video killed the radio star is from 1979

I was intrigued by the subject matter of the song too. The narrative was all about television becoming more popular than radio in the Fifties. Of course, a few years after the song's release M.T.V. challenged the popularity of music radio.

The record seemed very modern-sounding at the time (although when I was 8 I didn't have much to compare it to). I rarely listen to it now. The song sounds like a novelty hit. However, I suppose it was groundbreaking. It contains many of the techniques that Trevor Horn used on records by artists such as A.B.C.

Long way of saying that I was too young to have paid it that much mind -- was more interested in baseball and Pong at that age.

It was 70s studio pop in the tradition of all sorts of Bubblegum (and also stuff like 10cc) - but taken to a higher, more technically processed level. And, as Mark said, it foreshadowed Horn's production style of the 80s with ABC, Dollar etc.

Kraftwerk had a Top 40 hit single in the US (#25) and the UK (#11) five years prior to "Videos" release. Perhaps it was old hat to the people of the time (I dunno, I was 3 in 1979).

It sounded sweet and clever and fun at the time. A bit too kitsch for my tastes back then, though, and nowhere near as great as Spark's No. 1 in Heaven. Definitely didn't sound revolutionary at that point, sorry. Just kind of a cute little commentary on the future of pop.

I was 17 and 18 in 1979.

I was about to say the same thing. But I think what it really boiled to was Trevor Horn taking the whole 70's e-prog stuff, and jamming it into the format of a pop song. The most obvious precursor to me would be Brian Eno/Bowie/Roxy Music axis.

I really cannot say if there is an obvious precursor. It just seems that trevor horn took the ideas that were floating around in the 70's and cashed in on them. This is not really a revolutionary single by any standard, it is a pop song dressed in the studio gloss of eary polyphonic synths. It is a good tune, but it is still a tune that was dressed in the engineering fashion of its time.

I would say that the really important English music of this time was the early Industrial/New Musick scene. Early Throbbing Gristle, The Normal, Thomas Leer, Cabaret Voltaire were all much more important. The reason being is that they were doing this music in primitive home studios and on their own labels. These guys had more bearing on the 1990's than The Buggles ever did.

Trevor Horn was using pro-studios and going through a major. He wrote a good pop single, and had some nice polymoog action on it. There were much more extreme and non-commerical uses of synths in the 70's. Look into Krautrock, Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Neu, and Can all were using electronics in a way that was much more interesting.

"It sounded sweet and clever and fun at the time. A bit too kitsch for my tastes back then, though, and nowhere near as great as Spark's No. 1 in Heaven. Definitely didn't sound revolutionary at that point, sorry. Just kind of a cute little commentary on the future of pop."

I remember when they would play this on mtv when I was about 4 or so, I always quite liked it. It has become less interesting to me as time has passed. I agree with the sentement above, it is what it is, an entertaining pop song. It was not ground breaking or innovative, just well written and produced.

As a step towards the integrated digital studio as mono-instrument, Buggles were more a flash on the future than they seemed at the time: yes yes this technical set-up was hardly news off-mainstream, but half the horrible point point of the quasi-prog avant-garde (as i then saw it) was that it swanked itself up as intrinsically untouched by the Man and/or Crappy Commerce, by virtue of its superior musicianship as manifested in banks of keybs. When they joined Yes a year or two later I was delighted, and IMMEDIATELY regarded Yes as totally rehabilitated, punk-wise: the tec was no longer the enemy, just a tool. I guess I had already sifted to liking Buggles as an idea, a lever (so unconsciously accepted them as more breakthrough than I did aurally, if you like). I never liked the song much, and still don't, really.

no.one song in heaven = apr 79
are 'friends' electric? = may 79
video killed = sept 79

(sparks of course first surfaced on the neo- glam wave of 74-75)

Best Buggles record: "Into The Lens" by Yes. Best 1979 record: "Digital Love" by Daft Punk.

stupid: i hadn't twigged buggles >> daft punk

As to how it sounded in 1979 – I was ten and it sounded great. I imagine the real message was yet to crystallize, MTV being a couple of years away (“video” was a term in little use where I was living) but it did seem “futuristic” in a cool way (though not as much as “The Robots”), and the gimmicky “whoo-ah-whoo” chorus could have been designed to appeal to kids (it sounded like kids were singing it.) It was just a very catchy, fun song.

I posted this somewhere else on ILM, but I listened to radio through the 70s, and I never remember hearing “Autobahn”, not once. I know it was something of a hit in the U.S., but it was never played much. Then again, songs that hit #25 sometimes fade rather quickly. There’s probably a #25 hit from 1995 that I’ve never heard, either.

