NOW Thats What I Call Music! 9

Product Information

It’s enjoyable blue-eyed pop that sits uneasily beside the eastern-mystery of The Communards’ and their window-watching So Cold The Night. I hear this one regularly every Christmas period due to its status as the 1986 UK Christmas number one.

It went head-to-head with the Housemartins’ Caravan Of Love for the all-important Christmas number one. To the end: two randomers from the final quarter get their day on the shiny disc – Genesis and The Pretenders. backing singers Pepsi and Shirlie had struck out on their own by January; Heartache is a pop classic. One of my favourite Housemartins tracks – lovely a cappella cover of an Isley Brothers song from the previous year.

All subsequent releases starting from Now 10 onwards would have a full double CD release with all tracks included. Ben E King‘s ‘Stand By Me’ and and Jackie Wilson‘s ‘Reet Petite’ reminds us of the British public’s penchant for putting old songs at the top of the charts ( Boris Gardener‘s ‘I Want To Wake Up With You’ was on Now 8) and the power of TV/advertising.

Hits 2 had stolen a march on 1985 and Hits 4 hoovered up early 1986 but come March 1987 it was the Now mob that vied for my hard-earned cash. I should, however, point out that as a professional editor, I absolutely hate that misspelling of ‘my’ in the title.

Irrespective of the source, all of our collectables meet our strict grading and are 100% guaranteed. The album was the first in the series to include radio remixes of some tracks, rather than the originals. A video selection was also released featuring selected tracks from the main album and some which did not appear on any Now album. I never got how A-ha, Simply Red and Pretenders managed to be included here given how both group were on labels probably more commonly associated with the “Hits” series. Now 9 was actually released as a 15-track, abbreviated, single CD back in the day, but this is the first time it has been available in its entirety across two CDs, and there are no tracks missing!