This was the first video played on MTV way back in 1981. There were videos put out by bands before this, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody was made in 1975, but they weren't called "Music Videos" but were called "Promotional Films", plus there wasn't a dedicated place to air them on. They were primarily shown to record executives to showcase a band to geet them signed.
I knew this was the first I didn’t know Pat Benatar “You better Run” was the second, I looked it up while ago thanks, MTV was a blast back in the fun filled 80s you had to be there!
HBO had music videos in the 70s. Video Jukebox showed videos in between movies, back when HBO came on at 5pm. I remember seeing the Village People's In The Navy when I was a little kid in 1979. Side note: The Cowboy aka Randy Jones gave me a nice compliment after I played a set at a jazz club here in NYC. Just a "Hey, you're good" but I got to tell him about how the funky and a bit silly VP songs made me aware of music back in the day. Nice guy. But yeah, there were music videos in the 70s.
@@auralfixxation6702 No doubt. I was a little too young to appreciate Night Flight when it first came on, but it was great. Never knew what you might see on there.
There were music videos before MTV, but for years it was only really a thing in Britain on a weekly type show, then MTV mainstreamed it, and many artists immediately capitalized on the video medium
This number paid for Trevor Horn"s studio and started his producing career. Horn co-wrote Owner of a Lonely Heart for Yes while being a member also including Geoff Downes. The B-side of the single called Kid Dynamo are also a great song
This song was actually produced in 1979 and had fallen into bargain bins by the time MTV aired on 8/1/81. They purposely chose the song as their 1st video because of the obvious reason and it made a 2 yr old song and album start selling more briskly than it did the first time.
this isi not the first version of the song. In 1978 the band "Bruce Wholley and the Camera Club" released one album and this song was on it. That band contained both founding members of the Buggles. Also, of note, Thomas Dolby played keyboards on the album. Those in the know will recognize the name.
Young people today don't understand how big MTV was in the 80s and 90s. Music videos were a new artform. This song sort of hailed in a new era of music....television.
They may have been one hit wonders in America but they had a few hits in the UK. Their first album was fun but they weren't able to capitalise on it. Trevor Horn was one of the Buggles (it was essentially a duo) and he went on to produce many of the biggest artists in the last 40 years. He was also part of Yes for a time. Also another synth. new wave band called Art Of Noise and their first album was something of a revelation. You might try 'Close (to the Edit)', interesting given where Trevor Horn went later and 'Moments In Love'. Cheers.
The "video" that they are referring to is not Music Videos but the idea that TV(video) killed the radio shows. Before TV people got a lot of entertainment by listening to shows on the radio. These shows were like the TV shows of today, consisting of: dramas, comedies, variety hours, interviews and other formats. When TV came to popular those Radio Stars either became TV stars or were left behind. Many of the Radio programs of the 30's and 40's were made into TV shows in the late 50's and 60's. ----------------- I heard you on my wireless back in '52 Lying awake, intent at tuning in on you ----------------- Is about listening to the radio (wireless) at night in the 50's
There were so many bands that were HUGE stadium filling acts in the 70's and very early 80's that absolutely died when MTV became the hot way to promote a song. Bands that weren't as photogenic let's say. Journey, Foreigner, Styx, Billy Squire, REO Speedwagon, and so many more were victims of it at the time. I'd say a great many of the biggest drawing/selling acts of 1981 were totally invisible or even gone by the end of 1982. I always thought this song was prophetic in that sense.
Don’t know if it was already mentioned, but that pop song from the 2000’s that sampled the original instrumental might be Check it Out by Nicki Minaj and Will-I-Am
The 70's did have music videos, at least we did in the UK, BBC's Top of the Pops would play bands video who couldn't perform in the studio for what ever reason.
Great song ...the guy on keyboards is the brilliant composer Hans Zimmer who has written the themes for some of the biggest movies "The Power of One " African influence..."The preachers wife" American Black gospel music and many many more superb musical masterpieces if y'all get time "The Rainmaker " from the" power of one" fantastic....
Here's the original video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-W8r-tXRLazs.html and the remastered video - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jjz23Q92A4s.html
Sometimes I feel so old listening to the younger generations talk about different things lol. Luckily I was born in a time when all of these changes were coming forward. I just hope the next 52 years are as fun. Really enjoy watching you two, makes me smile.
I'm also 52yrs old and I remember this song when it first came out on some new show called MTV. I remember the catalog of music videos was small and MTV only would air for a few hours each day. Do your remember the several weeks count down to Micheal Jackon's "Thriller" video? I remember the first time I ever heard a rap song was by RunDMC my freshmen year in highschool (1983). I didn't even know it was called rap. I just remember thinking how are these singers talking really fast to a rhythmic beat. Then the Fat Boys blew my mind with beat boxing. I was the normal 80's kid that listened to Rush, Billy Squire, ACDC, etc and then I became a fan of the fast talking singers. It was great to see the birth of hip hop, break dancing and all the classic music from the 80's. MTV was great when they just played music videos.
☆ Right!?? LoL... Exactly man! Damn, I so feel you on this one my friend; hell, I don't usually realize the true extent of my "old" age(44)... at least not until one of these types of moments occurs, such as when I happen to be talking with my 19 year old daughter or one of her friends and they'll just suddenly have this confused blank look come across their faces because I've inadvertently made a reference to something which was "before their time" & thus they simply have absolutely no knowledge of it whatsoever... But I also have those moments of realization happen to me while I am watching something wherein there is someone that's as young as these two cool cats here.... LoL, and suddenly it becomes starkly apparent to me how astonishingly disconnected from my own generational experiences during that span of time all of these young folks truly are, simply due to their young age... It hits especially hard whenever they are just discussing how they view stuff from the 70's, 80's, & 90's as being "old school"... heh, damn... OLD school huh?... Ok, fair enough I suppose. Heh... Ah well, I guess rhat getting old is still far better than it's only alternative, yeah? Ha.
