Video Killed the Radio Star

"Video Killed the Radio Star"
Single by The Buggles
from the album The Age of Plastic
B-side	"Kid Dynamo"
Released	7 September 1979
Format	7"
Recorded	1979
Genre	New Wave, synthpop
Length	4:13 (album version) 3:25 (2010 Japanese re-issue single version)
Label	Island
Writer(s)	Geoff Downes, Trevor Horn, and Bruce Woolley
Producer	The Buggles
Certification	Gold (UK)
The Buggles singles chronology
"Video Killed the Radio Star" (1979) "Living in the Plastic Age" (1980)
Music sample "Video Killed the Radio Star"

"Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song first recorded by Woolley & the Camera Club (with Thomas Dolby on keyboards) for his album English Garden, which was a hit in Canada. It was later recorded by the British synthpop/New Wave group The Buggles, released as their debut single on 7 September 1979, on Island Records from their debut album The Age of Plastic. It celebrates the golden days of radio, describing a singer whose career is cut short by television. The song topped the music chart in several countries and has been covered by many recording artists. Its music video was the first shown on MTV in the U.S. at 12:01am on 1 August 1981. The song was number 40 on VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the 80's, even though it was recorded and released in 1979.

Writing and composition

Buggles member Trevor 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 the song. He also felt "an era was about to pass." The theme of the song is thus nostalgia, which is echoed in the tone of the music (the vocals are initially limited in bandwidth, giving a "telephone" effect typical of early broadcasts). The lyrics refer 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. In the 1950s and early 1960s, radio was an important medium for many, through which "stars" were created.

The song was written by Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley above a monumental stonemason's in Wimbledon Park London in 1978. Horn has claimed that Woolley was primarily responsible for the musical content, while Horn wrote most of the words. Woolley was responsible for the addition of the words 'put the blame on VTR'.

The song is a new wave-synthpop bright-tempo song played at a 132 BPM, and the vocal range spans from A₃ to D₅. According to Downes, "Its 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."

Production

Horn wanted a sort of telephone voice to help disguise his lead vocal of the song. He worked with Gary Langan to put the recording of the vocal through some graphics and lots of compression. Without any dynamics left by the time it had been recorded, the vocal was played through a Vox AC30, and then was compressed and EQ’ed again. The two also had tried using a bullhorn, but they found it to be really harsh, in the task of making, as Langan recalls, "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."

Gary Langan stated, “My work on ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ seemed to go on forever. 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."

The first version of the song was recorded by Woolley & the Camera Club (with Thomas Dolby on keyboards) for his album English Garden, and later by The Buggles.

Live performances

A rare live performance of the song by Horn and Downes came at a ZTT showcase in 1998. 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 the 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 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.

Robbie Williams performed the song with Trevor Horn at the BBC Electric Proms on 20 October 2009.

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:

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

Music video

Trevor Horn, Hans Zimmer and Geoff Downes as they appear in the video.

The music video for the song, directed by Australian Russell Mulcahy, was first released in 1979. Hans Zimmer can be seen playing a keyboard; Debi Doss and Linda Jardim, who provided the female vocals for the song, are also seen. It is best known as marking the debut of MTV, when the U.S. channel started broadcasting at 12:01 AM on 1 August 1981. On 27 February 2000, it became the one-millionth video to be aired on MTV. 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.

Charts and certifications

Chart performance

Chart (1979–1980)	Peak position
Australia (Kent Music Report)	1
Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)	1
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)	12
Germany (Media Control AG)	2
Ireland (IRMA)	1
Italy (FIMI)	23
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)	17
New Zealand (RIANZ)	2
Spain (AFYVE)	1
Sweden (Sverigetopplistan)	1
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)	1
UK Singles (The Official Charts Company)	1
US Billboard Hot 100	40

Sales and certifications

Region	Certification	Sales/shipments
France (SNEP)	Platinum	1,212,000
United Kingdom (BPI)	Gold	500,000^
*sales figures based on certification alone ^shipments figures based on certification alone xunspecified figures based on certification alone

