‘Now!’ compilations are deeply uncool – but they’ve been the soundtrack to my life

As the legendary album series reaches its 40th anniversary, Paddy O’Connell says it’s time music fans dropped the snobbery about ‘various artists’ compilations – for Gen X-ers like me, they were a lifesaver

The ‘Now That’s What I Call Music!’ series got its name from an 1930s poster for Danish bacon (Virgin/EMI)

If you’re old enough to remember when the first Now That’s What I Call Music! compilation was released 40 years ago, you’ll surely also remember the curious ad campaign that went with it, involving a cartoon pig in headphones.

The story goes that the music men at Virgin Records were struggling to come up with a catchy title for their ground-breaking, two-disc hits collection that contained 30 of the hottest songs of the day (“…and 11 number ones!”). One of them spotted an old advert for Danish bacon and eggs featuring a chicken singing as a pig listens over the fence. The caption reads: “Now that’s what I call music!”

Not only am I’m old enough to remember the launch of Now! (the clunky name was eventually abbreviated when it became a series that, somehow, is still going today, but without the exclamation mark…), I was an instant devotee. As this was the heyday of the Walkman, I didn’t go for the vinyl version – I bought the double cassette.