NOW Yearbook – THE VAULT: 1983 (4CD)

The year that NOW’s story began, and where we started our ‘Yearbook’ series back in 2021. An incredible year in Pop music, and between that first ‘Yearbook’, it’s ‘Extra’, and more of the year’s hits featuring on the ‘80-84 Final’ and it’s ‘Extra’ we have featured over 150 tracks on CD so far in our appreciation of 1983.

Those tracks were generally the bigger hits of the year with their Chart achievement a factor in their inclusion -

however – that’s not the whole story, and our celebration of 1983 wouldn’t be complete without shining a light on some of the year’s singles that have been compiled much less frequently over the past 40 years…

Welcome to the THE VAULT for 1983…Some of the tracks were Top 40 hits, some missed the Chart completely, and some were huge in the U.S. and not in the U.K. – but all are part of the wonderful Pop story of 1983.

80 tracks across 4-CDs - NOW Yearbook - The Vault: 1983

CD1 kicks off with a run of Synth-Pop gems from established artists Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Blancmange, Gary Numan and Talk Talk alongside some newer bands, The Lotus Eaters, H20, Freur and After The Fire… Japan released a live instrumental, and Yello, Divine, Rockers Revenge and Freeez presented fantastic Electronic club tracks. Level 42 and Animal Nightlife produced sophisticated Jazz-Funk-Pop and Joe Jackson’s hit ‘Night And Day’ album included the final track on the first disc – ‘Breaking Us In Two’….

The second disc opens with a stunning collection of Indie-Pop singles from Bauhaus, Marc And The Mambas, The Stranglers and The Glove – featuring members of both The Cure and Siouxsie And The Banshees….

US Indie-Pop from The B-52’s and Wall Of Voodoo leads into a run of pure Pop from Kim Wilde, Adam Ant, Bow Wow Wow, Altered Images, The Belle Stars and The Bluebells - before the CD moves towards it’s close with the Retro-Pop of Roman Holliday and Tracie, plus Fun Boy Three and UB40 before finishing with Mari Wilson’s gorgeous take on ‘Cry Me A River’.

CD3 features some huge and long-established superstars including Billy Joel with the stunning opener ‘Goodnight Saigon’, Bonnie Tyler, Electric Light Orchestra, Lionel Richie, Earth Wind & Fire, Mike Oldfield, The Kinks, Olivia Newton-John and a massive U.S. hit for Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton with a cover of Bob Seger’s ‘We’ve Got Tonite’. Great tracks from Chris Rea, Robert Palmer and Marillion are followed by a run of influential floor-fillers including Man Parrish with ‘Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Stop)’, ‘Magic’s Wand’ from Whodini, and ‘Get Down Saturday Night’ from Oliver Cheatham – which would be sampled on the 2003 #1 single ‘Make Luv’ by Room 5 featuring Oliver Cheatham. And the disc concludes with ‘Lady Lady’ by Giorgio Moroder & Joe Esposito taken from the soundtrack of one of 1983’s biggest movies, ‘Flashdance’.

The final disc focuses on singles that found Chart success in the U.S, and opening with Culture Club and ‘I’ll Tumble 4 Ya’ – a U.S. single that wasn’t released in the UK, before a sequence of tracks that were all U.S. New-Wave hits led by the collaboration between Sparks and the Go-go’s Jane Wiedlin and including The Romantics, The Fixx, The Motels, Modern English, Missing Persons and Naked Eyes. Taco’s Synth cover of ‘Puttin’ On The Ritz’ is up next before a run of Rock and FM radio hits from Pat Benatar, Styx, Asia, Journey and John Mellencamp – and to close this amazing collection, 3 of 1983’s most beautiful ballads from Daryl Hall & John Oates, Toto, and ‘It Might Be You’, the theme from another smash hit film, ‘Tootsie’.

NOW Yearbook – The Vault : 1983 – A continued celebration of the magical year in Pop!