This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1984.

The following songs achieved the highest chart positions in the charts of 1984.

Bernard Edwards (October 31, 1952 – April 18, 1996) was a bass player and record producer, both as a member of the Funk/Disco band Chic and on his own. He died of pneumonia while touring in Japan.

Edwards, who was born in Greenville, North Carolina, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York City, met Nile Rodgers in the early 1970s. The two formed the Big Apple Band (active 1972–1976) and then united with drummer Tony Thompson to eventually form Chic together with singer Norma Jean Wright.

With Chic (active 1976–1983), Edwards created era-defining hits such as "Dance, Dance, Dance", "Everybody Dance", "Le Freak", "I Want Your Love" and "Good Times". Edwards also worked with Nile Rodgers to produce and write for other artists, using Chic to perform everything musically and vocally except lead vocals. Those productions with Norma Jean Wright, Sister Sledge, Sheila and B. Devotion, Diana Ross, Johnny Mathis, Debbie Harry and Fonzi Thornton led to more hits such as "Saturday", "He's The Greatest Dancer", "We Are Family", "Spacer", "Upside Down", "I'm Coming Out" and "Backfired" to name a few. (In the song "We Are Family," Kathy Sledge gives Edwards a brief shout-out, singing "Yeah, come on Bernard, play...play your funky bass, boy!")

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, recording engineer, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. Zappa produced almost all of the more than 60 albums he released with the band The Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for percussion-based avant-garde composers such as Edgard Varèse and 1950s rhythm and blues music. He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands; he later switched to electric guitar.

He was a self-taught composer and performer, and his diverse musical influences led him to create music that was often impossible to categorize. His 1966 debut album with The Mothers of Invention, Freak Out!, combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. His later albums shared this eclectic and experimental approach, irrespective of whether the fundamental format was one of rock, jazz or classical. His lyrics—often humorously—reflected his iconoclastic view of established social and political processes, structures and movements. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship.

Nile Gregory Rodgers (born September 19, 1952, New York City) is an American musician, producer, composer, arranger, and guitarist.

Rodgers began his career as a session guitarist in New York, touring with the Sesame Street band in his teens, and then working in the house band at Harlem's world famous Apollo Theater, playing behind Screaming Jay Hawkins, Maxine Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ben E. King, Betty Wright, Earl Lewis and the Channels, Parliament Funkadelic, and many other legendary R&B artists.

Nile met bassist Bernard Edwards in 1970. Together they formed The Big Apple Band that backed R&B act New York City ("I’m Doing Fine Now"). The band’s one hit allowed them to tour extensively, even opening for The Jackson 5 on the American leg of their first world tour in 1973. The band dissolved after their second album failed to yield a hit, but Nile and Bernard joined forces with drummer Tony Thompson, and worked and recorded as a Funk Rock band called The Boys, which played numerous gigs up and down the East Coast. Despite major label interest in their demos, they could not get a record deal when the record companies discovered they were black, as they thought that black rock artists would be too hard to promote. The band continued playing mostly local bars.

Laura Ann Branigan (July 3, 1957 – August 26, 2004) was an Italian-American singer-songwriter and actress. She is best known for her 1982 Platinum-certified hit "Gloria" (an Italian love song recorded by Umberto Tozzi in 1979) and for the number-one single "Self Control" (The original version by the italian singer and writers Raffaele Riefoli "Raf"). Branigan is also remembered for the Top 10 "Solitaire" and for the number-one adult contemporary hit "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You", as well as four other US Top 40 hits.

Branigan also contributed songs to notable motion picture and television soundtracks, including the Grammy and Academy Award-winning Flashdance soundtrack (1983), the Ghostbusters soundtrack (1984), and the Baywatch soundtrack (1994), as well as having songs featured in the popular Grand Theft Auto video game series.

Her signature song "Gloria" stayed on the Billboard Hot 100 for 36 weeks, at the time a record for a female artist. The song holds a place in the top 100 singles of both 1982 and 1983.