I’ve given myself to the power of the Now Formula, and I trust its ability to objectively determine the best Now. I picked “Cups” as the most essential song over Icona Pop’s “I Love It” and Justin Timberlake’s “Mirrors” because I need us all to never forget the odd state pop music has been in this decade.

NOW That’s What I Call Music 4 [UK] - Genius

A really tough listen all the way through, Now 58 starts with a low-impact Kelly Clarkson song (“Piece by Piece”) and continues with a slew of artists’ lesser hits (“Roses” by the Chainsmokers, “In the Night” by the Weeknd, “Out of the Woods” by Taylor Swift, and “Middle” by DJ Snake) and also songs by G-Eazy (again!If this was music in late 2016, then those months are truly the darkest days of American pop culture. The band is on five Now albums, which is way more than other rock bands like the Killers (one time), Radiohead (one time), Kings of Leon (zero times), and the White Stripes (zero times—not even “Seven Nation Army” is music). The thesis of “Chanté’s Got a Man” is “Oh dang, it’s really too bad your boyfriend is cheating on you, but guess what: I’m in a very stable, rewarding relationship.

NOW That’s What I Call Music! 46 [US] - Genius NOW That’s What I Call Music! 46 [US] - Genius

It’s just a whole bunch of boasting—all done in the third person—directed at a woman going through one of the hardest periods of her life. This is another example of how Now is an authority strictly only on what currently is and isn’t music; when it comes to foreseeing the shifting landscape of the pop genre, Now is weirdly hopeless.Then there’s “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy, a song in which a man is caught literally having sex on the floor of a bathroom, and when that man asks Shaggy for advice, Shaggy just says, “Lie about it, bro.