1982 is my single favorite year in music: NOW Yearbook '82 [2022] and NOW Yearbook '82 EXTRA [2022]

Okay. NOW Towers had just bestowed upon us four albums totaling 14 discs in their NOW Yearbook and NOW Yearbook Extra series within just a couple of months and fans were still speculating that since the series started in 1983 and was then followed by 1984 surely 1985 was next up in the series. It was the only logical progression.

The original NOW aka NOW That's What I Call Music series started back in 1983 and has continued on with 2-3 discs annually up through, well, now - NOW That's What I Call Music! 113 is scheduled for a November 2022 release - so a precedent had been set. Though a few fans (including yours truly) expressed a desire to see the NOW Yearbook series honor the hits of 1982 sooner rather than later. If you've been following along you can probably guess what happened next.

On January 8th, 2022, NOW Yearbook '82 was announced with a release date of February 4th, 2022. Yellow is the dominant color on the compilations packaging this time around after black in 1983 and blue in 1984. NOW Yearbook '82 features more tracks (84) than the previous two 4-CD sets each had including more than a dozen UK Number Ones.

The album is available in 3 formats just like its predecessors: a 4-CD limited edition Deluxe Hardcover Book edition (left), a limited edition 44-song triple LP on translucent golden yellow vinyl (center), and a 4-CD widely available, lesser-priced standard edition (right).

The by-now-standard discussions followed the announcement with opinions literally all over the place, from positive to negative and all spots in between. Some fans welcomed the news while others somehow felt betrayed because 85 follows 84, not 82. The track selection was both praised and damned setting off immediate speculation as to what tracks would make up the expected NOW Yearbook '82 EXTRA.

Then, on February 17th, 2022, just after I had listened through the glorious NOW Yearbook '82 for the second time, the expected announcement arrived from the folks at NOW: NOW Yearbook '82 EXTRA would be released on March 18th, 2022. As with the previous EXTRAS, the 1982 Collectors Edition is solely available as a 3-CD, 62-track set in the same gatefold packaging the standard edition of the Yearbook comes in.

Tongues started wagging once again with even more folks calling for the series to continue to move backward through the years while the majority of CD-buying pop music fans expressing an opinion one way or the other in the comments section of superdeluxeedition.com, continued to believe the next one in the series would definitely be 1985 and 1982 was just a bump in the road. In a future post, we'll look at the 7th and 8th volumes in the NOW Yearbook series.

NOW Yearbook Series

01    NOW Yearbook '83 [2021]
02    NOW Yearbook '84 [2021]
03    NOW Yearbook '83 EXTRA [2021]
04    NOW Yearbook '84 EXTRA [2022]
05    NOW Yearbook '82 [2022]
06    NOW Yearbook '82 EXTRA [2022]
...
13    NOW Yearbook '85 [2022]