Various Artists - Now That's What I Call Music, Vol. 13 (CD)

All Music Guide

Thirteen volumes in, the American version of the Now That's What I Call Music series has become quite stratified in terms of its selections and organization. Begun in the fall of 1998 at the height of a teen-pop trend, the series retains an affection for the remaining vestiges of that style, and standard-bearers Justin Timberlake of NSync and Jennifer Lopez lead off this volume. After that, there is the familiar segueing to rap/hip-hop, adult contemporary, pop/rock, and mainstream rock over the course of the 20 selections. Released roughly every four months, the albums do not present the 20 biggest hits of the period by any means. Rather, the choices represent both a sampling of different styles and a combination of tracks that are actually popular with ones the major record labels are trying to push. (How else explain the presence of Lisa Marie Presley?) Picking more for musical style than quality, and more for a balance of allowed tracks from the participating labels than sales, the ...collection is not a success as a hits compilation, and it is only a qualified success as a time capsule of the popular music of its time. The trend toward snotty adolescent punk-lite is glimpsed in the inclusion of Bowling for Soup's "Girl All the Bad Guys Want," the Ataris' "In This Diary," and Sum 41's "The Hell Song," for example, but the wave of artists exposed by the reality TV shows is ignored. Anyone judging the state of popular music circa mid-2003 on the basis of these 20 selections would have to conclude that it was uninspired and derivative. When a revival of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" sounds like the most interesting song out there, things are not going well. No wonder record sales continued to decline. - William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide Read more Less