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Uploaded on Jan 16, 2008 Buggles - Video killed the radio star 1979 I heard you on the wireless back in 52 lying awake intent a tuning in on you if I was young it didn't stop you coming through They took the credit for your second symphony re-written by machine and new technology and now I understand the problems you can see Oh oh -- I met your children oh oh -- what did you tell them video killed the radio star video killed the radio star pictures came and broke your heart we can't rewind we've gone too far And now we meet in an abandoned studio we hear the playback and it seems so long ago and you remember the jingle used to go Oh oh -- you were the first one oh oh -- you were the last one video killed the radio star video killed the radio star in my mind and in my car we can't rewind we've gone too far Video killed the radio star video killed the radio star in my mind and in my car we can't rewind we've gone too far (Instrumental) Video killed the radio star video killed the radio star In my mind and in my car we can't rewind we've gone too far pictures came and broke your heart look I'll play

 my VCR Oh radio star Video killed the radio star video killed the radio star video killed the radio star video killed the radio star Video killed the radio star video killed the radio star video killed the radio star video killed the radio star video killed the radio star Category The Buggles 'Video Killed The Radio Star' | Sound On Sound The Buggles 'Video Killed The Radio Star' Classic Tracks Published December 2011 By Richard Buskin The Buggles' JG Ballard-inspired 'Video Killed The Radio Star' hit the number one spot in no fewer than 16 different countries, and confirmed Trevor Horn in his career as a producer in the process.

The Buggles: Geoff Downes (left) and Trevor Horn. Photo: Redferns When, at one minute past midnight on August 1st, 1981, MTV first hit US airwaves, reaching just a few thousand people in northern New Jersey, the words "Ladies and gentleman, rock and roll,” were announced over footage of the space shuttle Columbia's recent launch countdown. Thereafter, the groundbreaking cable network's original theme song was followed by its inaugural video which, in light of the cultural revolution that it hoped to instigate, boasted an appropriate title: 'Video Killed The Radio Star'. Just under two decades later, on February 27th, 2000, it would also be the one-millionth video aired on MTV. Released in September 1979 and a chart-topper in no less than 16 countries (including the UK, where it hit number one that October), 'Video Killed The Radio Star' was written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley, and initially recorded by composer/performer/producer Woolley's band the Camera Club for their album English Garden.

However, it was the version subsequently issued by Horn and Downes as the Buggles that became an instant classic; a nostalgic yet techno-savvy rumination on the 1960s' passing of a musical era that had previously been dominated by the radio, focusing on an artist whose career hit the skids thanks to the rising popularity of television. As per the lyrics, sung and mainly written by Horn, set to music largely composed by Woolley, "In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind, we've gone too far.” In truth, rather than celebrate the new age that MTV was ushering in, the song was merely accepting it as inevitable. Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes at Sarm East, 1979. They are standing beside the Trident TSM console used to record 'Video Killed The Radio Star'. Photo: Michael Ochs Archive/GettyHorn and Downes first teamed up in 1976 as members of singer Tina Charles's disco-pop backing band; Downes on keyboards, Horn on bass.

Charles's Indian-British producer, Biddu, hired both men as session musicians, and his work in the fields of Hi-NRG and electronic disco had a profound influence on Horn's own production aspirations. It was while playing in the house band at London's Hammersmith Palais that Horn met Woolley, and after they and Downes began writing songs that they themselves could record they came up with 'Video Killed The Radio Star' and tracked a demo with Tina Charles performing the lead vocal. In an interview with The Guardian in 2004, Trevor Horn stated that he had been fascinated by technology's dehumanising effect on society. Accordingly, the inspiration for the song was, he said, "a [JG] Ballard story called 'Sound Sweep' in which a boy goes around old buildings with a vacuum cleaner that sucks up sound. I had a feeling that we were reflecting an age in the same way that he was.” It was with this feeling in mind that Horn and Downes began hawking the 'Video' demo to assorted labels and attracted the interest of Chris Blackwell at Island Records.

Horn, meanwhile, was also garnering personal attention from Sarm Studio's co-owner Jill Sinclair, and this coincided with her signing the Buggles to Sarm's new production company. When Blackwell heard about this, he upped his offer to a level at which Sarm couldn't compete, and the result was that Sinclair released the synth-pop duo from their contract. "Being that Jill was going to marry Trevor, she was also looking out for his best interests,” says Gary Langan, who, as one of two engineers to record 'Video Killed The Radio Star', also took care of the mix. "It worked out well for everyone.” White City To Brick Lane Gary Langan as he was when photographed for an SOS feature on Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds in 2005. This included Mr Langan. Born in 1956, he is a native Londoner who, as a kid, was faced with a simple choice during his school holidays: either help his mother at her hairdressing salon or hang out at BBC Radio's White City and Portland Place facilities while his father played violin, saxophone and clarinet on sessions for the Beeb's Light Programme. "That wasn't a difficult decision,” he says.

"Having sat on a piano stool from the age of seven and discovered I didn't really like performing, I found myself in recording studios at the age of 12 and, by the time I was 14, my heart was set on making music that way, behind the console. Hanging out with Dad at those BBC studios, as well as at IBC, I'd watch these guys in white coats work in booths that were equipped with what in those days looked like huge amounts of electronics. Actually, they were using a four-channel mixer for BBC sessions that were cut straight to disc and broadcast the next day.” In 1974, while Gary Langan was studying for an electronics degree in telecommunications, he interviewed for a job at Trident Studios in Central London and, after impressing owners Norman and Barry Sheffield, he then missed out on the opportunity because, as he puts it, "I hadn't yet learned how to lie. Like a naïve little idiot, when it came to filling out the application form I entered my real age and they had to tear it up. In those days, the GLC [Greater London Council] licencing laws stated that you couldn't work after certain hours if you were under the age of 18.

