NOW Thats What I Call Music! 4

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I can’t really blame Now for this series of errors, though. The early 2000s were clearly messed up. We were a bunch of people running around barking at each other. Then when the barking stopped, we stopped listening. We as a culture need to take responsibility for our turn toward canine-related party jams, rather than hold Now accountable for its inability to predict that rather embarrassing phenomenon. 58. Now That’s What I Call Music! 15 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:

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

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! 13Speaking 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 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 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! Fun fact: Frankie J has been called music more times than Drake. 31. Now That’s What I Call Music! 53

NOW That’s What I Call Music 4 [UK] - Genius

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 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 people would be a lot more willing to concede that “Panda” is a pretty good song. 12. Now That’s What I Call Music! 55 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! 24NOW That’s What I Call Music! 74 is the 74th mainline installment in the American compilation series “NOW That’s What I Call Music!” Also, 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 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. 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. 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