Back to NOW!

For this episode I am joined by award winning film director Grant McPhee.

Amongst Grant’s films are Big Gold Dream, which tells the story of FAST Product and Postcard Records, two of Scotland’s most loved independent record labels and Teenage Superstars the story of what happened next in the uncompromising world of Scottish indie music, featuring music and interviews from the likes of The Vaselines, BMX Bandits, Primal Scream and Teenage Fanclub.

Grant heads back to 1996 to consider his musical journey as a fan from collecting 60s pop singles growing up in Fife to discovering Indie as a student in Edinburgh. Along the way, Grant shares stories of summer Holiday viewing of The Monkees on TV, to the Chart Show defining what Indie was through to the heady days of student life and memories of some defining soundtrack moments including, of course 96’s iconic Trainspotting.

We also explore the whole concept of retrospective curation, as viewed in the NOW Millennium series. How does the music of 1996 stand up 25 years later? Are these the hits we remember or does the shifting period of time and culture reshape our memories? And how would a NOW 1996 Yearbook look now? Which hits still make the cut, musically and culturally?

All of this and much more, including memories of The Associates, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smash Hits Poll Winners Party, BBE (!)

Choose Life, Choose NOW, Choose 1996!

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Welcome to Autumn 1996. Royal divorce, Mad Cow disease, Take That helplines, TFI Friday.

But it wasn’t all bad news, oh no – the pop charts were continuing to dazzle and amaze the CD buying public! Indeed, if we weren’t snapping up those hits on £5 CD singles (both one and two, to complete the set) we were most definitely picking up a copy of the latest volume of everyone’s favourite compilation series, NOW35.

And what delights across the forty tracks would you find?

Girl Power taking over the world with that (not actually) difficult second single, George Michael looking for love in all sorts of place, Boybands (some on the way in, some heading further eastwards!) And enough dance anthems to fill any bedroom disco or sparkling nightclub.

And a fair smattering of, what the music press were still most definitely describing, as the all conquering, crowd pleasing, flag waving, two-fingered swagger Britpop. But was a change on the horizon as the year of Euro 96, Knebworth and a plethora of Union Jacks moved towards its conclusion? Was the retrograde triumphalism sliding towards its own runout groove? And if so, were the clues to the Next Big Thing to be found on this album? As the team at NOW always successfully managed to do in their gloriously curated way, most definitely!

Back to Now guest Neil Kulkarni has been writing about pop since 1994, starting out at the weekly Melody Maker before moving on to a host of magazines, newspapers and websites as well as lecturing in music journalism and releasing music with his band The Moonbears.

Amongst hits and headlines from Spice Girls, Pulp, Neneh Cherry, Underworld and others, we also explore the huge influence that r’n’b was having on the popworld, find out how to wind-up indie fans (it involves 2 unlimited), discover the bands that music journalists can’t admit to not liking (doesn’t involve 2 unlimited) and be amazed at the connection between a solar eclipse, Lynx Africa and a James Bond baddie (yes really).

And find out why pretty much every ‘indie’ guitar act on NOW35 won’t be returning our calls.

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Welcome to the end of the eighties! Pop’s greatest (it was, wasn’t it?) decade was getting ready to pack away it’s shoulder pads, leg warmers and Rubik’s cubes (not being too stereotypical are we?) and was heading at breakneck speed towards the nineties, and the latest edition of the Now series absolutely represented the change ahead!

Well, sort of.

As ever the democratic forces behind the UK charts (e.g. the record buying public and more likely the producers of wonderful ‘One’ FM) had different ideas of how Spring 1989 was going to be remembered by pop pundits 33 years in the future, on something called a ‘podcast’.

Behold, Back to Now listeners, it’s NOW 14!

So, yes the ‘future’ was represented thanks to Detroit’s pop dancefloor duo Inner City, Mark Moore’s fun packed technicolor beats with S-Xpress (we’ve dropped the ‘E’, of course!) and the awesome arrival of Neneh Cherry heralding a new stance for the 90s, right now!

However, as always, this was only part of the story (would we have it any other way?)

In this volume we find the Fine Young Cannibals and INXS swallowing up the global charts only slightly disguised as Prince, Sam Brown and Erasure both commanding us to STOP (only one with an exclamation mark though!), Ver Quo and Ver Minds being, er, Ver Quo and Ver Minds and a smattering of 80s stars dangerously teetering on the edge of ‘the dumper’.

And our guest for this end of decade excursion back to volume 14? Well, it's only editor of Q (twice!), Mixmag (twice!), Select and Word (associate!) and now podmaster supremo Andrew Harrison! Huzzah!

Andrew has also interviewed Madonna, Morrissey (went to his house in LA), Bono (in a fountain) and Stephen Fry (in a bad mood) as well as inventing the phrase "landfill indie". Congratulations, Mr Harrison, you’ve passed the audition!

