(Top Modern Rock Songs Of All Time)
Song: "Video Killed The Radio Star"
Artist: The Buggles
Release Date: September,1979
From the Album: The Age Of Plastic (1980)
Quick Take: One of new wave's most charming singles, the Buggles' prescient 1979 hit
"Video Killed the Radio Star" is also one of the most knowing and
ironic: A pop song about pop itself, it celebrates the golden days of
radio with shiny, futuristic synths and then-contemporary studio
techniques. The irony was complete when the song's video became the
first clip aired on MTV. Fortunately, "Video Killed the Radio Star"'s
ironies -- intentional or otherwise -- work in the song's favor. With
its broadcast-quality vocals and bouncy rhythm, the song plays like an
extended jingle, delivering hooks and sonic flourishes at every turn,
appropriately enough for the story of a singer made obsolete by TV. The
breathy, girlish backup singers, twinkly synths, and other intricate
layers in "Video Killed the Radio Star"'s arrangement and production
also foreshadow Trevor Horn's evolution into a first-rate producer.
Subsequent covers, most notably by the Presidents of the United States
of America, removed the song's poignancy and focused on its novelty
appeal. But just as the song looks back on the radio songs of the '50s
and '60s, now "Video Killed the Radio Star" can be looked on as a
perfectly preserved new wave gem. It still sounds as immediate as it did
when it was released, however, and that may be the song's greatest
irony.
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