NOW Thats What I Call Music! 4

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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 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 Once again: Music, in its most current state, is bad. Now 65, in particular, features a three-song run that paints a ghastly picture of recent popular rap, from G-Eazy’s “No Limit” to NF’s “Let You Down” to Post Malone’s “I Fall Apart.” Woof. 60. Now That’s What I Call Music! 58 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

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A hot take: “Need You Now” is one of the best songs of the decade, across all genres; it’s probably top five. 15. Now That’s What I Call Music! 31 Speaking of actresses making bizarre forays into the music world: Now 32 includes “Good Girls Go Bad” by Cobra Starship and Leighton Meester. That song is way better than “Cups,” by the way. 17. Now That’s What I Call Music! 21

If this was music in late 2016, then those months are truly the darkest days of American pop culture. 66. Now That’s What I Call Music! 13 But Ansel shouldn’t be so hard on himself. He was in The Fault in Our Stars, which popularized “Boom Clap” by Charli XCX. Ergo, Ansolo is so close to being music. 30. Now That’s What I Call Music! 46 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.

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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. 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! 24 Have you ever listened to the lyrics of “Something Just Like This,” the Chainsmokers/Coldplay song that’s on Now 63? They make no sense. Take the first verse, for example: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 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! The sound of a car turning signal has haunted me since the day “The Middle” was released as a Target commercial on January 28, 2018. Please make it stop. 55. Now That’s What I Call Music! 44 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

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

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: The Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition” is on Now 34, which can mean only one thing: (500) Days of Summer played a major role in dictating what was called music in 2010. 53. Now That’s What I Call Music! 40Also, how’s this for injustice: Both Zayn and Liam Payne appear on Now 67. In all, 10 solo efforts from former members of One Direction appear on Now albums, though none of those are songs by Harry Styles. I really thought he’d be the one to release the most music. Alas, “Sign of the Times” is not music. 61. Now That’s What I Call Music! 65 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.

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If your song ends up on a commercial, especially one featuring a person dancing, congrats, dude—your song is probably music. 40. Now That’s What I Call Music! 63 Turn Down for What” is Lil Jon’s revenge on the Now god after it somehow determined that both “Get Low” and “Yeah!” were not music. In response to these truly harsh, obviously misguided snubs, Lil Jon clearly sat down with the then-unknown DJ Snake to make a song that was so music it would eventually drive everyone mad. 9. Now That’s What I Call Music! 16 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 Across 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. Here are five reasons why I think “Somebody That I Used to Know” isn’t remembered so kindly, despite it not being that bad a song:Chanté’s Got a Man” is a wildly rude song. The thesis of “Chanté’s Got a Man” is “Oh dang, it’s really too bad your boyfriend is cheating on you, but guess what: I’m in a very stable, rewarding relationship.” It’s just a whole bunch of boasting—all done in the third person—directed at a woman going through one of the hardest periods of her life. Chanté didn’t need to do this. 56. Now That’s What I Call Music! 66 The last two Now albums, nos. 66 and 67, include songs that were released after October 1, 2017, meaning they have not yet been eligible to be nominated for, and win, Grammys. In those cases, educated guesses were employed. 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! 19 In our universe, meanwhile, I’d expect “Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper to land on, like, Now 69. Bradley Cooper is music. 14. Now That’s What I Call Music! 64