Join Andrew as we learn about his first music passions (it’s a bit glam and involves jumping off a table), being a student in Leeds (quite a lot of nights out, sometimes with footballers) and of course explore the delights of this wonderful (sometimes) compilation. Along the way, discover which acts would have been in the 3” CD single cheap box (well we all liked a rummage, didn’t we?), what was (possibly) written on a stickie note on Pete Waterman’s shaving mirror, how Q picked their album review adjectives (‘lacklustre!’) and which 1989 acts Andrew will go back and manage when he perfects his time machine.

And also discover why Living in a Box, Hue and Cry (again) and Michael Ball will probably not be returning our calls.

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1990.

Well it certainly was time for the guru, but as the first year of the new decade was drawing to a close, it was time - a little time, if you will - for so much more. And as always, our favourite compilation series was there to capture it all.

So volume 18 provided us with the NOW albums second numbered album of 1990 in the shape of big ballads, bigger ballads, pop, rock, dance, indie and even Timmy Mallet. Yes, all life forms were present and correct!

Elton was BACK and, with Bernie Taupin, scoring his biggest hit in years (and a first solo No1!). Sinead was rewriting the Prince songbook and music video like no one else could, William Orbit was quietly ushering in the rest of the decade with some fascinating rhythms and Kylie was not only sidling nicely alongside her then boyfriend Michael in INXS, she was riding on the love train somewhere back in time.

There were remixes and reissues aplenty too; best of albums for PiL and Talk Talk alongside (are we allowed to say indie dance?) excursions from The Cure, Sting and Suzanne vega were reminding us that the 80s were still a force to be remixed with.

And so to step back in time to NOW18 in this episode we are joined by film and TV music supervisor Lucy Bright.

Lucy started out at Mute Records working with artists such as Nick Cave and Depeche Mode, she then moved to Warner Classics for six years before leaving to manage composer Michael Nyman.

In 2020 Lucy launched her own music publishing company, Bright Notion Music, which currently represents and nurtures some of the world’s most influential artists and composers working today.

And Lucy has music supervised some of the most critically-acclaimed British films and TV series of recent years: Samantha Morton’s directorial debut The Unloved, Charlotte Wells’ Cannes winning After Sun and both Shane Meadows’s This is England ‘90 and The Virtues.

So we can think of no one better to navigate us through an album chock filled with film and TV related tracks!

Jeans! Pottery Wheels! Julia Roberts! Bridesmaids! Julian Temple in the desert! Tim Pope in a wardrobe!

As well as deciphering these conundrums, Lucy also joyfully revisits her first (and only?) NOW album whilst delighting us with some wonderful and personal stories including guest appearances from Youth, James Mason, Prince (and a chocolate milkshake), Michael Hutchence, Shane Meadows and Holly Knight (she wrote some big songs, oh yes) to name but a few!

1990 - who has time for the guru with all of this going on?

Jump straight back in to the wonderfully eclectic and memory packed NOW18!

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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 taking up the prime positions on the nation’s favourite compilation series in March 1991?

Well, you actually may have been wondering what year it actually was.

1982? 1987? 1965? 1970? They were all here (you know which songs were which, don’t you? Of course you do.)

Yes pop fans, TV, film, and TV films amongst other factors (chewing gum, jeans, Patrick Swayze) were all leaving quite a mark on the topper most region of the charts.

However fear not! The story of NOW, That’s What I Call Music 19 is much, much more - resplendent in it’s purple and yellow (ahem!) gatefold cover. The biggest number of tracks to date (34!), encompassing the blossoming decade’s many exciting genres (and Stevie B).

And so we throw open the doors and welcome (amongst others) The KLF broadcasting loud and proud on Radio Freedom, Massive (yes, no Attack during this war period) providing a bona fide Unfinished classic, Kylie being totally imperial, Seal being totally everything and Chris Rea being like a pub (we believe) and providing youngsters up and down the country with the perfect CD for Dad this Christmas.

Elsewhere there were big ballads (Oleta and long haired ‘serious’ Rick), big dance (The Source and Nomad) big pop (Belinda, her wonderful hair and INXS) and a majestic (if not entirely singable) ending from Steve Howe (and Queen).

And yes, alright, seeing as you ask the totally amazing Banderas. One hit wonder or not? You decide.

And indeed our guest does! Into the PopVoid blogger (he says it’s coming BACK, possibly) and all round Scots pop super fan Niall McMurray steers us expertly and enthusiastically across the hits, headlines (and Stevie B) from volume 1991. He also provides some great stories about growing up and branching out as a student in Glasgow (I was there too!), suggests some amazing (and they are AMAZING) missing tracks and we both, quite frankly, gush justifiably about ABBA Voyage.

All of this and much more (it says in my notes) - and find out why EMF, Hale and Pace and probably several others won’t be returning our calls anytime soon.

1991 - Awesome! (As a few other similar looking compilations told us.)

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