Enough of the history already....

Ok, ok, I hear you, however, we will need to kick it off with another seminal piece, which forever changed music AND television history.

The song itself - a new wave / synthpop disaster going by the name of "Video Killed the Radio Star" by presumably gay duo "The Buggles" (Trevor Horn (vocals, bass guitar, guitar) and Geoff Downes (keyboards, drums, percussion)).

While I enjoy and respect all forms of music, I have my own personal beef with Mr. Horn and Mr. Downes and its related to the way the song was used to open up what would be the beginning of commercial music as we know - MTV.

From Wiki -

"It was the first music video shown on MTV in North America at 00:01 on 1 August 1981."

And while I did enjoy MTV in the first couple of years it was running, I have nothing but resentment for what it has become today - a tool to morally influence large numbers of kids, showing them whats "right" and "in". /rant

Enough about that, lets hear the first song played on MTV!




"Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song by the British synthpop/New Wave group The Buggles, released as their debut single on the 7 September 1979, on Island Records. 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. It was the first music video shown on MTV in North America at 00:01 on 1 August 1981.

Group member Trevor Horn has said that his lyrics were inspired by the J. G. Ballard 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.[2] He also felt "an era was about to pass." The theme of the song is thus nostalgia, which is also 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. 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 first version was recorded by Woolley & the Camera Club (with Thomas Dolby on keyboards) for his album English Garden, which was a hit in Canada. The Buggles later recorded the song and it reached number one in the UK charts the week of 20 October 1979, the first-ever number one for the Island Records label. It also would top the Australian charts, and made the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, debuting on 10 November 1979, and peaking at number 40.

It 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.

(note: If you ARE interested in the history of recorded music, watch this space, I will make it a point to provide interesting tidbits of knowledge every couple of days (probably weeks))