The 1990’s brought with it a great deal of optimism. Nelson Mandela was set free after thirty years in jail, the Wall came down in Germany, there was finally peace in Ireland, what appeared as genuine progress in the Middle East and a little invention called the Internet entered peoples lives. Against the positive movements there sadly where typical continuing examples of man’s darker pursuits. The break-up of Yugoslavia lead to conflicts in the Balkans and there was mass genocide in Rwanda.

Musically the 90s can be viewed as generally a good decade. Picking out a snapshot of different popular music from most decades is not such a difficult task and the NOW album does just that more than adequately. From our lofty knowing vantage looking back a decade later it is easy to dismiss certain records today and forget how much of a success they actually were back in the day. Take Vanilla Ice and ‘Ice Ice Baby’. At the time hip hop was not the phenomenon that it would grow to be and the record would be the first hip hop track to top the charts in the US and around the world.

The 90s would also see a return to guitar rock with the emergence of the Gallagher Brothers and Oasis with songs such as Don’t Look Back in Anger. Especially relevant in the UK the band’s music seemed to convey the zeitgeist against the political backdrop of the period. Oasis would form part of what the media would refer to as ‘Britpop’ which also included the likes of Blur ‘Country House’.

The period also saw the huge world wide phenomenon of the Spice Girls with songs such as ‘Wannabe’ and ‘Spice Up Your Life’. That a group of girls singing pop songs could have such a genuine positive effective around the world with their ‘girl power’ message was quite inspiring.

Long before the X factor gravy train pulled in a kids show in the States called The Mickey Mouse Club would nurture the likes of Britney Spears ‘Baby One More Time and Christina Aguilera ‘Genie in a Bottle’ who would kick start their careers in the 90’s.

Boy bands also took centre stage with Take That ‘Back For Good’, Westlife ‘Flying Without Wings’, Backstreet Boys ‘ I Want It That Way’, East 17 ‘Stay Another Day’ and Boyzone ‘Words’.

Of course and even given that there are three albums to this NOW 90’s collection there was always going to be personal favourites that would be left out but saying that it’s still an OK compilation to relieve some classic mainstream hits of the era.