I was 17 and three quarters...” Soon after, Langan's father ran into some people from Sarm Studios during a gig at The Dorchester Hotel, and discovered that there was an opening for a tape-op-cum-tea-boy at their newly constructed studio on East London's Brick Lane. Two days later, Gary interviewed for the job and, having now learned to stretch the truth, he passed the test, quit college and entered the music business. As an assistant, he subsequently worked with acts such as David Cassidy, the Drifters, the Bay City Rollers and Queen — including the albums A Night At The Opera, A Day At The Races and News Of The World — before eventually becoming Sarm's Chief Engineer and bumping into Trevor Horn. When Gary Met Trevor Hugh Padgham, who co-engineered 'Video Killed The Radio Star' — although not according to the NME... "Sarm was one of two 48-track studios and Trevor needed to put a tambourine on a demo that he was doing,” Langan recalls. "He'd run out of tracks, so he turned up on our doorstep and went 48-track to add the tambourine.

"At that time, punk music was happening and I was not into it. In fact, there was only one punk record ever made at Sarm and that was the Boomtown Rats' first album. So, without realising it, I was looking for something different and then along came this guy called Trevor Horn who had a whole different approach to making a record. He'd do mad things like just recording a bass drum while having the drummer dummy-play the other parts on his knees or on loads of tea towels covering the snare and toms. Then we'd record the hi-hat followed by the snare. It was a completely different way of working. "Trevor was also one of the first guys to start fooling around with drum machines. The Roland TR808 — boy, Trevor could make that sing. That was one of the great early tools. We hit it off immediately and that has continued throughout our career. We recently worked together on a new Seal album — with, in typically complicated Trevor fashion, him in LA and me doing real-time strings and brass in London via ISDN and Skype — and there's still a great chemistry between the two of us.

Like a bass player and drummer in the same band, we don't actually have to talk about things; we can just get on and do them in the knowledge that whatever each of us are good at will be taken care of. That's because we have worked together, off and on, for so long. However, in the early days Trevor was ruling things with an iron rod and he wouldn't accept compromise. That just did not come into it. "In those days, decisions were made there and then. So, if, for example, one of Geoff's keyboards needed some chorusing and reverb on it, you would record it that way. Whereas today everyone sits around and goes, 'Well, we could do this or we could do that,' you made decisions and those decisions then influenced the next process.” As it happens, Langan wasn't initially involved in the recording of the Buggles' debut single. That honour fell to Hugh Padgham, then a resident engineer at Richard Branson's Townhouse Studios in West London, where he tracked most of the instruments on 'Video Killed The Radio Star'. "Hugh and I were always jostling with one another,” Langan says.

"As tiny as Sarm was, we were turning out big records, including those three Queen albums, Foreigner, Ian Hunter and the Strawbs. At the same time, Hugh was getting involved with big projects over at The Townhouse, and after he worked there on 'Video', recording Paul Robinson's drums, Trevor's bass and Geoff's keyboards, I stole that song off him by persuading Trevor that he should come to Sarm to finish it off. That's how I ended up doing the vocals, some overdubs — including Bruce Woolley's guitar — and the mix.” Sarm East The Buggles in the early 1980s. In 1979, Sarm had recently replaced its Trident B-range console with a 40-input Trident TSM. This was housed inside the same control room as two Studer A80 24-track machines and outboard gear that included an EMT 140 echo plate, Eventide digital delay, Eventide phaser, Marshall Time Modulator, Kepex noise gates, Urei and Orban EQs, and Urei 1176, Dbx 160, and UA LA2 and LA3 compressors.

"That whole studio was so tiny,” Langan recalls, "it's astonishing the calibre of work that came out of this basement at the bottom of Brick Lane. I was taught really well by a guy called Gary Lyons who recorded the first Foreigner album, as well as by Mike Stone, who engineered the Queen albums. I had these two great mentors and we turned out some fantastic stuff. The ceiling height in the studio might have been two metres — if that — and yet it was fun because we made everything work by pushing the equipment that we had to the limit. What's more, because we were in the basement of this little office block, after everyone else in the building had gone home we could feed stuff through speakers into the concrete stairwell.” For 'Video Killed The Radio Star', Trevor Horn was determined to obtain an in-your-face sound that grabbed the listener's attention. "If you listen to that record, the level of the bass drum is just ridiculous,” Langan remarks. "At the same time, the backing vocals are bone dry and panned left and right. The great thing about working with Trevor is that he knows when something is not right.

He will keep leading you on and making you jump through hoops, and then, when it is right, he knows when to stop. I've always said that working with him is like running a marathon. "For his lead vocal on 'Video', he was looking for something different. In those days, he wasn't the world's best singer — like a fine wine, he has improved over the years. So, to help disguise the vocal he wanted a sort of telephone voice, and I therefore sat there for a few hours and put it through some graphics and lots of compression. There were absolutely no dynamics left in it whatsoever by the time it had been recorded, pumped back out through a Vox AC30, and then compressed and EQ'ed again. Beforehand, we'd tried using a bullhorn but it really was harsh — the task was to make the vocal loud without cutting your head off. It still had to retain some softness to it, and it was the AC30 that really gave it that quality. "To record his voice, I would have used a dynamic mic. I'm a great lover of dynamics.

Yes, you can have your fabulous [Neumann] U47s and 67s, and they're great for vocals, but when you want something with a bit of guts, a bit of character, go find yourself some good dynamics and you'll be absolutely OK. For 'Video', I would have therefore miked him with [a Shure] SM57 or SM58, or a Sennheiser 421, or we might have even tried an STC 4038 ribbon. And, to get what he wanted, I comp'ed his performance, which in those days was hard work. It was almost like playing a keyboard. As an engineer, you had to play the mute buttons and faders. Bearing in mind that not many tracks were available, we'd do four or five vocal takes and I'd have to be adept at cutting in halfway through words and syllables. Comp'ing a vocal old-style was a real skill.” So, for that matter, was mixing to Trevor Horn's specifications. "My work on 'Video Killed The Radio Star' seemed to go on forever,” Langan says. "I must have mixed that track four or five times.

