VA - NOW That's What I Call Music! 94 (2016) [FLAC|Lossless|WEB-DL|tracks] <Top 40, Pop, Electronic, Pop-Rock, R&B, Soul>

Credits:
Compiled by Jenny Fisher
Artwork & Design: Gary De Bique Qd

Release Info:
NOW That's What I Call Music! 94 or Now 94 is a brand new double-disc compilation album which was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 22 July 2016. It is the 94th edition of the UK NOW! series and available on CD and digital download formats. The latest instalment of the popular compilation album will include 42 tracks in total, including some of the biggest hits of the past four months. Rihanna opens disc one with her Calvin Harris collaboration "This Is What You Came For", while Drake's 2015 hit "Hotline Bling" has been included. Little Mix make another appearance on a NOW! album with their Sean Paul team-up 'Hair', and Justin Bieber features with his latest single "Company". Coldplay, Sia, Craig David, Ariana Grande, P!nk, Meghan Trainor and Dua Lipa have all made the tracklist too. Viola Beach have also made a posthumous appearance on the tracklist with their song "Boys That Sing". The band were killed in a fatal bus crash in Stockholm back in February. NOW 94 is one of two NOW albums not to feature any songs which reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, the other being NOW 16. Peak positions: UK Compilations Chart - #1, UK Download Albums Chart - #1

NOW That's What I Call Music! (ofeat.en shortened to NOW!) is a long-running series of various artists compilation albums released in the United Kingdom by Polygram (as Universal)/EMI/Sony Music/Virgin Records (The Big Four record labels); spinoff series were later introduced in South Africa (1984) and many other countries worldwide, including the United States in 1998. Since its launch in 1983, the series has amassed over 100 million album sales worldwide.

The first NOW! compilation appeared in November 1983 and collected thirty UK hit singles from that year on a double vinyl LP or cassette. The concept of a compilation of recent hit singles was not new; Ronco and K-tel had been issuing single-disc collections since the early 1970s. However, by spreading tracks across two discs instead of one, the NOW! series was able to achieve better sound quality (tracks were ofeat.en edited to fit a running time on K-Tel and Ronco single disc compilations).

The other major difference of the NOW! series was its collaborative nature between major record labels. Virgin agreed a deal with EMI, which allowed a greater number of major hits to be included (the first album in the series boasted of "eleven number ones" on its sleeve, something previously unheard-of). The album went to number one and soon had a major rival in CBS/WEA's The Hits Album which adopted a similar format to NOW! The two series co-existed for the rest of the 1980s, but when Universal joined the collaboration the NOW! series dominated commercially.

Although the rate of release varied in the early days, it has now settled down to three per year: one release around Easter, another during the summer, and a third around November. The UK series continues to follow the double-album format, now exploiting the capacity of the CD to include between forty and forty-six songs over its two discs. At the current time, the NOW series are only released on CD and digital download formats. Previously the NOW series was available on Vinyl (ended in 1996 with NOW 35); audio cassette (ceased in 2006 with the final cassette being NOW 63) & MiniDisc (started with NOW 43 in 1999 and ended with NOW 48 in 2001) formats, with the decline of popularity with these formats, NOWs are no longer issued on them.