Where the albums differ is in the aggregate quality of the music they contain-while all Now albums have definitively told us what music was in a given three-to-four-month span, they have never guaranteed that that music would be necessarily good.
#Now thats what i call music 100 series
(The United Kingdom series has 100 albums and has been in circulation since 1983 the old country has known what music is for much longer.) All 67 albums have, undeniably, featured music-they are hitting 1.000 in that respect. Not counting bonus compilation albums-like the unassailable Now That’s What I Call Christmas! and the international-friendly Now Esto Es Musica! Latino-there have been 67 Now albums in the United States series. The things they have called music have never been not-music, and so the ecosystem has remained intact. 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. 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.
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.
Twenty years ago, someone finally told Americans what music was.