Now That's What I Call Music - The Three from 1984

The first volume in the UK hit singles compilation Now That's What I Call Music was released in late 1983. (I originally wrote about the album HERE.) It topped the UK Albums charts for five non-consecutive weeks (bowing down to number 2 for a week for Paul Young's No Parlez) and went on to spend 50 weeks in the Top 100, staying almost long enough to be joined by the next three volumes in the series, all released in 1984.

Released in March 1984, Now That's What I Call Music 2 debuted on the chart for the week ending April 7 at number 3, behind Human's Lib and Can't Slow Down, before rising up and taking Number One for five consecutive weeks. Unlike the first volume in the series which featured eleven chart-toppers, NOW 2 only featured four Number One Singles among its thirty tracks. Though no one, in particular, was credited for compiling the first album, NOW 2 (and all future NOWs up to NOW 81) were compiled by Ashley Abram and his company Box Music so he deserves the credit and the scorn for the track selections.

Like the first volume, NOW 2 was released as a double vinyl or cassette album as well as a collection of twenty-one music videos on VHS. Only seventeen of the songs charted on Billboard's Hot 100, with nearly half of those rising into the Top 10. There were a couple things lost in translation between the UK and US charts however: Nena's "99 Luftballoons" in its original German language version was the predominantly popular charted version in the US while the English language "99 Red Balloons" version charted in the UK and Paul McCartney's "Pipes Of Peace" was a Number One single on UK charts while in the US, it was the flipside "So Bad" that charted.

		Title	Artist		UK Official Chart Co.	US Hot 100
	1984	Radio Ga Ga	Queen	5:43	2	16
VHS	1984	Wouldn't It Be Good	Nik Kershaw	4:28	4	46
VHS	1983	Hold Me Now	Thompson Twins	4:38	4	3
VHS	1984	Get Out of Your Lazy Bed	Matt Bianco	3:24	15	-
VHS	1984	More, More, More	Carmel	3:08	23	-
	1984	Michael Caine	Madness	3:39	11	-
VHS	1983	Only You	The Flying Pickets	3:21	1	-
	1983	99 Red Balloons	Nena	3:51	1	2
	1983	Girls Just Wanna Have Fun	Cyndi Lauper	3:31	2	2
	1984	My Guy's Mad at Me	Tracey Ullman	3:01	23	-
	1983	Break My Stride	Matthew Wilder	2:58	4	5
	1984	Breakin' Down (Sugar Samba)	Julia & Company	3:09	15	-
	1983	That's Livin' Alright	Joe Fagin	3:04	3	-
	1983	I Gave You My Heart (Didn't I)	Hot Chocolate	3:39	13	-
VHS	1983	Bird of Paradise	Snowy White	4:21	6	-
	1983	Relax	Frankie Goes to Hollywood	3:55	1	10
	1984	Here Comes the Rain Again	Eurythmics	5:01	8	4
VHS	1983	What Is Love?	Howard Jones	3:40	2	33
	1984	What Difference Does It Make?	The Smiths	3:48	12	-
	1983	(Feels Like) Heaven	Fiction Factory	3:30	6	-
VHS	1983	The Politics of Dancing	Re-Flex	3:17	28	24
VHS	1984	Hyperactive!	Thomas Dolby	4:15	17	62
VHS	1984	Wishful Thinking	China Crisis	4:12	9	-
	1983	Modern Love	David Bowie	3:59	2	14
	1984	It's a Miracle	Culture Club	3:24	4	13
	1983	Undercover of the Night	The Rolling Stones	4:33	11	9
VHS	1984	Wonderland	Big Country	3:56	8	86
	1984	Run Runaway	Slade	3:44	7	20
VHS	1984	New Moon on Monday	Duran Duran	4:16	9	10
	1983	Pipes of Peace	Paul McCartney	3:54	1	-

Now That's What I Call Music III debuted at Number One on the charts for the week ending August 11 and spent the next seven weeks at the top spot as well. In addition to being the first NOW to enter the charts at the top, NOW III was the first of only two volumes in the numerical series to feature Roman numerals. The amount of Number One Singles on NOW III matched its title - just three among the thirty tracks and like its two predecessors in the series, NOW III was available in three formats: 2LP, 2CA and VHS. Unlike the first volume which was issued on CD in 2009, neither NOW 2 or NOW III have ever been issued on compact disc.

