NOW Yearbook '74 was announced in March 2024, with a release date of May 3, 2024. The packaging is green, as is the vinyl. The 4CD sets feature 82 songs – the triple vinyl set has 48 of those tracks. As usual, concerned voices were raised over what was included and what was omitted. We pre-ordered our standard 4CD set and sat back and waited for it to arrive.
I was hopeful but not quite fully prepared for how many songs I'd like from CD One. The labels from the eleven UK 45s are presented above in the order they appear on the disc. It was almost an even dozen tracks, but somehow a wonky version of Paper Lace's original "Billy, Don't Be A Hero" made its way into the mix. Still, eleven out of twenty-one is an excellent ratio for me.
CD1 Score: 52.38
CD Two started off well with a solid vein of rock following Elton's ballad in the pole position. The disc ended just as well with a solid pop hit, followed by two more classic soft rock ballads. Our favorite nine tracks are illustrated in the graphic above.
CD2 Score: 45.00
Great R&B, boogie, and disco are featured on CD Three. There are a few songs that we'd prefer to hear in their full-length album versions if we had a choice, but this is a collection of chart hits, so we get the edits. We counted eleven favorite tracks, all of which are pictured above.
CD3 Score: 52.38
CD Four is always a hotchpotch: some pop, some rock, some hits that just didn't fit elsewhere, usually including a Christmas track or two. This one starts off with three favorites in a row, some pop in the middle, a couple of U.S. country crossovers, and the Christmas Number One of 1974.
CD4 Score: 40.00
NOW Yearbook '74 is one of the strongest in the series thus far for this listener. We liked the first three tracks on each of the four discs; that has never happened before now. Perhaps upon repeated listens, more of the new-to-me tracks would become favorites. I ordered NOW Yearbook EXTRA '74, hoping for more of the same.
NOW Yearbook '74 SCORE: 47.56
Once NOW Yearbook '74 had been released in May 2024, NOW Towers announced the follow-up NOW Yearbook EXTRA '74 for release on June 7, 2024. The new collection has 64 tracks.
Just as they had on NOW Yearbook '74, Queen nabs the pole position of track one on CD One. The first of three tracks we like on CD One is Elton John's swaggering "The Bitch Is Back". We also enjoy Jim Stafford's sly & silly "Spiders & Snakes", and, after the headscratching snafu on the previous NOW Yearbook, we're glad they got the correct master tape for Paper Lace's "The Night (the Eastside of) Chicago Died". The heavy driving beat, impassioned dynamic vocals, and all sorts of sound effects made "The Night Chicago Died" required listening for this eight-year-old whenever it aired. It was somehow even cooler that I was usually listening to it on WLS, a popular Chicago radio station.
Score: 13.64
Score: 60.00
The second disc set a high bar for CD Three, and ultimately, the latter disc outshone CD One, yielding almost twice as many favorite songs. Yet it falls somewhat short of CD Two by yielding not even half as many favorite songs. So yeah, five favorite songs on the third disc as pictured above.
Score: 22.73
Put all twenty of our favorite tracks from the three discs of NOW Yearbook EXTRA '74 together, and we get one solid, R&B-heavy disc. That's fine with us. Your mileage or kilometers may vary. Where will NOW Towers take us next?
NOW Yearbook EXTRA '74 Score: 31.25
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