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Showing posts with label Buggles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buggles. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

#425: Buggles, "Video Killed the Radio Star" (1980)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwuy4hHO3YQ

MTV, obviously, set the precedent here back in August 1981: if you're going to present a bunch of unrelated songs to an invisible public with no clear path to accomplishing anything, start with "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. It's structured superbly for an introductory song: first the gleaming, reverberating washes of synthesizer. Then the soft but sprightly electric piano and the sad vocals, distorted over cheap transmission; the cooing female "Oh, uh oh" hook; the thumping quarter-note drum that starts 24 seconds in, and the first quick tease of that switched-on-Bach style of sprightly keyboard two seconds later.