Back In Blue: NOW Yearbook '84 [2021]

[Back in July 2018, I wrote about NOW 100 here on The Hideaway and declared it was my final NOW post. Then came the NOW Yearbook series and they've sucked me back in... for NOW.]

Much of the speculation stirred up by the release of NOW Yearbook '83 (read HERE) was laid to rest on 29 October 2021, when NOW HQ released a 4-CD, 77-song set focusing on the UK chart hits of 1984. NOW Yearbook '84 was made available in the same three formats as NOW Yearbook '83 had been a few months prior with the 3LP edition featuring 42 songs pressed on translucent blue vinyl this time around.

In his announcement of this new compilation on Super Deluxe Edition in late September 2021, Paul Sinclair pointed out that both the limited editions of NOW Yearbook '83 were already out-of-print after just a few short months, with numerous commenters noting that they were being offered at considerably higher prices as well as the scarcity of the sets through traditional retail channels.

It was generally accepted that music from 1985 was gonna be the focus of the next NOW Yearbook released so fans began posting their favorite tunes from 1985 and set about predicting the release date. A few disgruntled folks were lamenting the absent tracks from the 1983 and 1984 sets. Still, few doubted that NOW HQ was listening as they were likely already putting the finishing touches on NOW Yearbook '85, probably leaving off a ton of worthy tracks in the process yet again.

My best guess was that way back in 1984, I probably knew just about all of these tracks and their respective artists as the US and UK charts seemed more in synch than they had been in 1983. Looking at the tracklist for NOW Yearbook '84 for the first time in the Fall of 2021, I could count on one hand the number of tracks that were not immediately recognizable:

• "Soul Train"
• "Breakin' Down - Sugar Samba"
• "You Think You're A Man"
• "More More More"
• "I Should Have Known Better"

Well, I actually thought of entirely different songs for "Soul Train" and "More More More" but neither of those hit the charts in 1984. Looks like no new favorites were unearthed this time around, either. Like most NOW fans, I was looking forward to NOW Yearbook '85 sometime early in 2022 while enjoying more than 150 tracks from 1983 and 1984 not performed by artists not named Prince, Madonna, Springsteen, or Bowie.