Soldato
- Joined
- 10 May 2004
- Posts
- 12,975
- Location
- Sunny Stafford
Now turned 40 today and it got me thinking about when I got into chart music. It was 1994, now a regular listener to chart music for the first time, and I was aged 15. My first Now album was 27. I remember the gold letters on a sky blue background. Now 27 was on double tape, so the artwork for me was rectangular instead of the square as pictured here.
Now albums come out 3 times a year, so in 1994, 27 summed up Jan-Apr, 28 summed up May-Aug and 29 summed up Sep-Dec. That's how I've always divided my year up as well since age 15. So not 4 seasons or quarters, but 3 "terms" each of 4 months instead.
Reggae was big business in 1994, as in proper reggae and tracks that had a reggae beat. Dance music was mostly house and cheesy Euro-dance and M-Beat brought jungle to the mainstream which people either loved or hated. Britpop was huge, and was about to get even bigger! Boybands was mostly Take That vs East 17 and the latter had the Christmas no.1 in 1994. I actually preferred that to Mariah Carey's track from 1994 that keeps coming back every Christmas. Wet Wet Wet was no.1 for like 8 million years in 1994, even though 1994 was only 1 year
I carried on buying Now albums on tape until late 1996 when I got Now 35 on CD for the first time. Then I probably fizzled out in the mid-2000s. I then listened to Pandora radio in 2006 which was an early form of streaming, then Spotify was just around the corner and started paying my subs for that. You can get NOW albums on there in the form of playlists.
Now albums come out 3 times a year, so in 1994, 27 summed up Jan-Apr, 28 summed up May-Aug and 29 summed up Sep-Dec. That's how I've always divided my year up as well since age 15. So not 4 seasons or quarters, but 3 "terms" each of 4 months instead.
Reggae was big business in 1994, as in proper reggae and tracks that had a reggae beat. Dance music was mostly house and cheesy Euro-dance and M-Beat brought jungle to the mainstream which people either loved or hated. Britpop was huge, and was about to get even bigger! Boybands was mostly Take That vs East 17 and the latter had the Christmas no.1 in 1994. I actually preferred that to Mariah Carey's track from 1994 that keeps coming back every Christmas. Wet Wet Wet was no.1 for like 8 million years in 1994, even though 1994 was only 1 year
I carried on buying Now albums on tape until late 1996 when I got Now 35 on CD for the first time. Then I probably fizzled out in the mid-2000s. I then listened to Pandora radio in 2006 which was an early form of streaming, then Spotify was just around the corner and started paying my subs for that. You can get NOW albums on there in the form of playlists.