Remember, there was no total recall, so we just used to start again. We'd do a mix and three or four days later Trevor would go, 'It's not happening. We need to do this and we need to do that.' The sound of the bass drum was one of his main concerns, along with his vocal and the backing vocals. It was all about how dry and how loud they should be in the mix without the whole thing sounding ridiculous. As it turned out, that record still had the loudest bass drum ever for its time. "Sometimes it isn't good to creep up to the mark. You might as well just go from one end to the other in production terms and then pull back. You know, make some really bold statements. So when Trevor was hacked off that the bass drum wasn't loud enough, I'd think, 'OK, now we're going to do a mix with it absolutely loud!' My nickname was Cocky, and after I'd do the new mix he'd go, 'Alright, Cocky, I get the point.' I'm a great believer in not mucking about in the middle.

Nobody remembers what goes on in the middle, but everybody remembers what was first and what was last, so I think it's really, really important to go with that. "I was trying to impress Trevor because I knew I was good. I liked him and I liked what he was doing, so I really did bust my balls to make the guy happy by trying to achieve what he had in his head. It was a challenge and I've always been up for a challenge. Everything I've ever done has been about the challenge. However, I also have to say that, by the fourth time around on this mix, I was thinking, 'Oh, for God's sake. What am I going to do now? What does this guy want?' That's how I came up with putting his voice through the amp — he was forcing me to push myself beyond where I'd gone before. By and by, we ended up having a really good chemistry, and that also included Geoff. I'm not sidelining Geoff. He was a masterful keyboard player, but Trevor really was the driving force. I could probably count on two fingers any point at which he and I have fallen out over the past 30-plus years.

It has always been a great relationship.” The Age of Plastic After 'Video Killed The Radio Star' had secured the Buggles a contract with Island Records, Horn and Downes had to write material for an album. This, in turn, led to further sessions at Sarm with Gary Langan sitting behind the TSM console, and soon the three men developed a system of working together. "We recorded to a click track using the TR808,” Langan recalls, "and we had various machines and boxes that supposedly sync'ed everything up. I'd feed the time code from the A80s into this box that would spew out some funny code for the TR808 to use. Everything was done to a click. Trevor is a complete feel merchant, and for him it's all about precision. So we went through the process of recording the rest of the album, and in those days of relatively limited technology we again had to push what we had to the limit. We had to be creative. If, for instance, something required an effect, whether it be tape delay or phasing or some big, delayed reverb, the art was to get that effect right and record it.

We didn't have enough channels and other resources to be able to sit at the mix and say, 'OK, I want to phase this, I want to do that, I want to do that...' It all had to be done and then, as I said, it would influence the next process. "When it came to things like a backing vocal balance, we didn't have a terabyte of storage. So we'd make it as clean as we possibly could, bounce that down to two tracks and then we'd erase. We had to be confident and bold, because we really didn't have the room to move, and in that respect, 'I Love You (Miss Robot)' was one of the best mixes I've ever done. I remember, it was a Sunday, it was very, very late and, as per usual, we were running behind. I started at around 11pm or midnight, finished it at three or four in the morning and still to this day it's a pukka mix. "As a great believer that a mix should have a feel to it, I think that in some warped way I'm a weird musician. What differentiates a good mix from a bad mix is the feel factor — it's got to feel great.

When I listen to some mixes I think, 'It's out of whack. That's not a great feel.' Mixing is a real art form. So is recording. But they are different. They require completely different skills. I think I could teach anybody to record something; I don't think I could teach anybody to mix something, and that's because it's got to come from within you. It's all about the feel. When you're recording, the feel is coming from the musicians and, as the engineer, you're just getting things from A to B in the most expedient way possible. However, when it comes to the mix, all of the musicians are gone, the stage is cleared and now it's your stage. "You have two feelings inside your body; you've got the head feeling and what I call the tummy feeling. The head feeling is a liar — it trips you up, it tricks you, it tells you false truths. The feeling in the bottom of your tummy — that's when you know it's fantastic. I'd say all of the mixes on that first Buggles album are really good, but for me the best one is 'I Love You (Miss Robot)'.

On the other hand, 'Video' was the most difficult because it was the first single. I don't think we remixed any of the other tracks as much as that one.” Postmortem The version of 'Video Killed The Radio Star' that appears on the Age Of Plastic album is, at 4:13, about 48 seconds longer than that issued as a single, and this is due to the regular fade-out segueing into a piano and synth coda that ends with a brief sampling of the background vocals contributed by Debi Doss and Linda Jardim. Indeed, it is their bright and vociferous repetition of the chorus that, added to the layers of then-state-of-the-art synthesizers, provides the song with its timeless quality and, paradoxically, also serves as a snapshot of the late '70s and early '80s. Released in the UK on 4th February, 1980, The Age Of Plastic ran with this theme, musically promoting modern technology while lyrically raising concerns about its impact.

Accordingly, the record's opening track, 'Living In The Plastic Age', was also released as a single, along with 'Clean Clean' and 'Elstree', yet none came close to rivalling the global success of 'Video Killed The Radio Star' which earned Gary Langan — not Hugh Padgham — an 'Engineer Of The Year' award from The NME. "It was far more fun to be creative back then, Trevor understood that and The Age of Plastic was a great album,” asserts Langan, who would subsequently co-found ZTT Records with Trevor Horn, Jill Sinclair and music journalist Paul Morley, in addition to forming avant-garde synth-pop outfit The Art Of Noise with Horn, Morley, programmer JJ Jeczalik and arranger Anne Dudley. "I've got to tell you,” Langan continues. "I've had such a great time making records. Today, it isn't the same, and that's why I do live work.” Indeed, with studio production and engineering credits that range from ABC, Big Country and Spandau Ballet to Public Image Ltd, Sarah Brightman and Natalie Imbruglia, Gary Langan is now also immersing himself in the concert sound for various live acts.

