Life looked great for Chaka Khan in 1986 - singing with Stevie Winwood, Green from Scritti Politti writing songs for her (Love of a timetime)
Now That's What I Call Music (Nostalgia)
- Thread starter P Grandson
- Start date
Shame it flopped! Chaka struggled to follow up the I feel 4U album, much like Pointer sisters did with Breakout. Sounds moved on so quickly!
Yeah, Chaka struggled in the same way as a lot of similar female acts did post-1984/85. Eventually her relationship with Warners turned sour.
I take little pleasure in it, but really they should have stopped at 100.
They were still selling enough copies to be worthwhile at 100 though. I'm not sure how much longer they will at these numbers. And I still enjoy them! It'd be very sad to see them end.
I wonder if the quality of music has anything to do with this? I stopped buying the main series last year.
Well I guess that depends on your opinion. I think what's definitely fair to say is that the charts have slowed down so there's fewer big hits to pad out an album, and the songs that make the chart often appeal to a younger audience, rather than the general public. When you look at the current top 5 consisting of records by Jack Harlow, Aitch and Dave, these aren't really going to appeal to anyone over the age of 35.
And it's over 35s who still buy CDs. Now have tried to be clever by looking beyond the top 40 and chucking on a load of Radio 2 playlist hits as well.
Some of the major supermarket chains have ditched CDs recently too.
This is probably a bigger factor than anything else.
Funnily enough I started buying the Nows again due to streaming and liking a lot of songs and being able to get a good few songs by artists who I wouldn't buy an album for but liked the song. The last few have been absolutely pointless as it was 2 songs plus a whole bunch of tuneless artist x artist x artist tracks.
Yeah thinking about it I also think this is the biggest factor. Such a shame really, but I also agree to charts have slowed down so much to the point they’ve expanded the brackets to allow singles based on radio airplay.
I think there’s still a lot of great new music out there like Hatchie and Muna, but it’s currently not making a dent on the top 40.
Maybe the brand could limp on to its 40th next November. But it would be sad to see it become virtually impotent, which the figures quoted for 111 suggest it's in danger of becoming.
I know some in here aren’t a fan of vinyl, but I’m shocked they haven’t started releasing vinyl editions of the recent Now albums, that’d get the sales up and obviously they’d probably charge £35 for a double LP.
Vinyl production lead times being what they are, the LPs would come out many months after the CDs!
Those numbers would deliver a nailed on #1 in the album charts most weeks.
I know, but historically Now's numbers have always been much higher than artist albums - and it was doing 30,000 only a year or so ago, so numbers are falling really fast. They can't dip much lower.
They seem to manage to get the Now Yearbook vinyl pressed in a reasonable amount of time, I imagine the label being a big label has slots blocked out throughout the year, but I guess they only press 5,000 copies.
A tracklist of 40+ year old hits can be licensed, sequenced and ordered for production many months before the album is announced.
That doesn't apply to a compilation of current/recent hit singles. It's apples and oranges.
That doesn't apply to a compilation of current/recent hit singles. It's apples and oranges.
The low sales have been a rapid decline since pre-Covid. I agree that supermarkets no longer selling CDs are probably the biggest factor, they sell to casual buyers, not people who seek out an HMV or go online to order. Perhaps the average Now buyer also isn't hearing as much music around so doesn't want to shell out for 45 tracks when they only know a few.
I wonder if they should cut it down to twice a year, like in 1985-1987/1990-1991, see if that helps.
I wonder if they should cut it down to twice a year, like in 1985-1987/1990-1991, see if that helps.