Cover versions

"Video Killed the Radio Star"
Single by The Presidents of the United States of America
from the album The Wedding Singer soundtrack
Released	1998
Format	CD single
Genre	Post-grunge, Hard rock
Length	4:20
Label	Columbia
Producer	Presidents of the United States of America
The Presidents of the United States of America singles chronology
"Tiki God" (1997) "Video Killed the Radio Star" (1998) "Jupiter" (2000)

The Presidents of the United States of America version

In 1998, the alternative rock band, The Presidents of the United States of America, released a version of "Video Killed the Radio Star" for The Wedding Singer soundtrack. The song was also released as a one-track single. The song later appeared on the band's compilation Rarities.

Chart performance

Year	Chart	Position
1998	UK Singles Chart[citation needed]	58

Other cover versions

Year	Artist	Album
1987	Bon Ton
1993	Jun'ichi Kanemaru	Inspired Colors
1999	Lolita No.18	ヤリタミン (YALITAMIN)
2000	Ken Laszlo	Ken Laszlo 2000
2000	The Presidents of the United States of America	Pure Frosting
2003	Erasure	Other People's Songs
2004	Dragonheart
2005	Amber Pacific	Punk Goes 80's
2005	Ben Folds Five	Whatever and Ever Amen
2005	Len	The Diary of the Madmen (in hidden track)
2007	Alvin and the Chipmunks	Alvin and the Chipmunks video game
2007	Envy & Other Sins
2007	The Feeling	Rosé (CD single)
2007	Haruko Momoi	COVER BEST — Cover Densha
2008	Bitch Alert	Pink Bunnies Get Hit by Big Trucks
2009	V V Brown	Travelling Like the Light
2011	Pentatonix	The Sing-Off: Season 3: Episode 5 - Guilty Pleasures
2012	Young London	Single
2012	Joyce Manor	Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired
2012	Dominico but call me "D"	Single
2012	Superbus	Sunset

In other media

"Video Killed the Radio Star" appears on the album The Age of Plastic, where it has an additional piano coda. The complicated arrangement and production of the song, which includes a chorus sung by a group of very high-pitched backup singers, foreshadows Horn's later career as a producer.

It appears on the soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and in the game itself. More recently, the song also appeared in Just Dance 3.

The song is used twice in Sarah Polley's 2011 film Take this Waltz; once midway through, and again during the closing scene. It is played as an accompaniment to the Scrambler ride in Toronto's Centre Island.

The song is used in the 1990s cult film Empire Records starring Anthony LaPaglia, Liv Tyler and Renee Zellweger.

The song is heavily sampled in the 2010 single "Check It Out" by will.i.am and Nicki Minaj

The song is featured in the film Take Me Home Tonight starring an ensemble cast with Topher Grace and Anna Faris.

The song was the inspiration for Bappi Lahiri's song "Koi Yahan Aha Nache Nache" from the Mithun Chakraborty movie Disco Dancer.^{[citation needed]}

In 2009, Robbie Williams titled his eighth album Reality Killed the Video Star. The album was produced by Trevor Horn. Williams also performed the song live in the BBC Electric Proms that year, with Horn playing bass.

See also

Suggested reading

• The Jazz Singer is a 1927 U.S. film notable for being the first "talking motion picture" to be widely commercially distributed.
• Singin' in the Rain is a musical film that explores the transition from silent film to sound film.
• Sunset Boulevard explores how sound film and television led to the demise of films and silent stars.
• "Radio Ga Ga", a single by Queen, also laments the demise of radio as the primary mass medium.
• "Internet Killed the Video Star", a 2010 song by The Limousines

No. 1 chart lists

• List of number-one singles in Australia during the 1970s
• List of number-one hits of 1979 (Switzerland)
• List of number-one singles from the 1970s (UK)
• List of European number-one hits of 1980
• List of Swedish number-one hits

External links

• Full lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics