Soda Stereo ‘Nada Personal’ (Discos Cbs, 1985)

As a fledgling fanzine writer, it seemed implausible that anyone would send anything resembling decent music to an outpost on the Wirral.

Leila Arab was born in Iran, but moved to Britain at an early age, her family forced to flee the country’s Islamic Revolution because of her father’s ties with the ousted Shah

Back in the olden days, many music journalists had a nice sideline penning biogs, frothy one-pagers extolling the virtues of a major label’s next big thing. The money was more than you’d earn writing a cover feature, so understandably competition was fierce.

Robert Palmer passed away in 2003 at the shockingly young age of 54. A massively underrated artist who wrote and produced so many great songs, the fact that he died without much comment or celebration of his life was a crying shame.