Wake up, it’s a beautiful morning! It’s the spring of 1995. That most eclectic of decades, the nineties if you will, was no longer the new kid on the millennial block. Pop culture has boxed up the eighties for another day, had shaken off baggy, was in the process of returning grunge back to the US and was now striding confidently onwards with a swagger all of its own. The country was beginning to look and sound different. The political landscape was shifting towards something ‘new’ and felt more...
May 19, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Season 6Ep. 5
2002. The pop culture landscape would never be the same again. No, we’re not talking about Robbie Williams £80m, six album deal (although Rudebox would indeed shift the landscape, if not exactly many copies). We’re not even talking about Pop Idol top ten contestant Jessica Garlick coming (joint) third in Eurovision, although that was pretty good. We could be talking about the arrival of 6Music and BBC Four (TOTP RERUNS!!). But no, all of these memorable highlights take a positively backseat posi...
Apr 21, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Season 6Ep. 4
Can You Feel It? It’s July, 1989 and the temperature is hot! Actually, for a lot of the UK it surprisingly was, but let’s leave meteorological memories aside, we’re talking the dancefloor. The country, the WHOLE nation was completely right on one, matey. Well maybe not the entire nation, but there was no doubt that the BPMs were sweeping the nation much quicker than the BSB squarial was in the last summer of the eighties. As 1988 became 1989, the underground was rapidly moving overground. The ho...
Mar 10, 2025•1 hr 9 min•Season 6Ep. 3
In 2025, the iconic NOW series moves into the world of musical theatre with a brand new show ‘NOW, That’s What I Call A Musical’ delivering a storyline that ties friendship and incredible 80s pop music together perfectly. A dynamic cast, a sure fire story from Pippa Evans filled with a rollercoaster of emotions and laughter is coupled by choreography from Craig Revel Horwood for a guaranteed hit night out! And if that wasn’t enough the touring show includes guest appearances from an array of pop...
Jan 29, 2025•38 min•Season 6Ep. 2
The United Kingdom in Summer 1998 was an interesting place indeed. In June, the DVD was released for the first time and presumably the first person to ignore random extras, interviews and photo galleries was welcomed with open arms. The Crime and Disorder Act introduces Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOS) was introduced into our vocabulary and the tabloids jumped for joy at the possibility of a plethora of new, stupid headlines about 3am parties, alcopop-fuelled teenagers and wheelie bins. Sign...
Jan 20, 2025•1 hr 17 min•Season 6Ep. 1
Welcome, everyone, to the Back to Now review for 2024! Following in the well-loved festive traditions such as fingering your way through the double edition Radio Times, fumbling your way to the back of the cupboard for the remnants of last year’s Baileys or just thumbing through some nuts next to an open fire, we bring you a finale to another variously compiled year in pop in the company of some wonderful, wintry guests. Author of the year and close friend of Hazell Dean - Ian Wade! Compiler of ...
Dec 09, 2024•59 min•Season 5Ep. 11
Ideas, experiments, imagination. So, what was the optimum Britpop™️ year? Academics, thinkers and BBC documentary makers have wrestled over this question for many a year. Possibly even as long as it takes to listen to Be Here Now. 1993 - Yanks, go home? 1994 - Maybe, perhaps definitely? 1995 - Different class, I’d suggest? So where were we by the spring of 1996? Three years of evolution, trademarked Beatles and Kinks mimicking, and countless cans of Red Stripe had taken it’s toll. Would it be pe...
Oct 24, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 5Ep. 10
Dylan Jones once described the Eighties as being shaped by ‘a new type of bohemianism, one empowered by a certainty and an optimism that was only fleeting back in the sixties.’ * Moreso, K.Tel records importantly reminded us that home taping was killing music. So, it’s November 1981, and this young music fan is feverishly taking ownership of two cassettes in his local Woolworths. One blue, one red. One bought, one free. Together this maiden compilation purchase - from the aforementioned compilat...
Sep 16, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 5Ep. 9
We’re going where the sun shines brightly, We’re going where the sea is blue… 1986 really was very Cliff. He had celebrated his first No1 of the 80s with the cast of The Young Ones, featured in some devastating billboard action in the (rerun) finale of the aforementioned BBC comedy show, been covered by the TVam rat and gerbil, and even had one of his most famous songs feature on a rather unique (and quite frankly ghastly) novelty Euro hit. And in July of the very same year, this very prominent ...
Aug 19, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 5Ep. 8
“What we’re gonna do right here is go back, way back!” If you were really down with the cool kids in 1984, you would have most definitely have been passing around the school prized C90 cassettes featuring much copied Streetsounds compilations. And somewhere in there was Kurtis Blow’s AJ Scratch track with those immortal sampled words from the Jimmy Castor Bunch in 1972. Straight out onto The BMXs and down to throw some funky worm shapes on that strip of lino! Or, in this writer’s case, 1984 was ...
