Now This Is Music 4 (EVA, 1986)

Review
After a CD-only sampler of tracks from the first three volumes [Now This Is CD Music], EVA released the fourth instalment of Now This Is Music in spring 1986 on all three formats. The vinyl and cassette featured 28 songs with gems such as Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s Love Missile F1-11, Clannad’s In A Lifetime and Chris Rea’s It’s All Gone omitted from the 13 track CD edition. Unfortunately the abysmal Walk Of Life makes the cut.

Five tunes had already appeared on Now That’s What I Call Music 6. Elton John’s icy Nikita and Midge Ure’s out-of-the-blue-number-one If I Was both appear in their longer album cuts. Feargal Sharkey’s overplayed third single A Good Heart, UB40’s dull Don’t Break My Heart and Simple Minds’ windswept Alive and Kicking are present and correct but don’t set the world on fire.

Hits 4 contributes a triple play. There’s soul power from Whitney Houston [How Will I Know?], funky grooves from Paul Hardcastle and Carol Keynon [Don’t Waste My Time] and the brooding synth masterpiece West End Girls. Mr Mister’s Broken Wings had also featured on The Greatest Hits Of 1986 but here it’s the album version. A somewhat strange decision.

Then there’s the Talk Talk anomaly. Living In Another World is on the double LP but it’s replaced by the superior Life’s What You Make It on this CD. The latter would also be included on Now This Is Music 5 [both formats]. The Colour Of Spring is when the band turned the screw and went from goodness to greatness. Elsewhere you get a snapshot of Culture Club’s return to form – the endlessly inventive Move Away [From Luxury To Heartache LP].

And for my latest trick.
Cloudbusting: Amazing. “Wihelm, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Orgonon any more.”
A book of dreams condensed into five minutes and ten seconds.
“Safety and danger are threaded through the song, via both a thoughtful lyric and a compulsive cello-driven melody. Even more startling, but hardly surprising, is the ease with which Bush was able to capture the moment when a child first realizes that adults are fallible.” [Amy Hanson].

Favourite tracks
Kate Bush – Cloudbusting

Culture Club – Move Away

Lest we forget
Whitney Houston – How Will I Know?