be played by me again after i let the whole set play through once, the best thing about Arcadia was when some of the members went back to being Duran Duran and as much as i might appreciate Siouxie And The Banshees it feels just plain weird hearing one of their tunes in the middle of all this pop.
yes, i know i made a mess of the order of the above, but let me be honest about it and show as i took, rather than taking another picture. well, if they don't make the sets perfect then why is it that i should concern myself too much with such.
the above picture is thrown in here to show how annoying it is for us who have every intention of getting all the CD re-issues (i believe they are going to continue to ten) and have ideas of putting them nicely on a shelf. it's irritating when planned sequential releases (or reissues) are not uniform, isn't it? whilst i can almost understand the font variation on the first, that use of roman numerals for volume two, then regular (i think "alpha numeric") numbers for the rest is just distracting. but still, it's nice that they fiddle with the colour for some of them.
does Now That's What I Call Music 6 do a decent job of representing the late spring and summer of 1985? from what i recall of it, yes, pretty much. with compilations being big business by this stage there was a scramble to licence some artists and songs, and for 6 they bagged a fair few of the major ones. two notable absentees at the time were Welcome To The Pleasuredome off of Frankie, which was a bit too soon for 5 and presumably too old for 6, and the massive selling Dancing In The Street off of Bowie and Jagger for Live Aid. if they could have got the latter, at the least (preferably in place of Lloyd Cole), then this would have been pretty much bang, or spot, on.
with their planned, or proposed, release schedule for these re-issues now seemingly thrown out, it is difficult to guess when Now That's What I Call Music 7 shall be with us. maybe later on this year, perhaps only early in 2021, if we all survive that long. but yes, to be boringly repetitive, i shall most certainly be looking out for its release, and would have every intention of getting it. if nothing else, it shall be interesting to see if Bowie's people let Absolute Beginners appear on it, and if so what version gets shoved on.
one, or i, suspects that my expert analysis is not required to state the obvious, but it would be fair to say that this volume perfectly illustrates how it is that the Now That's What I Call Music series of compilations has survived to (well) north of 100 volumes, at least in terms of UK releases. the wide range of different styles of music is spot on perfect to lure in elements of the widest target demographic range possible. although i still simply do not understand who or what it is that ever went off to purchase Lloyd Cole stuff.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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