"Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song by the British synthpop/New Wave group The Buggles, released 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 several music charts and has been covered by many recording artists. It was the first music video shown on MTV in North America at 12:01am on August 1, 1981 and has been widely parodied in ...
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"Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song by the British synthpop/New Wave group The Buggles, released 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 several music charts and has been covered by many recording artists. It was the first music video shown on MTV in North America at 12:01am on August 1, 1981 and has been widely parodied in popular media.
In an interview, 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. 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 lyrics refer to a period of technological change in the 1960s, the desire to remember the past and the disappointment that children of...
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