Jul 15, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 5Ep. 7
August 1989. The final year of ‘the finest pop decade ever’™️ is moving along quite nicely thank you very much. There’s most definitely a change in the air, and we don’t mean the launch of the FOUR channel Sky TV network. Relax everyone, UK Gold and TOTP reruns are coming in three years! No, real change was coming. The second summer of love in 1988 (sorry Danny Wilson, probably a year out) as witnessed on the utterly imperial NOW 11, 12 and 13 had demonstrated that the 90s were calling and they ...
Jun 17, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 5Ep. 6
It was the wise prophet and occasional flower impersonator Peter Gabriel that said, ‘I don’t remember, I don’t recall, I have no memory of anything at all.’ Do you remember 2008? Yes, it's only (!) 16 years ago, so I’ve no doubt you still have packets in the kitchen cupboard that are older, but do you also remember how the pop landscape of 2008 was mapping out? Indeed, what on earth was going on in your life eight years into the 21st century? You see, this writer (it’s, me IAIN!) has quite a gli...
May 21, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 5Ep. 5
It's November 2023, and the world's most successful compilation series is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Five decades of compiling the latest hits, the occasional miss, but always the songs that soundtracked our lives. Always there, always democratically and expertly sequencing the music that the UK buying (downloading/streaming/swiping) public were grooving to, laughing to, dancing along with, or crying about (add in your own band or artists here). What else is still with us from 1983? And s...
Apr 15, 2024•57 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Confidence, they say, is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as… …1994, darlings! And of course, as perceived wisdom now dutifully dictates, we were all completely mad for it, lemon hooch in hand, union jacks draped around our football tops, waving two fingers to those damn yanks. Go home! Except, of course, the truth couldn’t be further away from the, er truth. Whilst it definitely maybe was 1994, there was so much more than just cigarettes (and alcohol). And we were all the b...
Mar 20, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Pop. The way that we process everything. So, it's the summer of 1993. According to meteorological 'experts', the UK experienced its lowest maximum temperatures since 1972. Only 4 days were officially classified as ' HOT '. Well, I would argue, pop fans, that is UNLESS you had a swingorilliant copy of NOW, That's What I Call Music 25! (We'll take this quite frankly, cheesy line out in the edit - Ed.) Yes, indeed, the blue sky and wistful clouds that adorned the glorious cover of the latest variou...
Feb 02, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Welcome to Spring 1993. And, I’m sure you’ll all agree, there was only one phrase on everyone’s lips. I lick-he boom, boom down. (Checks notes) Anyway, more of that later. The legendary NOW compilation series has reached its twenty-fourth volume and is now standing proud as the finest collection of chart hits around. HITS who? And as the fourth year of that craziest of decades ‘The Nineties’ got underway, 37 of the finest top hits were vying for your pop attention. AND what a year it was shaping...
Jan 05, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Welcome, one and all, to the 3rd annual Back to NOW review! As is now tradition, this end of year episode of the variously compiled podcast provides us with a festive opportunity to glance back over our shoulders at the pop landscape of yet another 12 months. Let’s celebrate a dazzling year of NOW compilations that in 2023 have included something for everyone - fabulous yearbooks scanning four decades, love songs, Eurovision, dance, alternative, hi NRG, 12” annuals, and of the course the ubiquit...
Nov 30, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Season 4Ep. 10
They all know it’s Dynamite, And the music went on and on and on… The history books will tell us that, in theory, 1973 shouldn’t have worked. Terrorist campaigns, oil shortages, petrol rations, power cuts. Peters and Lee. However, as the saying goes from great adversity comes great art. Or was it great sitcoms? Either way, 1973 stands not just as one of the greatest pop years of the decade, one could argue of all time. Really, I hear you cry? Where is the evidence that a year that could see Donn...
Oct 25, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Season 4Ep. 9
La, La, La. Autumn 2001. In many ways, it has been a challenging year. 5ive and Steps split, Hearsay don’t. Pop, just like the most boybandish of the latest boybands, Blue is (all) on the rise. The new millennium has most definitely set up its shiny new stall and is fully decked out in its cargo pants, vest tops - and that is just the boys. Mobile phone ringtones were being catapulted into polyphonic ringtones thanks to those boffins at Nokia (who?) so that our train journeys became even more an...
Sep 18, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Season 4Ep. 8
It’s a Saturday night in April 1985 and a queue is gathering outside Raffles nightclub in, well pretty much every town and city across this sceptred isle. Feverishly excited boys and girls wait and dream of Malibu and coke, Quatro and ice, whilst expectant beams of pink neon shoot out from beyond the velvet rope and the intimidating bouncers (possibly both called Dave). Through the door, past the cloakroom, up the stairs and then it happens - the anthems of Saturday night come together with the ...
