NOW Thats What I Call Music! 4

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Now 15 is an intriguing installment. Its Essential Score is 5.00, a relatively respectable rating on the higher end of a scale that ranges from 6.69 ( Now 48) to 3.13 ( Now 60). However, its Points Average sits at just 9.50 (the elite Now albums boast point averages in the upper teens). This means two things: That some of the album’s iconic songs surprisingly didn’t chart very well, and that the highs of the album were dragged down by much lower lows (I’m looking at you, “Everything” by Fefe Dobson). So before we move on, I’d like to give a couple of songs their due: Twenty years ago, someone finally told Americans what music was. The release of Now That’s What I Call Music! on October 27, 1998, was a turning point, a moment when the chaos of the auditory world was silenced; when consensus was reached by the mere declaration that nay, this—a collection of 17 contemporary songs—was music. Since that day we have had help in determining what is and what is not music (now), in the form of triannual installments in the Now series. We have never learned the identity of the authoritarian figure who guides us—this so-called “I”—but no matter, he or she or they or it has been just and resolute and unfleeting. The things they have called music have never been not-music, and so the ecosystem has remained intact.

NOW That’s What I Call Music! 74 [US] - Genius NOW That’s What I Call Music! 74 [US] - Genius

Speaking of Karmin, remember when Karmin was on Saturday Night Live? That was, um, interesting. The performance has mostly been scrubbed from the internet (which makes sense), but you can still read this breakdown by Vulture of all the absurd gestures Karmin made during it, which is probably better than actually rewatching the thing. 54. Now That’s What I Call Music! 34 That “Incomplete” by Sisqó landed on Now 5 is the most solid evidence we have pointing to the Now religion including karma—it’s on there because “Thong Song” is not on Now 4, or any Now for that matter. That is a near-criminal act of erasure that cannot be forgiven. But tossing a meaningless also-ran on the next compilation is a nice way to say, “Hey, my bad, Sisqó.” 27. Now That’s What I Call Music! 24It also, for some reason, has Juvenile’s “Slow Motion,” marking one of the only times Now correctly classified rap as music. More on that below … 8. Now That’s What I Call Music! 49 Sample lyrics from “BareNaked”: “Sometimes I think I’m the only one/Whose day turned out unlike it had begun.” [ Whispers.] Jennifer, this is a description of literally every person’s everyday experience. I’m sorry, hang on. Did we just jump from Achilles and Hercules to SPIDER-MAN AND BATMAN? This is the worst book report on the Iliad ever written. 39. Now That’s What I Call Music! 30 To appropriately rank the Now albums, I devised a formula to take into account the commercial success, accolades, and feeling of essentialness of each song featured. Half a point was awarded for every week a song stayed on the Billboard Hot 100; five points were awarded for every Grammy nomination a song earned, while 10 points were awarded for a Grammy win; lastly, one point was awarded for every MTV Video Music Award nomination, while two points were awarded for every VMA win. Those numbers were then totaled and averaged. The Essential Score for each album was determined by rating each song’s essentialness on a scale of 1 to 10. How do you determine how essential a song is, you ask? I’ll answer that question with a series of questions: How efficiently does the song conjure a sense of time and place? How well does it capture where popular music was as a genre when it was included on Now? And lastly, how good is the song to this day? Taking those questions into account and assigning each song an Essential Score, I—again, I am the authority here, which is valid because as Now doctrine states, all people who started the sixth grade three or four years before or after the first Now are Now experts—averaged those numbers to arrive at an Essential Score. Each album’s Points Average was then multiplied by its Essential Score to give us a Now Score. Simply put, the higher the Now Score, the better the Now album.

Now That’s What I Call Music!’ Album, Ranked Every ‘Now That’s What I Call Music!’ Album, Ranked

A really tough listen all the way through, Now 58 starts with a low-impact Kelly Clarkson song (“Piece by Piece”) and continues with a slew of artists’ lesser hits (“Roses” by the Chainsmokers, “In the Night” by the Weeknd, “Out of the Woods” by Taylor Swift, and “Middle” by DJ Snake) and also songs by G-Eazy (again!) and Bryson Tiller. No thanks! 59. Now That’s What I Call Music! 10 It’s strange: People are pretty rude about mumblerap, but I don’t remember anyone throwing their hands up about Mystikal yelling “Danger!” into a microphone over and over again. 32. Now That’s What I Call Music! 19Across 67 albums, only 14 songs received a perfect 10 in the Essential Score category. “Teenage Dream” is one of them, and because I don’t have much else to say about Now 36, now is a good time to do a mini ranking of all the most essential Now songs. If we ever do a ranking called “Now That’s What I Call a Reality Show!” though, Jessica’s taking home the belt. 48. Now That’s What I Call Music! 23 Daniel Bedingfield’s “If You’re Not the One”, a song you probably only barely remember, is on this album. I bring that up only to note that, yes, Daniel Bedingfield is Natasha Bedingfield’s older brother! I hope Natasha brags about being called music more times than Daniel at family dinners. 65. Now That’s What I Call Music! 35 It was very difficult choosing the most essential song off Now 6, which tells you why it’s ranked so high. In one corner you’ve got “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” by Jennifer Lopez, which was the subject of probably my favorite episode of Making the Video. In the next corner there’s Creed’s “With Arms Wide Open,” and may I just say WELCOME TOOOO THIS PLACE, I’LL SHOW YOU EVERYYYYTHANG. Then there’s “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy, a song in which a man is caught literally having sex on the floor of a bathroom, and when that man asks Shaggy for advice, Shaggy just says, “Lie about it, bro.” Not helpful, Shaggy! She already saw me!