His first foray into this field was for Jeff Wayne, recreating The War Of The Worlds live. "I love getting to fiddle with faders,” he says. "When I'm doing a front-of-house mix, I'm there, I'm animated. Lots of front-of-house guys just stand there with their arms folded once the gig gets going. Not me. I'm changing the compression levels on the vocals, as well as the delays and the EQ for every song. 'Hey, for some reason the vocal's suddenly sounding a bit edgy — let's dive in and do something about it.' I can do all that, I can multi-task. What I can't do is just sit and push a mouse around. I come from a world where you sit and make the equipment sing. That's what Trevor and I used to do — we'd really make the equipment sing. And you can hear that with the Buggles. Their music pushed a lot of boundaries and made a lot of people think. "When people are listening to what you've recorded, you want them to question it. It's like a great book, a great movie, a great play or a great poem: it's got to invoke questions and draw you in.

Working with Trevor taught me so many things: don't accept compromise, don't sit back on your laurels, have passion for what you're doing and go that extra mile, because it will pay off. It's the payback factor and that is what Trevor has always been brilliant at. I love working with him.” The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star Lyrics The Buggles I heard you on the wireless back in Fifty Two Lying awake intent at tuning in on you. If I was young it didn't stop you coming through. Oh-a oh They took the credit for your second symphony. Rewritten by machine and new technology, and now I understand the problems you can see. Oh-a oh What did you tell them? Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. Pictures came and broke your heart. Oh-a-a-a oh And now we meet in an abandoned studio. We hear the playback and it seems so long ago. And you remember the jingles used to go. Oh-a oh You were the first one. Oh-a oh You were the last one. Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone too far.

Oh-a-aho oh, Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone too far. Pictures came and broke your heart, put the blame on VTR*. You are a radio star. You are a radiostar. Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. (You are a radio star) [repeat to fade] Writer: DOWNES, GEOFFREY / HORN, TREVOR CHARLES / WOOLLEY, BRUCE Copyright: Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, CARLIN AMERICA INC The Buggles – “Video Killed the Radio Star” | Mental Itch The Buggles – “Video Killed the Radio Star” Share On: Twitter Who are the Buggles? The Buggles are British new wave duo, best known for their hit single “Video Killed The Radio Star” which MTV US featured on its very first broadcast in 1981. The single was also a hit, just barely breaking into the US Top 40 and topping the charts back at home.

The Buggles would issue three more singles that became hits in the UK as well. The duo also joined the group Yes to participate in the latter’s Drama album. The Buggles’ sophomore effort Adventures In Modern Recording didn’t chart, and the band soon broke up. One of the members, Geoff Downes, left to join another group Asia. While the other half of the Buggles, Trevor Horn, became a record producer. Since 1998 though, the duo has reunited to perform their old hits occasionally. The formation of the Buggles The Buggles are a British new wave and synth pop duo, formed in Wimbledon in South West London, England. They are composed of lead vocalist, guitarist and bass guitarist Trevor Horn (born on July 15, 1949) and keyboardist, backing vocalist and synths man Geoff Downes (born on August 25, 1952). The two met in 1976 while they were both auditioning for the backing band of pop/disco singer Tina Charles. They eventually got to collaborate with Charles’ producer Biddu, whose work provided direct influence on the would-be Buggles.

The name “Buggles” began as a joke as well as was a pun on the Beatles (whose own name derived from “beetles”). According to Downes, the joke was that the Bugs were imaginary insects who were “creating havoc” inside the recording studio. Then someone said to them that they’d never be as big as the Beatles, so they began calling themselves The Buggles. “Video Killed the Radio Star” – The Buggles’ signature hit The Buggles added another musician Bruce Woolley, whom Horn had met before. Together, the three made demos for their own self-penned songs for their first album (that would be titled The Age of Plastic). One of those songs included “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Tina Charles chipped in into the project through her financial generosity, as well as lending her (featured) vocals on “Video Killed the Radio Star.” “Video Killed the Radio Star”‘s writing credits were shared by all three Buggles members, but in truth it was mostly written by Woolley.

However, in the middle of the production Woolley left to form his own band The Camera Club (who would also record their own version of “Video Killed the Radio Star.”) “Video Killed the Radio Star” was released in September 1979 as a single. Eventually, “Video Killed the Radio Star” rose to the top of the charts in several countries. The single, which was included on the Buggles’ debut album The Age of Plastic, also went to #1 on the UK charts in late 1979. The song’s music video as MTV’s first-ever video When America got wind of the “Video Killed the Radio Star,” it was the time when music television cable channel MTV beamed its maiden broadcast in the midnight of August 1, 1981. The first-ever music video that MTV broadcast was, as you guessed it, the video of the prophetically-titled global hit song. The classic music video of “Video Killed the Radio Star” was directed by Australian film director Russell Mulcahy. “Video Killed the Radio Star” barely reached the US Billboard’s Top 40 in 1979; it was the Buggles’ lone American hit.

Other tracks on The Age of Plastic album – “The Plastic Age” (#16 UK), “Clean Clean” (#38 UK) and “Elstree” (#55 UK) were big hits in their homeland. However, Downes and Horn’s interests gradually veered more toward production work. The Buggles as Yes members In 1980, Downes and Horn became part of the famous progressive rock group Yes, with Horn on vocals and Downes on keyboards. They replaced former Yes members, keyboardist Rick Wakeman and lead singer Jon Anderson. Making up the part of Yes’ new lineup, the band released their tenth studio album Drama in 1980.Drama did well commercially both in the US and the UK, although many longtime Yes fans were angry over the group’s replacement of its vocalist. Individual careers of the members and the Buggles reunion He then went on to become a record producer. In 1983 he founded ZTT Records with NME staff writer Paul Morley. ZTT eventually enjoyed considerable success thanks to its roster of artists that included Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Propaganda, and Art of Noise.

