A year of change for me. I moved from West London to South-East London and found that it was where I really belonged. I also changed up from a bedsit to a proper flat and not only that I was co-habiting. This was all new territory for me and there was a knock-on effect on my music-buying as I was not only induging my own tastes but buying records for ‘us’.

What sort of year was 1984? Well it was the year of Frankie Goes to Hollywood for a start, with three number one singles and a number one album. It was also the year that compilations really took off. Now That’s What I Call Music was released at the end of 1983 and was still number 1 at the start of 1984. On the back of that, Now 2, Now 3 and Now 4 were all released in 1984. The year ended with Do They Know Its Christmas? which really launched the big charity single trend.

This was also the year of Ghostbusters. A true phenomenon, from the initial teaser posters, to the film to the Ray Parker Jr. single, it was inescapable and rightly so. What a film, and what a single.

Some of the more interesting music of the year, for me, was Fans by Malcolm Maclaren, Zoolook by Jean-Michel Jarre, Dr. Beat by the Miami Sound Machine, and The Flat Earth by Thomas Dolby but Diamond Life by Sade showed the way things were going for the next few years – lush sounds that you could put on in the background when friends were round for dinner.

1984 was really full of stuff that was not bad but didn’t stand out too much, with a lot of the records that would turn out to be important later on passing me by at the time – the Run DMC debut album and Metallica’s Ride the Lightning for example.

As the background noise of 1984 was still cold war doom and gloom, the track of the year has to be another uplifting song, one that you can’t hear without having a smile: I Feel For You by Chaka Khan, with its overpowering beat, rap interludes and Stevie Wonder harmonica it was centre stage in my growing collection of dance 12″ singles. As I write this, Chaka Khan has just released her first new album in ages and its very good – but always eclipsed by this one fantastic single.