The year is 2006. It’s Christmas day, 6 AM. Little old me is sat wide awake in bed with red eyes from another sleepless eve. Who knew this cold, cold morn would change my life, and many others forever.
After looking at the bedside clock for at least an hour already, I’ve decided enough is enough. Six is a perfectly reasonable time to wake my parents up, it’s Christmas day for Christ sake – my excitement can’t wait any longer. Popping on some slippers and my Darth Maul dressing gown (yes I was always a ‘bad boy’), I walked down the landing to creak open my parents’ door. “It’s Christmas Day, get up,” I whispered.
From here on out it’s just a daze, all I remember is unwrapping a portable radio with a built-in cd player, hurrah, and pulling the cellophane off a crisp copy of NOW!64. Old enough to like music but not old enough to know who or what I liked, this was a hell of a handbook…
Straight off the bat, if McFly butchering ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ wasn’t enough to make you know what you don’t like, you had a complete set off horrific tracks to choose from. How about Beverley Knight’s questionable take on ‘Piece of My Heart’? That must surely be enough… no? Or what about some Busta Rhymes? Tom Jones on a dance track?
The redeeming silver lining was a glorious middle section of noughties pop hits, including Ne-Yo’s ‘So Sick’, The Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Pump It’, and Lilly Allen’s ‘Smile’. To be fair, there was a quality indie prelude to this, featuring The Kooks ‘She Moves in Her Own Way’, but it simply wasn’t enough to turn the remaining 35 or so tracks into some kind of golden start to your musical taste – leave that to NOW!65. It’s safe to say my disappointment was immeasurable.
Like any disappointing present, it now remains dusty but in perfect condition, most likely lost in my Dad’s confusing CD ordering system forever – how do you order a compilation anyway? In the ‘other section’? It was a good place to start my musical journey, it taught me so many life lessons: never trust covers by established singers, they’re a trick, a ruse; most of indie music is actually one-hit wonders like pop music (see Sani Thom’s ‘I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker’); solo artists from boy bands rarely succeed, no matter how hard they try – I’m looking at you Ronan Keating; and finally, I will never know who Gnarls Barkley actually is, but I will always recognise the name.
All in all, this had a little bit of good, some bad, and a whole trunk of outright ugly stuff. But God forbid you give this to your child.
Listen to NOW!64 on Spotify, the NOW! website, or below, but I advise you don’t in all honesty.
