The age of Music Television was aptly ushered in with this anxious piece of new wave nostalgia. 'Video Killed the Radio Star' was the debut single from the Buggles off of their album 'The Age of Plastic' . Band members Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes wrote the song with Bruce Woolley (who did his own version with Camera Club). It took them three months to record because they had to start from scratch twice. Horn says the lyrics were inspired by a short story by J. G. Ballard called 'The Sound-Sweep' in which a mute boy finds an opera singer hiding in a sewer in a world without music. It speaks to the sense of something lost in the wake of technological change. The song was a worldwide hit, going to number one in Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK; number two in New Zealand; number sixteen in the Netherlands; and just made the top forty in the US. It was the first music video shown on MTV in the US just after midnight on August 1, 1981.
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
I met your children
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 to far
Oh-a-aho oh
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 to far
Pictures came and broke your heart
Put the blame on VTR
You are a radio star
You are a 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
(You are a radio star)
Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
(You are a radio star)
Oh-a oh
Oh-a oh
Oh-a oh
The album version from 'The Age of Plastic' is slightly longer.
The Camera Club version featuring Thomas Dolby on keyboards, Matthew Seligman on bass, Dave Birch on guitar and the late Rod Johnson on drums. It was a hit in Canada.
full album:
Side one
"Living in the Plastic Age" -- 5:13
"Video Killed the Radio Star'' -- 4:13
"Kid Dynamo" -- 3:29
"I Love You (Miss Robot)" -- 4:58
Side two
"Clean, Clean" -- 3:53
"Elstree" -- 4:29
"Astroboy (And the Proles on Parade)" -- 4:41
"Johnny on the Monorail" -- 5:28
Bonus tracks on
"Island" -- 3:33
"Technopop" -- 3:50
"Johnny on the Monorail" (A very different version) -- 3:49
No comments:
Post a Comment