Standing in line at a CD store the other day, I couldn’t help but overhear a customer asking one of those “I know it all” type of sales people wearing those black oversized “Death Metal Rules” t-shirts, sporting enough earrings and lip rings and eyebrow rings to set off the alarms while parking your car at the airport about NOW 46. The know-it-all reply came “M’am, that’s not due for a good few more weeks. NOW 45 is still on our Top 20.” The customer insisted that she saw the TV ad just the night before. He looked at her like she was smoking something, wondering who her dealer was. Because he knows all the dealers and she was on something new… something that scared him. She walked away, her faith in CD store sales people crushed… her belief that TV ads don’t lie dealt a severe blow.

But whaddayaknow. Two days later NOW 46 hits the shelves. The CD store dude, still wearing the same T-shirt, doesn’t notice. The client no doubt bought the CD somewhere else. Okay, I’m drifting, but my point is it takes one advertisement to get people excited that a new NOW CD is coming out. So what if the media planner booked it a day or two early. It’s a simple case of creating the need and then supplying the fix. What it does demonstrate is that the people behind the counter can really drop the attitude they have towards customers and at least acknowledge that we too know what we’re talking about. We know that we at least expected Nelly Furtado’s “Say it Right” to appear on NOW 46… a song that has now spent 45 weeks on the UK Top 75 selling CD singles… (at the time of writing this).

We know we would’ve liked Justin Timberlake to make an appearance with “What goes around…. Comes around,” a song that Jacaranda 94.2 audiences are rating quite high in callout research. We would expect Kaiser Chiefs to yell Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby because the last time we checked, That’s What You Call Music. And what better way to kick off the latest NOW than with Avril Lavigne’s first number 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, “Girlfriend.” Let’s be honest, I certainly was expecting this song to be on NOW 46. Maybe the inclusion of Mika’s “Grace Kelly” was obvious, even though the song is now fast approaching the “Do I repulse you with my queasy smile” phase of its life. The last couple of NOWs have set such a high standard when it came to the tracklisting that one automatically expects the big guns to be on every new NOW!

Surprises? Yes… A pleasant surprise is Timbaland’s “Give it to Me,” featuring Furtado and Timberlake, a song that just keeps on growing on me with every listen. And Amy Winehouse’s paint-stripping refusal to go to “Rehab” is also a welcome and unexpected addition to the tracklisting. Disappointments? Well, the local representation on NOW 46 consists of the very Kylie-like “Fade to Black” from Tasha Baxter. Not a bad song. Just very Kylie-like. And the other local song? NKD’s “What’s That Noise,” a question left unanswered by the end of the song.

There’s also a laid-back vibe to NOW 46 with Ne-Yo and Akon both present. Robbie’s biggest track from his last CD, “She’s Madonna” proves that he hasn’t lost his touch completely, although he had to call in the Pet Shop Boys’ help.

In the end, with every new NOW, it’s like meeting a new addition to the family. You like them, but you would’ve liked them more if you could change one or two things about them. I just hope the CD store dude doesn’t have his weekend off this coming weekend. Because I wanna know when NOW 47 is coming out.