Pop 2025

NOW are proud to announce the latest release in the iconic numbered NOW series – NOW That’s What I Call Music! 121 – Out July 25th. Packed with 44 essential hits across 2 CDs, NOW 121 delivers an unmissable collection of the hottest hits from the recent Sales and Airplay Charts – the ultimate summer soundtrack for 2025!

Compiled by Philip King “And then came the rise of synth pop : blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese passing gas in a wind tunnel. Whoopee! This is the way the ‘70s ended : not with a blood-curdling bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.” NICK KENT, NME. All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records.

“To me, Honey Lingers is like a psychotic melodic patchwork of every single emotion we were having. It's retro, joyful, frustrating, snarky, and sad. It spits, cries, shags, and dances and that was what we felt like we were doing as we toured, did television, press and general promotion all over the globe.” Tracey Brynn, Voice of The Beehive. Reissued for the first time on vinyl since 1991, Voice of the Beehive’s Honey Lingers saw the US/UK band build further on their signature mix of jangly guitars, upbeat rhythms, and melodic pop hooks towards a glossier, more mainstream sound. Featuring three UK Top 40 singles, ‘Monsters and Angels,’ ‘I Think I Love You’ and ‘Perfect Place;’ the album reached Silver sales in the UK. This remastered and expanded 2CD edition features all the band’s many B-sides from the era, rare and unreleased remixes (including the 12” version of ‘Monsters and Angels’), and many unheard alternative and acoustic versions. There’s also previously unreleased tracks from the band live in concert, recorded at The Kentish Town & Country Club for BBC Radio One.

“To me, Honey Lingers is like a psychotic melodic patchwork of every single emotion we were having. It's retro, joyful, frustrating, snarky, and sad. It spits, cries, shags, and dances and that was what we felt like we were doing as we toured, did television, press and general promotion all over the globe.” Tracey Brynn, Voice of The Beehive. Reissued for the first time on vinyl since 1991, Voice of the Beehive’s Honey Lingers saw the US/UK band build further on their signature mix of jangly guitars, upbeat rhythms, and melodic pop hooks towards a glossier, more mainstream sound. Featuring three UK Top 40 singles, ‘Monsters and Angels,’ ‘I Think I Love You’ and ‘Perfect Place;’ the album reached Silver sales in the UK. This remastered and expanded 2CD edition features all the band’s many B-sides from the era, rare and unreleased remixes (including the 12” version of ‘Monsters and Angels’), and many unheard alternative and acoustic versions. There’s also previously unreleased tracks from the band live in concert, recorded at The Kentish Town & Country Club for BBC Radio One.

I Said I Love You First is a collaborative studio album by American singer Selena Gomez and American record producer Benny Blanco. It is Gomez's fourth studio album and Blanco's second. Following their respective studio albums Rare (2020) and Friends Keep Secrets (2018), it was released on March 21, 2025, through SMG Music, Friends Keep Secrets, and Interscope Records. The album features guest appearances from Gracie Abrams, the Marías, Tainy, and J Balvin, with additional contributions from Charli XCX and Finneas. I Said I Love You First achieved the biggest first-week album sales for Gomez and Blanco's careers in the United States, debuting at number-two on the Billboard 200. It become the first album by a real-life couple to top the Vinyl Albums chart in history. Internationally, the album has charted within the top-10 in 15 counties. It received generally favorable reviews from critics. Rolling Stone named the album as one of the best albums of 2025 so far.

In 2023, I'm guessing at the age of 75, ageless icon Iggy Pop blazed across the Montreux Jazz Festival stage. And sure, if you're expecting him to deliver an intimate, jazzy set heavy on his more eclectic albums (Apres, Preliminaires, Avenue B), you're gonna leave with a headache and perhaps some bruises if you were close to the stage.

"The Best of Col and Judy" is a compilation album featuring two Australian pop stars of the early 1960s, Col Joye and Judy Stone. Released in 1963 on the Festival Records label, the album is a collection of solo hits from each artist recorded prior to its release. Despite the joint title, the album does not contain any duets; each side is dedicated to one of the performers. The first side features tracks by Col Joye, a pioneer of Australian rock and roll, while the second side presents songs by Judy Stone, a popular singer of the same era. The album reflects the sound of early 60s Australian pop music, combining elements of rock and roll, teen pop, and traditional ballads.

Mayhem is a studio album by American singer Lady Gaga. It was released on March 7, 2025, through Streamline and Interscope Records. During the creation of the album, Gaga collaborated with producers such as Andrew Watt, Cirkut and Gesaffelstein, resulting in an album that has a "chaotic blur of genres", mainly synth-pop, with industrial dance influences, and elements of electro, disco, funk, industrial pop, rock and pop rock. Thematically, it explores love, chaos, fame, identity, and desire, using metaphors of transformation, duality, and excess. The album was recorded at Rick Rubin's studio Shangri-La, in Malibu, California. Mayhem received critical acclaim with reviewers deeming it a strong return to form to Gaga's pop roots, specifically The Fame (2008). Reviewers highlighted the production, stylistic diversity, album cohesion and noted stylistic inspiration from artists such as David Bowie, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Prince, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Siouxsie and the Banshees. It became her highest-rated release on Metacritic.

In celebration of one of the most dynamic and diverse periods ever in the singles charts, NOW are proud to present ‘NOW That’s What I Call An Era: The Sound Of The Suburbs’ – this special edition 4-CD features 80 tracks, spanning multiple genres that contributed to the rich diversity of the era – including punk, new wave, reggae, ska, mod and electronic – between 1977 and the end of 1980, and all of which would inspire the wave of new art and club influenced pop that would come to define the musical landscape of the early 80s….