Aside from his band Asia, Downes has also worked as a producer for such as acts as Mike Oldfied, Thompson Twins, and GTR. In 1998, Downes and Horn reunited for their first-ever Buggles live outing. Since then they’ve been making occasional reunion performances while attending to their own individual career commitments. Of course, in every gig they’d go to, they’d always play their signature song “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Video Killed The Radio Star by Buggles Songfacts Video Killed The Radio Star by Buggles Songfacts Songfacts Trevor Horn wrote this after reading a science fiction story about an opera singer in a world without sound (she was rendered obsolete). Says Horn: "Before I started Buggles I was a sort of loser record producer, I spent four years producing records for various people without ever making any money out of it or having any success at all. Mainly I just produced unsuccessful records because I couldn't seem to lay my hands on a good song.

Eventually I got so fed up doing things that weren't successful I decided that if I couldn't find a good artist and a good song then I'd write it myself and become the artist, so I wrote this song called 'Video Killed The Radio Star' with Bruce Wooley. I know the name's awful, but at the time it was the era of the great Punk thing. I'd got fed up of producing people who were generally idiots but called themselves all sorts of clever names like The Unwanted, The Unwashed, The Unheard... when it came to choosing our name I thought I'd pick the most disgusting name possible. In retrospect I have frequently regretted calling myself Buggles, but in those days I never really thought much about packaging or selling myself, all that really concerned me was the record." Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes of the Buggles replaced Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson in Yes in 1980. The Buggles did record a second album in 1981. While recording the album Downes was invited to join the band Asia; Horn decided to finish the album with musicians from both Yes and The Camera Club. This was the first video to air on MTV.

The network launched August 1, 1981, and this provided the first evidence that MTV was going to make it. The song was a big hit in England in 1979, but pretty much unknown in America. When MTV went on the air, it was on only a few cable systems, but record stores in those areas started selling lots of Buggles albums. Since radio stations weren't playing this song and almost no one in the US had heard of the Buggles, it was clear that MTV was selling records and was an early indication of the network's influence. Russell Mulcahy directed the video, which had more production value than most others MTV had to choose from. At the time, if artists did make videos, they were usually just scenes of the band performing a song. Mulcahy used a lot of theatrics in his work, and went on to make videos for Duran Duran - including " Wild Boys ," " Rio " and " Is There Something I Should Know? " - before directing the 1986 film Highlander. Trevor Horn's wife agreed with his assessment that he was "dumb-looking" in the video.

After his stint with Yes, she persuaded him to leave performing and go full-time as a producer. Trevor Horn said of this song in the book I Want My MTV: "It came from this idea that technology was on the verge of changing everything. Video recorders had just come along, which changed people's lives. We'd seem people starting to make videos as well, and we were excited by that. It felt like radio was the past and video was the future. The was a shift coming." The female singers on the record were Linda Jardim (now Linda Allan) and Debi Doss. The Buggles asked Debi and Linda to perform in the video with other band members, keyboard player Hans Zimmer and drummer Warren Cann (from Ultravox). Debi was on tour with Hot Chocolate in 1979 when the song went to #1 and Errol Brown gave Debi a bottle of champagne and the day off to rush off to London to perform on Top Of The Pops with the Buggles. Linda Jardim explained: "The singer on Video Killed the Radio Star and on the album was me (on the album there was also input from Joy Yates and Debbie Doss).

The females in the video were NOT models. One of the other girls was an Australian model who we all called Sydney Australia, but I was present." On the record were Linda Jardim (now Linda Allan) and Debi Doss. The Buggles asked Debi and Linda to perform in the video with other band members, keyboard player Hans Zimmer and drummer Warren Cann (from Ultravox). Debi was on tour with Hot Chocolate in 1979 when the song went to #1 and Errol Brown gave Debi a bottle of champagne and the day off to rush off to London to perform on Top Of The Pops with the Buggles. Linda Jardim also sang on a single for The Northampton Development Corporation that was released nationally by EMI, entitled "60 Miles by Road or Rail," in an attempt to generate publicity for the growing town. It was not a hit. (Quotes courtesy: discog.info .) The video was shot in south London in a day. The girl who starred in the clip was a friend of director Russell Mulcahy who was trying to become an actress.

For the scene where she is lowered into the test tube, about 30 takes were shot, and the wrong take was used - you can see the tube falling over, which wasn't supposed to happen. Artists to cover this song include The Violent Femmes, Pixies, The Offspring, Radiohead, the Japanese indie rock band Rocket K, and The Presidents of the United States of America, whose cover was included on the soundtrack for The Wedding Singer. Video Killed the Radio Star | Rock Music Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Video Killed the Radio Star 3,155pages on Add Image "Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song written by Trevor Horn , Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley in 1978. It was first recorded by Bruce Woolley and The Camera Club (with Thomas Dolby on keyboards) for their album English Garden, and later by British synthpop and new wave group The Buggles , consisting of Horn and Downes. The track was recorded and mixed in 1979, released as their debut single on 7 September 1979 by Island Records , and is from their first album The Age of Plastic .

The backing track was recorded at Virgin's Town House in West London, and mixing and vocal recording would later take place at Sarm East Studios . Like all the other tracks from the LP, "Video"'s theme was promotion of technology while worrying about its effects. This song relates to concerns about mixed attitudes towards 20th-century inventions and machines for the media arts. Musically, the song performs like an extended jingle, and the composition plays in the key of D♭ major , in common time and at a tempo of 132 beats per minute . The track has been positively received, with reviewers praising its unusual musical pop elements. Although the song includes several common pop characteristics and six basic chords are used in its structure, Downes and writer Timothy Warner described the piece as musically complicated, due to its use of suspended and minor ninth chords for enhancement that gave the song a "slight different feel." The track topped several international music charts and has been covered by many recording artists. Its music video was written, directed, and edited by Russel Mulcahy , and is well-remembered as the first music video shown on MTV in the United States at 12:01am on 1 August 1981.