Aug 28, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 4Ep. 7
It’s summer 1991 and school’s out which means it’s time for your latest compilation! It was probably on cassette, possibly from your local high street and most definitely slotted straight into your parent’s car stereo for that sweet-fuelled, motorway exodus to the sun! But WAIT! After NOW 19’s release in the spring, the horizon isn’t delivering the nation’s favourite 20th variously compiled selection until NOVEMBER! As the young set frantically scan the racks of Woolworths, Dad point-blankly ref...
Jul 25, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 6
WARNING! This episode contains scenes of graphic and often gratuitous pop perfection. Listener discretion is advised. Summer 2004. The wettest summer in the UK for fifty years, and with it being another three years before Rihanna invents the umbrella, there is a need for something more drastic to help dodge the dampness. So where does one shelter from the storm? Well, certainly not the World Cup, at the cinema it’s a web-spinning yawn with Spider-Man 2 and TV offers up the first Strictly winning...
Jun 22, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Welcome to the middle of ‘the nineties’! Sort of! Spring 1994, to be exact. And indeed, the popworld is revelling in the ‘seed of the new breed’. Again, sort of… You know the drill by now, the glorious NOW, That’s What I Call Music 27 steers you though the wonderfully choppy waters of the UK charts. Sometimes the shore is graced with the wonders of perfect pop from the likes of Swedish Global grabbers Ace of Base. Life can indeed be demanding, without - who knows - understanding. Further along t...
May 15, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Season 4Ep. 4
It’s the summer of 1992! The UK had accidentally voted in the Conservative government again but to make amends wins lots of medals at the Freddie and Monserrat Olympic Festival Sporting thingy in Barcelona, so everyone forgets for a while. Alan Shearer becomes the most expensive soccer star in the whole of history and the English FA celebrate their winning bid for Euro96 - spoiler, it still doesn’t come home. And, AND, everyone was glued to the BBC’s newest and sauciest soap opera Eldorado - wha...
Apr 01, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Alexa, show me 1984. If you were to ask a certain searchable device (others are, obviously available), there’s a high probability that the year George Orwell predicted would see us living in a terrifying future nightmare would instead be adorned with a wash of neon, colour and an array of sunshine pop. And the character staring back at us wouldn’t be Big Brother, it was a pig in shades. Of course! (And is there anything cooler?) Yes, it’s here! July 1984, and the third volume of the world famous...
Feb 24, 2023•1 hr 25 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Welcome to 1993. Autumn, to be exact. And how was it all looking? Well, it wasn’t really baggy like 1990, or rave-y like 1991, but it wasn’t Britpoppy like 1995. It was all a bit…well, who knows? Can we say, a bit of a pop hinterland? And were there any clues across our ever reliant pop culture landscape for how ‘93 had shaped up? Well in a year that saw the launch of two modern icons - the Vauxhall Corsa and QVC - actually, perhaps, we’ll come back to them later. Not! Back to the hinterland the...
Jan 19, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Welcome to this bonus edition of Back to Now! A small but perfectly formed bite-size extra serving of Festive Pop! To compliment the end of year review of 2022, enjoy a collection of previous lovely guests as they revisit some memorable Christmas hits. Or should that be December hits? Or Christmas adjacent pop? You decide, wonderful listeners! Indeed, in the true sense of pop memorabilia, consider this a free gift flexidisc stuck to the front cover of your double edition festive Smash Hits, back...
Dec 19, 2022•17 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Festive greetings and welcome to what all of the Pop Kids are rightly calling the 2nd annual Back to Now review for 2022! Can it really be a whole 12 months since we last pulled up a cosy chair, poured ourselves a large creme de menthe and ruminated on the variously compiled world of pop? Well, yes indeed and so much has happened since! We don’t talk about politics here, no, no no - it’s all about the music. And whilst 2022 saw some genuinely big passings, we also saw some spectacular pop moment...
Dec 06, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Jack, jack, jack….wait? What? Who is this Jack? It’s 1987, and the future has arrived in the shape of the first No1 of the year courtesy of Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley - House Music is here! Hold up, wait a minute! As the ninth edition of the famous Now, That’s What I Call Music testified from within it’s (so 80s!) Ring binder cover, the charts were much more varied. Whilst dance music was loading up its record box and turning up the BPMs for the coming 12 months, the 30 top chart hits across the four s...
Oct 28, 2022•1 hr 24 min•Season 3Ep. 10
1991. It was the first palindromic year since 1881, and to be honest I’m not really up on the hits of that particular Victorian number. (Newsflash: Bruckner’s 6th Symphony was pretty hot that year) Fast forward to the 2nd year of the ‘nineties’ as we called it, and there are plenty of other newsflashes abound. War in the Gulf dominated the spring (news and charts, but more of that later), Eastern Europe was reshaping, and on TV it was either Springfield or a cup of damn fine coffee. So what was ...
Sep 16, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 3Ep. 9