Only a dozen singles from NOW III made the Hot 100 in the US but five of them were Number Ones. A peculiarity on the UK charts is the rise from seemingly out of nowhere of older songs. Often the songs are used in a commercial (advert) or television show. NOW III features three such "oldies": Sister Sledge's groovealicious "Thinking Of You", Bob Marley's "One Love/People Get Ready" (released in advance of the Legend compilation) and The Weather Girls with their joyous "It's Raining Men". One of the great things about the NOW compilations that further set them apart from those classic K-Tel compilations was the inclusion of full-length versions of the songs, whether they were album versions or single edits.

		Title	Artist		UK Official Chart Co.	US Hot 100
adv	1984	The Reflex	Duran Duran	4:19	1	1
	1983	I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me	Nik Kershaw	3:19	2	-
	1979	Thinking of You	Sister Sledge	4:20	11	-
VHS	1984	Locomotion	Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark	3:19	5	-
	1984	Dancing with Tears in My Eyes	Ultravox	3:35	3	-
	1984	Pearl in the Shell	Howard Jones	3:50	7	-
	1984	Don't Tell Me	Blancmange	3:28	8	-
VHS	1984	Against All Odds	Phil Collins	3:29	2	1
	1984	Two Tribes	Frankie Goes to Hollywood	3:24	1	43
	1983	White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)	Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel	4:25	7	-
	1984	Nelson Mandela	Special A.K.A.	4:11	9	-
	1984	Love Wars	Womack & Womack	4:00	14	-
	1984	You're The Best Thing	The Style Council	4:23	5	-
	1984	One Love/People Get Ready	Bob Marley and the Wailers	2:49	5	-
	1984	Smalltown Boy	Bronski Beat	5:00	3	48
	1984	I Want to Break Free	Queen	4:14	3	45
	1984	Time After Time	Cyndi Lauper	4:01	3	1
	1984	Love Resurrection	Alison Moyet	3:49	10	82
	1984	Young at Heart	The Bluebells	3:17	8	-
	1984	Robert De Niro's Waiting...	Bananarama	3:32	3	95
	1984	Dr. Mabuse	Propaganda	4:57	27	-
VHS	1984	What's Love Got to Do with It	Tina Turner	3:49	3	1
VHS	1984	When You're Young and in Love	The Flying Pickets	3:21	7	-
	1984	Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go	Wham!	3:49	1	1
VHS	1984	You Take Me Up	The Thompson Twins	4:27	2	44
	1982	It's Raining Men	The Weather Girls	3:31	2	46
VHS	1984	Dance Me Up		3:31	25	-
	1984	Susanna	The Art Company	4:47	12	-
VHS	1984	One Better Day	Madness	4:01	17	-
VHS	1984	Red Guitar	David Sylvian	4:42	17	-

The VHS editions of the NOW albums are a different animal altogether. As you can tell by the charts above and below, not all songs from the NOW albums made the video collections and indeed videos from previous albums sometimes appeared on the compilations as well as music videos for songs that were never included on any NOW music albums. For hardcore collectors, the NOW music video collections were released in small numbers - often with different playlists - in Japan on LaserDisc (above) making them both unique and rare but they are not the most valuable and sought after NOW collectible; that honor belongs to a particular format of NOW 4.

Now That's What I Call Music 4 debuted in the runner-up position on the chart for the week ending December 8, 1983, and would stay there throughout the Holiday selling season - a total of six weeks - behind the first challenger to the NOW series chart dominance from rival labels, Sony and WEA, who had formed a partnership to issue The HITS Album. Labels EMI and Virgin were behind the NOW compilations though the albums featured songs from other labels as well, including Sony and WEA. Though the album would be the only NOW compilation thus far in the 93 volume history of the series not to reach Number One on the Albums or Compilations chart, it was the highest selling NOW volume issued in 1984 despite featuring a lone Number One Single in Lionel Richie's "Hello". (The Compilations chart was created in 1989 expressly for the hit-packed chart-dominating multi-artist compilations like NOW, The HITS Albums and K-Tel's own Hungry For Hits, among others.)