The song has received several critical accolades, such as being ranked number 40 on VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the 80's. [2 ] Trevor Horn has done performances of the song, both at Buggles reunion performances and with The Producers , since 1998. Contents Edit The Buggles, which formed in 1977, first consisted of Trevor Horn , Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley . [3 ] They all wrote "Video Killed the Radio Star" in an hour of one afternoon in 1978, six months before it was recorded, together in Downes' apartment, which was located above a monumental stonemason's in Wimbledon Park London. [4 ] [5 ] [6 ] The piece was built up from a chorus riff developed by Woolley. [5 ] It is one of the three Buggles songs that he assisted in writing, the two others being " Clean, Clean " and " On TV ." [3 ] An early demo of the song they did helped the group get signed to Island Records to record and publish their debut album The Age of Plastic .

[3 ] [7 ] Woolley left during recording to form his own band, The Camera Club, which did their own version of "Video", as well as "Clean, Clean" for their albumEnglish Garden. [3 ] [1] [2] Trevor Horn (middle) has said J.G. Ballard 's " The Sound-Sweep " was an inspiration for "Video Killed the Radio Star". Horn has said that the short story " The Sound-Sweep ", in which the title character—a mute boy vacuuming up stray music in a world without it—comes upon an opera singer hiding in a sewer, provided inspiration for "Video," and he felt "an era was about to pass." [8 ] Horn claimed that Kraftwerk was another influence of the song: "...It was like you could see the future when you heard Kraftwerk, something new is coming, something different. Different rhythm section, different mentality. So we had all of that, myself and Bruce, and we wrote this song probably six months before we recorded it." [6 ] All the tracks of the The Age of Plastic deal with positives and concerns of the impact of modern technology.

[7 ] The theme of "Video Killed the Radio Star" is thus nostalgia , with the lyrics referring to a period of technological change in the 1960s, the desire to remember the past and the disappointment that children of the current generation would not appreciate the past. [9 ]The lyrics relate to concerns of the varied behaviors towards 20th-century technical inventions and machines used and changed in media arts such as photography , cinema , radio , television , audio recording and record production . [10 ] Production and music[ edit ] Drums , Bass Guitar , Electric Guitar , Synths , Synth Strings , Synth Brass , Synth Piano , Marimbas , Male Vocals , Female Vocals "Video Killed the Radio Star" MENU 0:00 The final chorus of "Video Killed the Radio Star". There are instruments of electric guitars, a bass guitar, drums, and synths arranged in the track, and the male and female singers' accents and effects differentiate to give a historical and tonalitic contrast.---- Problems playing this file? See media help . "Video Killed the Radio Star" is a new wave - synthpop song.

It performs like an extended jingle , [12 ] sharing its rhythm characteristics with disco . [13 ] The piece plays in common time at a bright tempo of 132 beats per minute . [11 ] It is in the key of D♭ major , [5 ] [11 ] with the vocal range spanning from A3 to D5, [11 ] and six basic chords are used in the song's chord progression . [13 ] According to Geoff Downes, "It's actually a lot more complicated piece of music than people think, for instance part of the bridge is actually chords suspended and minor 9ths. A lot of people transcribed the song wrongly, they thought it was a straight F# chord. The song was written in D flat. The suspended gives it a slightly different feel." [5 ] Writing in his book, Pop Music: Technology and Creativity: Trevor Horn and the Digital Revolution, Timothy Warner said that the "relatively quite introduction" helping the listener detect a high amount of "tape hiss" generated through the use of analogue multi-track tape recorders , as well as the timbre of the synthesized instruments, give an indication of the technical process and time of producing the song.

[14 ] "Video" was put in more than three months of production. [5 ] The instrumental track was recorded at Virgin's Town House in West London for twelve hours, with mixing and recording of vocals held at Sarm East Studios . [15 ] [6 ] [7 ] The entire song was mixed through a Trident TSM console. [7 ] "Video" was the first track recorded for the group's debut LP The Age of Plastic , which cost a sum of £60,000 to produce, [15 ] and the song had been mixed by Gary Langan four or five times. [7 ] According to Langan, "there was no total recall, so we just used to start again. We’d do a mix and three or four days later Trevor would go, ‘It’s not happening. We need to do this and we need to do that.’ The sound of the bass drum was one of his main concerns, along with his vocal and the backing vocals. It was all about how dry and how loud they should be in the mix without the whole thing sounding ridiculous.

As it turned out, that record still had the loudest bass drum ever for its time." [7 ] The song includes instrumentation of drums , bass guitar , electric guitar , synth strings , instruments , piano , glockenspiel , marimbas and other futuristic, twinkly sounds, and vocals . [13 ] [14 ] [5 ] [12 ] Downes used a selena, minimoog and prophet-5 to create the overdubbed orchestral parts. [5 ] Both the male and female voices differ to give a tonalitic and historical contrast. [16 ] When Langan was interviewed in December 2011, he believed the male vocal was recorded through either a dynamic Shure SM57 , SM58 , Sennheiser 421, or STC 4038 ribbonis microphone, and that four of five takes had to be done. [7 ] The male voice echos the song's theme in the tone of the music, initially limited in bandwidth to give a "telephone" effect typical of early broadcasts, and uses a mid-Atlantic accent resembling that of British singers in 1950s and '60s.

[16 ] The Vox AC30 amplifier was used to achieve the telephone effect, and Gary Lagan says he was trying to make it "loud without cutting your head off", in others words make the voice sound soft. Gary Langan and Trevor Horn also tried using a bullhorn , but they found it too harsh. Langan later compressed and EQ'd the male vocals, and he said that doing the compression for old-style vocal parts was a "real skill." [7 ] The female vocals are panned in the left and right audio channels, [7 ] and sound more modern and have a New York accent. [16 ] The single version of "Video Killed the Radio Star" lasts for 3 minutes and 25 seconds. The album version plays for 4 minutes and 13 seconds, about 48 seconds longer than the single version, as it fades into a piano and synth coda , which ends with a brief sampling of the female vocals. [7 ] Edit Ever since its release, "Video Killed the Radio Star" has been given a mostly positive reception from music critics.