I was 18 in 1979 but wasn't exactly a punk purist - I regarded it as just another quirky new wave tinged pop record, not a particularly original one and certainly way behind the innovators.

It wasn't the best quirky new wave pop song of the era, Flying Lizards, New Musik, were all Cowboys International were all close contemporaries (and all studio based bands mainly created by a producer)..(Aside, what was the bloke in New Musik who did living by numbers and later produced A Ha? Is he still around?)

I would guess the Buggles tune owes its longevity to the subject matter synching with the change in media -the Sunset Boulavard theme... NTNON's "Nice Video shame about the song" was probably more accurate though...

It didn't really influence much either, unlike the later Horn stuff - Possibly stuff like Landscape or Thomas Dolby (though both of them had been floating about for a while too I think).

why WAS it buggles (of all ppl) that got asked to join and revivify Yes, as a matter of interest? i fell like there's some aspect of all this nagging in the back of my mind which explains everything...

What can you possibly mean, Tom? I thought the snotty / stuttery / hiccoughing "ow-wuh-oh" was a rockabilly => punk => new wave mainstay, along with its countless variants ("oh-wuh-uh-oh," "oh-woah- woah," "wuh-uh-oh-whoah," &c.) -- fer God's sake, Ric Ocasek, at the very least.

The answer may not be as interesting as you hope. Horn and Downes were big Yes fans and approached the band c. end '79 with a couple of songs they'd written for their idols. This coincided with Anderson and Wakeman's latest stomping off in a huff, and with a pre-arranged US tour looming, 2+2 (or rather 3+2) was duly put together.

Which of course was why Horn was so delighted to stick some cod-Yes into the climax of Dollar's "Give Me Back My Heart." He said to Morley at the time, "I just loved the idea of pissing people off by doing a total Yes rip-off at the end of a Dollar record."

i imagine it pisses someone off = i like it
and that's ALL!!

Quite why it hasn't been sampled is a mystery as it's on a par with the Chic productions, at their peak in '79 too. Which no doubt Horn must have been listening to.

I was 18/19 when this single was a hit: to me it just seemed like an irritating novelty song, a nursery-rhyme done by a couple of johnny-come-lately synthetic-cash-in merchants - my then-puritanical reaction was: how dare they be popularising/humanising/infantilising technology in music, the bastards are going to spoil MY SPECIAL MISERABLE FUN (which, by 2 years later, I felt had finally happened with the whole momus-coined 'synth-pierrot' thing - again, at the time, something I was puritan enough to think was a nail of ponce-ification in the coffin of Post-Punk.
(And mark s I still can't read your 1st post on this thread without grinding of teeth and gnashing of gums.....)

It's been ages since I heard VKTRS, but I can't recall finding anything exciting at the time about how it sounded, either - no sequencing, no synthetic drums, no filter sweeps/blips or odd modulations or dissonances - just a horrible Abba-esque rinkydink piano sound and some transistor-radio phasing on a hollywooden chorus.
Seemed to me that if you had already tuned in to tech-music over the previous years, that record would just sound like cheesy pish.

But, as with Dr C's thread about 'Dreaming of Me', maybe if I heard it again I'd like it more now - what with being a more burnt-out, detached, compromised and confused music-liker rather than an aesthetically puritanical intensely focussed music-lover.

It was indeed; August 1, 1980 (the second video, incidentally, was Pat Benatar's "You Better Run").

I was eight back then. It's always been/is just a fun little song to me, nostalgia-inducing. Back then, the sound wasn't particularly novel to me (having seen Gary Numan videos previously), but very catchy. I liked the video with the Space Invaders better (I think "Living in the Plastic Age"?). I think its relevance has stemmed mostly from the lyrics, in postmortems on MTV. I've always found the backup vox rather irritating, actually.

Unimpeachable.

Fantastic. I once won all the Singstar points on this by affecting that pinched-nose voice: "I-heard-yewon-thwarless-bakinfif-teetyooo".

There are at least five 1979 hits that were basically predating (even "inventing", sort of) the sound of the 80s:
Tubeway Army: Are "Friends" Electric
Gary Numan: Cars
Roxy Music: Dance Away
M: Pop Muzik

But even more so, there's "Video Killed The Radio Star".

This song still gives me a special feeling. That retro-future vibe still rings clear for me. Plus, as stated, it's a fantastic pop song.

I am loathe to outright agree with Geir but his comments are correct. And all those tunes are still great as well.

I guess Japan too though. The "Quiet Life" album was basically when they found their trademark 80s style. And before that there was the often overlooked "Life In Tokyo" single as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAipM6942Xs