Now That’s What I Call Lost Gems!

This week is by all accounts a historic week of celebration for an institution of British pop music, as on Friday just gone, the 100th edition of the legendary compilation series Now That’s What I Call Music was released.

Spanning over 35 years, and having included over 600 number one hits across four decades, we’ve all either bought or been given a copy of one of the volumes at some point in our lives. Long standing readers of the blog may remember my love letter to the 44th edition from 1999 that I posted back in 2014 (and it’s still totally the best volume of the series, bytheby).

Much has been made of the fact that the centenary volume’s second disc is a selection of the ‘greatest hits’ of the preceding 99 volumes before it – some of whom have had their fair share of airtime on other volumes and spin offs of the series.

So to rectify this, I have made like Ashley Abram and Jenny Fisher, and compiled my own spin off of sorts, in a 20 song Spotify playlist called Now That’s What I Call Lost Gems, in tribute to some of the songs that made it onto a Now album at some point in the last 35 years – but which may have been forgotten about by the public at large.

It contains a bit of everything, from the first volumes in the 80s, via the 90s and 00s, right up to the present day – and we’ve even gone old school and drawn up the tracklist like our forefathers in compilation before us. Happy 100 volumes to Now That’s What I Call Music – we hope you enjoy our little gift of a playlist!

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL LOST GEMS

1. Bananarama – Robert De Niro’s Waiting (Now 3, 1984)
2. Pet Shop Boys – Rent (Now 10, 1987)
3. Neneh Cherry – Buffalo Stance (Now 14, 1989)
4. Kylie Minogue – What Do I Have To Do (Now 19, 1991)
5. Jimmy Nail – Ain’t No Doubt (Now 22, 1992)
6. Shampoo – Trouble (Now 29, 1994)
7. The Human League – One Man In My Heart (Now 31, 1995)
8. Cathy Dennis – Waterloo Sunset (Now 36, 1997)
9. Honeyz – Finally Found (Now 41, 1998)
10. Travis – Sing (Now 50, 2001)
11. Amy Studt – Misfit (Now 55, 2003)
12. Nina Sky – Move Ya Body (Now 58, 2004)
13. Goldfrapp – Ride A White Horse (Now 63, 2006)
14. The Hoosiers – Goodbye Mr A (Now 68, 2008)
15. Mini Viva – Left My Heart In Tokyo (Now 74, 2009)
16. Will Young – Jealousy (Now 80, 2011)
17. Lawson – Taking Over Me (Now 83, 2012)
18. Little Mix – Move (Now 87, 2014)
19. Marlon Roudette – When The Beat Drops Out (Now 90, 2015)
20. Olly Murs – You Don’t Know Love (Now 95, 2016)