Do you know your Will Smiths from your Will Youngs? Take our quiz to find out...
If youre anything like us, your first foray into the world of music that wasnt The Wheels On The Bus on repeat in your mums car was probably a copy of NOW Thats What I Call Music somewhere between the ages of seven and 12.
A musical smorgasbord of tunes ranging from upbeat pop anthems by the Spice Girls to those awkward comeback tracks from bands your parents loved, NOW had it all.
Whether your first ever copy was on cassette, CD or even vinyl (yes, for our younger readers vinyl was actually out before tapes. What do you mean you dont know what a tape is?) everyone remembers fast forwarding through a load of dodgy dance/electro/house music to get to the latest Steps/Take That/Girls Aloud song, which you would proceed to play on repeat until the thing wore out.
So iconic has the humble compilation record become, theyve even made a reference book of every NOW release ever. In a fit of midday nostalgia, we came up with the simplest of quizzes to test you on your pop music knowledge.
Think you know your Pure and Simples from your Pure Shores? Your Will Youngs from your Will Smiths? What about your Katy Perrys from your KT Tunstalls? (Okay we admit, that one will be pretty easy).
Your mission should you choose to accept is to decipher the NOW from the track listing were after the number and the year. Bonus points if you get the month. Double bonus points if you actually owned the album.
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NOW That’s What I Call A Quiz
Ready? Let the trip down memory lane begin
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Name that NOW…
This was the year that... Britney Spears and *those* pigtails burst on to the scene, Steps revived a Bee Gees classic and the Vengaboys were off to EE-BEET-ZAH
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NOW 44
Of course it was NOW 44, released in November 1999. Yes, that means that ...Baby One More Time is 16 years old.
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Name that NOW…
This was the year that... every girl wanted to be Gwen Stefani, every boy wanted to be in The Prodigy and no-one knew what to do about Peter Andre
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NOW 36
That was NOW 36, released in March 1997.
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Name that NOW…
This was the year that... The X Factor incured the wrath of Jeff Buckely and Leonard Cohen fans alikewhile the rest of us were introduced to Lady Gaga
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NOW 72
Why it can only be NOW 72, released in April 2009.
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Name that NOW…
This was the year that... pretty much every man in the world had a thing for the faux Russian lesbians while the ladies of the world fell in love with Mr JT
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NOW 54
That'll be good old NOW 54, released in April 2003. There was a lil' clue in the tracklisting there - did you spot it?
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Name that NOW…
This was the year that... acid jazz ruled the air waves and we all wasted rather a lot of time trying to learn the words to 'Cotton Eyed Joe'
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NOW 30
This random mix was of course NOW 30, released in April 1995.
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Name that NOW…
This was the year that... Gangnam Style happened. 'Nuff said.
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NOW 83
It's the most recent one on our list, NOW 83 - released in November 2012.
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Name that NOW…
This was the year that... Shaggy started singing about Carolina and everyone had 'YOOOOOUNG at heart!' stuck in their head
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NOW 24
Remember this one? That's NOW 24, from back in April 1993.
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Name that NOW…
This was the year that... we had classics like 'Red Red Wine', 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart' and 'Karma Chameleon' storming the charts
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NOW 1
And this of course was the first ever NOW, NOW 1 if you will, from way back in November 1983.
