Video Killed the Radio Star

"Video Killed the Radio Star"
Single by Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club
from the album English Garden
Released	1979
Genre	New wave synthpop
Length	2:49
Label	Epic
Writer(s)	Downes Horn Woolley
Producer(s)	Mike Hurst

"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" single
Recorded	1979 Virgin's Townhouse (West London, UK) Sarm East Studios (Brick Lane, London, UK)
Genre	New wave synthpop
Length	3:25 (Single version) 4:13 (Album version)
Label	Island
Writer(s)	Geoff Downes Trevor Horn Bruce Woolley
Producer(s)	The Buggles
The Buggles singles chronology
"Video Killed the Radio Star" (1979) "Living in the Plastic Age" (1980)
The Age of Plastic track listing "Living in the Plastic Age" "Video Killed the Radio Star" "Kid Dynamo" "I Love You (Miss Robot)" "Clean, Clean" "Elstree" "Astroboy (And the Proles on Parade)" "Johnny on the Monorail"

Composition and arrangement info
Length	4:13 (album version) 3:25 (single version)
Genre	New wave synthpop
Key	D♭ major
BPM	132
Time signature	4 4 (common time)
Instruments	Drums bass guitar electric guitar synths synth strings synth brass synth piano marimbas male vocals, female vocals

"Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley in 1977. It was first recorded by Bruce Woolley and The Camera Club (with Thomas Dolby on keyboards) for their album English Garden, and later by British group The Buggles, consisting of Horn and Downes. The track was recorded and mixed in 1979, released as their debut single on 7 September 1979 by Island Records, and included on their first album The Age of Plastic. The backing track was recorded at Virgin's Town House in West London, and mixing and vocal recording would later take place at Sarm East Studios.

Like all the other tracks from the LP, "Video"'s theme was promotion of technology while worrying about its effects. This song relates to concerns about mixed attitudes towards 20th-century inventions and machines for the media arts. Musically, the song performs like an extended jingle and the composition plays in the key of D-flat major in common time at a tempo of 132 beats per minute. The track has been positively received, with reviewers praising its unusual musical pop elements. Although the song includes several common pop characteristics and six basic chords are used in its structure, Downes and writer Timothy Warner described the piece as musically complicated, due to its use of suspended and minor ninth chords for enhancement that gave the song a "slightly different feel."

Commercially, "Video Killed the Radio Star" was also a success. The track topped sixteen international music charts, including the official singles charts of the group's home country of the UK and other nations such as Australia, Austria, France, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as the Japanese Oricon International Chart. It also peaked within the top 10 in Canada, Germany, New Zealand and South Africa, the top 20 in Belgium and the Netherlands, and barely in the top 40 in the United States.

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