You can tell that you are getting old, when you can remember the earliest, single-number ‘Now’ series of albums on sale at your local record shop. With the arrival of NOW 72, another sign of aging hoves into view, as you turn into your own parents and start muttering ‘that’s not music…it’s just not like it used to be…’. To be frank, I do not know what it says about my catholic taste in music but there were several tracks that I actually quite enjoyed, having no doubt heard them subconsciously on radio, while driving.

Lily Allen singing ‘The Fear’ is a good opener. I probably would not buy her album but her trill, Mockney naughtiness is perfectly acceptable in the modern idiom. That girl who won the ‘Pop Idol’ series, Alexandra, if memory serves, delivers a passably grim version of the classic ‘Hallelujah’, while her former co-conspirators from the same X-Factor mess apply their confused talents to ‘Hero’.

Having admitted myself to the Take That closet fan-club, their rendition of ‘Greatest Day’ is a superb star turn on the second disc of this double whammy. I shall also admit to quite enjoying the broken warble of Brandon Flowers, as The Killers do ‘Human’, while the Irish funk pop group, The Script, manage their hit ‘Breakeven’ with a fair degree of aplomb. U2 (‘Get On Your Boots’), MGMT (‘Kids’), Daniel Merriweather (‘Change’), and even Duffy (‘Rain On Your Parade’) are worth another play, but the prospect of skipping the rest of the dross on this ‘various artists’ compilation warrants the use of an iPod to ditch the less welcome elements and only select (for a brief period of time) those tracks mentioned.

It sort of makes the double album a valueless addition to my music collection. Unless, of course, I were an ardent NOW collector, in which case, it would complete my current library. There are plenty of people willing to part with good cash for this type of album, even though Woolworths is no longer in existence.