Originally, the song became a Billboard Top Single Pick on 3 November 1979, whom the publication found the chorus catchy and also highlighted the orchestral instruments supporting the backing singers. [17 ] Although there had been a mixed review of the single from Smash Hits , who found the song to be "too tidy, like vymura" (wallpaper), [18 ] they listed it in a review of The Age of Plastic as one of the best tracks of the album, along with " Living in the Plastic Age ". [19 ] Timothy Warner wrote that, although several common pop elements were still present in the song, it included stronger originality for its own purpose than most other pop hits released at the time. [20 ] These unusual pop music characteristics include the timbres of the male and female vocal parts, and the use of suspended fourth and ninths chords for enhancement in its progression.

[13 ] He also felt it was unnecessary to dislike it as a " novelty song ." [20 ] Allmusic 's Heather Phares said the track "can be looked on as a perfectly preserved new wave gem," "just as the song looks back on the radio songs of the '50s and '60s." She concluded her review by saying that it "still sounds as immediate as it did when it was released, however, and that may be the song's greatest irony." [12 ] Edit A rare live performance of the song by Horn and Downes came at a ZTT showcase in 1998. [21 ] In 2004, The Buggles re-united again with Bruce Woolley at Wembley Arena to perform "Video Killed the Radio Star" and " Living in the Plastic Age " as part of a tribute event to Horn to raise money for the Prince's Trust charity. They were joined by Debi Doss and Linda Jardim (now Linda Allan), who performed the background singing on the original recording. Paul Robinson, who played drums on the original, also appeared.

Both Horn and Downes have performed the song live in other acts, including Yes (which Downes and Horn joined for the Drama album and tour in 1980), Downes in the 2006–2009 revival of Asia with John Wetton on lead vocals, and Horn in his band The Producers , also in 2006. In November 2006, The Producers played at their first gig in Camden Town . A video clip can be seen on ZTT Records of Horn singing lead vocals and playing bass in a performance of "Video Killed the Radio Star". Tina Charles appears on a YouTube video singing 'Slave to the Rhythm' with The Producers [22 ] and Horn reveals that Tina was the singer and originator of the "Oh Ah-Oh Ah-Oh" part of 'Video'; fellow 5000 Volt member Martin Jay was also a session musician on The Buggles record. [23 ] Robbie Williams performed the song with Trevor Horn at the BBC Electric Proms on 20 October 2009.

[24 ] Since 2010, Horn has performed "Video" with both the Buggles and his new band, Producers. Since 2011, he has added new vocals to his live performance before the song's final chorus: [25 ] Video killed the radio star, He hit him on the head with his old guitar, He tried to run away, but didn't get far, That's how video killed the radio star Edit [3] [4] Trevor Horn (right) and Geoff Downes (left) as they appear in the video. The music video for "Video Killed the Radio Star", written, directed and edited by Australian Russell Mulcahy , [26 ] [27 ] was produced on a budget of $50,000. [4 ] It was filmed in only a day in South London, [26 ] and was edited in a couple of days. [27 ] Geoff Downes said in a 2011 interview that he felt the concept of the video reflected on that of the song.

[27 ] Mulcahy asked a friend of his, who was an aspiring actress, to play a girl who was dressed "in a silver costume and be lowered via wires in a test tube." There were about 30 takes required for shots of the actress in the tube. The tube falls over in the video, although Mulcahy claims it was not intended to be shown in the final edit. [26 ] Hans Zimmer can be briefly seen wearing black playing a keyboard, [28 ] and Debi Doss and Linda Jardim, who provided the female vocals for the song, are also seen. [29 ] The video starts with a girl c. 1952, sitting in front of a radio. A black-and-white shot of Trevor Horn singing into a radio-era microphone is altered over the girl by the radio. The radio blows up by the time of the first chorus, and then in the second verse, she is seen transported into the future, where she meets Horn and a silver-jumpsuited female in a clear plastic tube. Shots of Horn and Geoff Downes are shown during the remainder of the video.

[28 ] Broadcasting and reception[ edit ] Edit The video was first released in 1979, [30 ] when it originally aired on Top of the Pops for promotion of the single, rather than doing live performances. [4 ] Zimmer recalled in 2001 that the video drew criticism from some viewers who watched it before it aired on MTV, due to being "too violent because we blew up a television." [4 ] The video is best known as marking the debut of MTV , when the U.S. channel started broadcasting at 12:01 AM on 1 August 1981. [31 ] On 27 February 2000, it became the one-millionth video to be aired on MTV. [32 ] It also opened MTV Classic in the UK and Ireland, which replaced VH1 Classic on 1 March 2010, at 6 AM.[ citation needed ] The video marked the closing of MTV Philippines before its shutdown on 15 February 2010 at 11:49 PM. [33 ] [34 ] [35 ] MTV co-founder Bob Pittman said the video "made an aspirational statement.

We didn't expect to be competitive with radio, but it was certainly a sea-change kind of video." [4 ] Charts and certifications[ edit ] Rock History 101: The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” | Consequence of Sound Anniversaries, Cover Stories, Editorials, Interviews, Lists, Podcasts, and Comprehensive Rankings Rock History 101: The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” On August 1, 1981 at 12:01 a.m. Music Television was launched by an order from John Lack, who at the time was the executive vice president of Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment. Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll. At that moment, a sparse group of individuals, 2.5 million cable subscribers in New Jersey, were able to see an altered account of the Apollo 11 moon landing, in which the American flag was replaced with MTVs flag. As former MTV Networks CEO Tom Freston explains of the footage, “It was public domain.

We said, Hey, let’s rip off man’s greatest moment.’ It seemed a rock n’ roll thing to do.” Fittingly, the launch of MTV would become known as a great moment in the way in which rock n roll was consumed and a determining factor in the subsequent death of radio. Receiving much criticism during its 27 years on the air, MTV has never been as succinctly described as it was by The Buggles  Video Killed the Radio Star on the bands album, The Age of Plastic. Aired on the same summer night of 1981, the music video for Video Killed the Radio Star was a glimpse into the future of music, albeit ever-changing. Through a relatively new group, sound, message and delivery, Video Killed the Radio Star, along with the launch of MTV, set the stage, or in this case the screen, for a cultural upheaval. The Buggles formed in 1977 in the United Kingdom, and consisted of Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and a semi-silent partner, Bruce Woolley.

