e. Madonna, Prince, David Bowie), the whole point is to gather up the tracks that Now cannot or will not licence. They completely complement the Yearbook and Yearbook Extra compilations which delight those nostalgic for the great era of music.

By typing the compilation code (CDYBENOW86) on the net, you can find visuals of the upcoming compilation, with the list of titles of course. NOW Music is proud to present the newest edition to our ‘Yearbook’ family: NOW – Yearbook 1985, the 6th addition to our Yearbook 80s series and 7th addition including NOW – Yearbook 1979. That’s another major omission but presumably the NOW team requested it and said ‘Please’, only to be refused. More chart debuts from King, Simply Red, Fine Young Cannibals, and The Dream Academy lead toward the disc’s closing track from Strawberry Switchblade with the Pop classic ‘Since Yesterday’. The third disc opens with the breath-taking ‘Cloudbusting’ from Kate Bush, and Indie anthem ‘How Soon Is Now?Oh, and neither the 7 inch versions of Like Clockwork or Rat Trap by the Boomtown Rats appear anywhere. If 1984 was the best year in pop, then this compilation reminds us that 1985 was almost as good, with post-Live Aid Queen opening in strident fashion with ‘One Vision’, newcomers a-ha almost reaching number one in the UK with ‘Take On Me’, and Tears For Fears deciding to ditch the bedsitter synth-pop, get the guitars out and go ‘global’ with ‘Shout’ and Everybody Wants To Rule The World’.

There’s more from the ZTT ‘songbook’ courtesy of Propaganda’s ‘Duel’ on CD 3 along with songs from Howard Jones (‘Things Can Only Get Better’), Stephen Duffy’s hit (‘Kiss Me’), Nik Kershaw’s ‘Wide Boy’, Fine Young Cannibals’ ‘Johnny Come Home’ and King’s ‘Love and Pride’. The final disc starts off exploring mid-80s Dance, Electro and Hip-Hop crossover before moving on to some ‘grown up’ pop from the likes of Sting, Bryan Ferry, more Tears For Fears and Marillion.Likewise Roadrunner by Jonathan Richman uses the fast version not the slow one (much confusion caused by inconsistent naming of this track over the years! Sting’s excellent ‘If You Love Somebody Set Them Free’ is on here, although that wasn’t the big hit you might remember, while Midge Ure’s ‘If I Was’ did, of course, get to number one in Britain.