A 1984 series high eighteen tracks from NOW 4 also charted on the Hot 100 in the US, including three Number Ones. The one "oldie" on NOW 4 was actually recorded in 1973 but rush-released by Motown in 1984 to capitalize on the artist's unprecedented worldwide success following the release of his sixth solo studio album in 1982, an album that would become the biggest selling album the world has ever known - Michael Jackson's instantly forgettable "Farewell My Summer Love" was that chart anomaly.

		Title	Artist		UK Official Chart Co.	US Hot 100
	1984	No More Lonely Nights	Paul McCartney	4:20	2	6
VHS	1984	Together in Electric Dreams	Giorgio Moroder with Philip Oakey	3:47	3	-
	1984	Why?	Bronski Beat	3:55	6	-
VHS	1984	Never Ending Story	Limahl	3:27	4	17
VHS	1984	Warning Sign	Nick Heyward	3:55	25	-
VHS	1984	Missing You	John Waite	3:59	9	1
	1973	Farewell My Summer Love	Michael Jackson	3:37	7	38
	1984	Hello	Lionel Richie	4:05	1	1
VHS	1984	The War Song	Culture Club	3:55	2	17
	1984	Passengers	Elton John	3:18	5	-
VHS	1984	Too Late For Goodbyes	Julian Lennon	3:27	6	5
	1984	Shout To The Top!	The Style Council	3:17	7	-
	1984	Doctor! Doctor!	Thompson Twins	4:22	3	11
	1984	Sunset Now	Heaven 17	3:36	24	-
	1984	Respect Yourself	Kane Gang	3:55	21	-
VHS	1984	Private Dancer	Tina Turner	3:58	26	7
VHS	1984	It's A Hard Life	Queen	4:04	6	72
	1984	The Wanderer	Status Quo	3:26	7	-
	1984	East of Eden	Big Country	4:27	17	-
	1984	Pride (In The Name Of Love)	U2	3:43	3	33
VHS	1984	Listen To Your Father	Feargal Sharkey	3:10	23	-
VHS	1984	Tesla Girls	O.M.D.	3:28	21	-
VHS	1984	The Second Time	Kim Wilde	3:38	29	-
VHS	1984	Human Racing	Nik Kershaw	4:20	19	-
VHS	1984	Ghostbusters	Ray Parker Jr.	4:00	2	1
VHS	1984	If It Happens Again	UB40	3:39	9	-
	1984	Jump (For My Love)	Pointer Sisters	3:56	6	3
	1984	Hot Water	Level 42	3:33	18	87
	1984	Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)	Eurythmics	3:54	4	81
	1984	Somebody's Watching Me	Rockwell	3:40	6	2
VHS	1984	Madam Butterfly	Malcolm McLaren	6:20	13	-
	1984	Gotta Get You Home Tonight	Eugene Wilde	3:29	18	83

NOW 4 was available on 2LP, 2CA, VHS, Japanese LaserDisc and for the first time thus far in the brief history of the series, compact disc. The single disc featured fifteen songs compared to the vinyl and tape formats which featured thirty tracks. While ten of the disc's songs were heard on the NOW 4 analog versions, the CD included four tracks from NOW III and closed with Queen's "Radio Ga Ga" from NOW 2. For undisclosed reasons, there would be no further NOW numerical CDs until NOW 8 two years later in late 1986 which contained seventeen of the album's thirty-two tracks. NOW 9 would also be a single disc but NOW 10 in late 1987 was released as a double CD bearing the same tracklist as its counterparts. (Both NOW 8 and 9 CDs are also highly collectible. All future volumes in the core numerical NOW series after 10 have been double CDs.) The NOW 4 CD ranks not only as the most valuable Now That's What I Call Music collectible but its top price thus far of more than $500 makes it one of the most valuable CDs period.

Two recommended sites for further research:

A Pop Fan's Dream

NOW