Horn, arguably the driving force behind The Buggles, played the bass guitar, guitar, percussion and sang. During the 80s, Horn was revered as one of the best producers Britain had to offer. Horn worked with notable acts, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Big Country and Simple Minds. Eventually, Horn would also be noticed for his writing chops, winning a Grammy Award in 1996 for co-writing Kiss from a Rose with Seal. Downes expertly played the keyboard, and added to the groups percussion use. The son of a church organist father and pianist mother, Downes was well versed in the world of keyboards. He would continue rocking the keys after The Buggles became defunct in 1982, joining Yes, with Horn, and later on Asia. Woolley helped pen Video Killed the Radio Star along with Horn and Downes. However, he has never been a member of The Buggles. In fact, the song was first recorded by Woolleys band, the Camera Club, for the album English Garden.

The single did much better on The Buggles album The Age of Plastic, largely due to the music videos appearance on MTV. Successful in his own right, Woolley became a director of Gramophone Records, a record label formed in 2007. Together, the three musicians contributed to a cultural upheaval and the increasing popularity of synthpop. David P. Szatmary, author of Rockin In Time: A Social History of Rock-And-Roll, comments on the synthpop explosion of the ’80s, saying, it dominated the charts, filtered into mainstream pop, and captivated the TV generation. Pursuing this new sound, devotees bought an unprecedented number of synthesizers in place of guitars, which declined in sales by 37 percent in one year. The year of declining guitar sales was 1983. It seems The Buggles were ahead of the curve sound-wise, as the band recorded Video Killed the Radio Star in 1979.

The beginning of Video Killed the Radio Star starts with a traditional piano sound, and then transitions into a more synthesized version to match the idea of technological advancement being discussed in the song. The entire song is a fusion of old and new. The male vocals and traditional piano sound represent the old, whereas the female vocals (provided by Debi Doss and Linda Jardim) and synthesizer represent the new. Bridging the gap between the two is the light use of guitar and drums, musical instruments that are ever-present in popular music. Adding to this idea is the structure of Video Killed the Radio Star. The verse, chorus, verse with a piano coda at the end, which is common in popular music, helps to strengthen the message of the song by reflecting on traditional music. The most important contribution The Buggles made to the cultural upheaval of the ’80s is the message conveyed in Video Killed the Radio Star, as well as the revolutionary delivery of the song - the music video. As mentioned earlier, the song succinctly describes the introduction of MTV.

Up until 1981, music videos didnt have a strong purpose, and they were never before as readily available to the music connoisseur. It wasnt until after music videos were popularized by MTV that record companies realized they could be used as a marketing tool, artists saw them as an additional outlet for artistic expression and fans began to fiend for them. Prior to music videos, musicians were more often heard on the radio, seen only in concert or on the occasional television appearance. In addition to Horn’s and Downes’ instrument playing, German composer Hans Zimmer (the one wearing black) can be seen playing keyboard in the video. The songs nostalgic lyrics comment on the radios ability to deliver a musician to ones home.

I heard you on the wireless back in fifty two/Lying awake intent at tuning in on you/If I was young it didn’t stop you coming through. The song goes on to explain the introduction of the music video, They took the credit for your second symphony/Rewritten by machine and new technology/And now I understand the problems you can see, and finally, the subsequent death of radio, Video killed the radio star/Video killed the radio star/In my mind and in my car/We can’t rewind we’ve gone to far/Pictures came and broke your heart/Put the blame on VTR. The video, directed by Russell Mulcahy, is also a fusion of old and new. It begins with a young girl sitting in front of a radio, circa 1952. Meanwhile, Horn can be seen, in a black and white shot transposed over the colored shot of the young girl, singing into a microphone of the same era as the radio.

The radio is blown up during the first, Video killed the radio star/Video killed the radio star. By the line And now we meet in an abandoned studio, the young girl is transported to the future. There she is greeted by Horn, who is wearing a white laboratory coat, and an alien-like woman in a clear plastic tube. The remainder of the video is peppered with shots of Horn and Downes on a television screen, essentially placing them in a music video. In the background, broken radios can be seen stacked atop one another. These lyrics and depictions were not alone in The Age of Plastic, as the album is a concept album, with themes of nostalgia and apprehension about the impact of technological advancements. The albums eight tracks all touch on this theme.

For example, Kid Dynamo, the B-side to Video Killed the Radio Star, comments on the medias newfound ability to create stars through the use of technology, Oh let it be said/How the media builds stars/And our minds will not change/Only our cars. The lyrics explain the idea that ones mind is not changed, but the way in which information is shared and the world around one does change, adversely impacting the generation. In further support, take this lyric from Kid Dynamo, I think your mind was born with water wings/And now when I see you/All the generation screams/I remember the dreams of/Kid dynamo, kid dynamo. With all the songs commenting on technological advancement, it is obvious The Buggles were in tune with the future of music. MTVs launch is now a relic of the past, as are The Buggles. Being the first video aired on MTV is not the only time Video Killed the Radio Star came in number one. In October of 1979 the song garnered the first number one for label Island Records.

However, The Buggles’ success in the U.S. dwindled and they are known as a one-hit wonder. Since the band’s prophetic single, the manufacturing of music has become more prevalent. Who would have thought the music industry could become more plastic than it was in the age of plastic, the 1980s? As technology has advanced, the music video, once the reining king of new technology, and the idea of a television channel being dedicated to the medium has effectively been killed by the Internet with the help of video sharing Web sites like YouTube. In the end, the group, sound, message and delivery were unable to stand the true test of time. Commenting on new technology made The Buggles popular, but the bands inability to keep up with the rapidly evolving world of music and technology caused the band’s death. May The Buggles rest in peace next to the radio, MTV and all the other casualties of rock and roll. Artists

Question: According to the 1979 Buggles hit, what did video kill?
Answer: the radio star