@@jeremyw.norwood1453 "I'm gunna live forever, Baby remember my name" - Name that one! :) Just popped in my head reading you and Jorge's posts. I am right there with you two! Just think the way song lyrics and show catch phrases hit us when we are hanging with our friends and all remember back and laugh (might just be me). Kids growing up now will be visualizing and remembering tiktoks and YT videos...hell some even Vines...I feel sad for them lol! I will say we are the lucky ones because we saw this major development and transition in culture with technology that most do not get to live in their prime years. The excitement of the development of it but that separation without it...an independence. Most twenty somethings and younger don't know life without it and depend on it. I feel we are blessed in that way.
This was released as a single in 1979... So them singing "Back in '52" would be the equivalent today of saying "Back in '95" It's scary how fast time flies... 😲
Back in '95 I was in high school, now I'm just old 😂 The music video itself aired on MTV as their first ever video in 1981 when I was 3 years old, but not having cable at the time and also living in Canada, we didn't get MTV there anyway; later in the 80s, MuchMusic kinda became the Canadian equivalent of a (primarily) music video channel.
This song was predicting the future, but also mourning a past - the radio programs and stars of the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s who were made obsolete by television. VTR = Video Tape Recorder/Recording
@@StanSwan it didn't attempt to. It was radio that was killed (in the early 1900's style) by Video. To the younger generation, people use in the "Old Days" before TV, the family would huddle around the radio like we do today with the TV set and listen to regular daily recordings, NOT just music on them. Whole shows were voiced over the radio. The gap in the youths understanding of history is mind boggling!
The singer, Trevor Horn, was a full-fledged member of Yes during the record of "Owner of a Lonely Heart." He was also a founding member of The Art of Noise, and was one of the most sought-after music producers of the 1980s and 1990s. Dude is a legend. Too bad you didn't play the original video. It's a classic.
I listened to the maxi version of 'moments in love' full blast in my car on my way home tonight, i could feel the bass in my chest. a f masterpiece. just before 'Frond 242', i'm sure you don't know them! ;)
@@willythebluebear Wait--do you mean FRONT 242? If so, of course I know them. Legendary 1980s industrial band, up their with Skinny Puppy and Nitzer Ebb.
It wasn`t just Trevor Horn that joined Yes Geoff Downes the Keyboard player also joined Yes, and is still their touring Keyboard player, along with being a founder member of supergroup Asia, who are still touring.
VTR stands for Video Tape Recorder and predated VCR's. VTR's were big reel to reel units, that recorded on two inch wide tape and were used by television studios.
@@StanSwan There were reel to reel video recorders. collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8096369/ampex-video-recorder-vr1000-video-recorder is the first practical VTR and it came long before cassette based formats. But the cost of such units very prohibitively high for most other users, so they were used by bigger TV channels only. Later several other formats was used. Type A was smaller, cheaper and still reel to reel. Yes, type A was the first standardised format. But for the AMPEX VR1000... You hear it was 45000 USD... But compensated for inflation it is over 420000. But like plenty of large professional electronic devices it also required quite a few things to operate. Obviously it wasn't designed for home use, and when we mention professional use, you would need some editing stations with multiple such video tape recorders, so adopting this technology was very expensive. But Sony CV2000 is a consumer format you see on video at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3YyJsv3sNgk.html
This song is the essence of nostalgia, for both the subject of the song and for the song itself, since we are "hearing the playback and it seems so long ago", 43 years to be precise.
When MTV was a blank screen with the numbers counting down to zero, when it hit zero this was the first video the world seen. It was a great time to be a teenager.
Actually The Buggles had two very talented musicians Geoff Downs and Trevor Horn. They both made an album with Yes, Drama which is one of my favorites. Downs was also in the Super group Asia. Both were succesful producers.
Exactly. The Buggles were more like a bunch of music producers just having a bit of fun arranging music, much like a DJ today would do. They are kind of a forerunner to guys like Avicii, except what they were doing back then was so new they never stuck at it and moved into traditional producing.
That's actually amazing. I had always thought this was just a garbage song whose only reason for being remembered was as the answer to a trivia question, but that actually gives it considerably more historical value. Thanks for sharing!
Back in schooldays, a local UHF channel played videos set to the Top 30 songs of the week whatever... sometimes would not have footage of band at all, sometimes just girls dancing in front of a trippy, psychedilc background.
Video refers to moving images and I always took this to mean (more widely) that TV stars took over from radio stars and radio became less important after people bought and watched TVs. Some radio stars were unable to adapt to TV or maybe only had a face for radio. I think the stilted sounding voices are meant to sound like a throwback to the radio age, but I guess it's open to interpretation.
I like this interpretation, makes more sense than a “prediction”. I believe the idea behind I Love Lucy was born from TV execs wanting to put Lucille Ball’s radio show My Favorite Husband on TV. She only agreed to do it if Desi could play her husband. Well…
I think you’re right. The main vocal is supposed to be reminiscent of old-time radio. New Wave Artists were very into video at the time as technology had progressed (not just music videos but video/visual in general).
You are 100% correct. In the 40's and 50's, radio "serials" were the soap operas of today. Families used to gather around the radio to listen to the latest episode. In the late 50's early 60's is when tv shows started to gain traction as television became more affordable and more mainstream. They are right it is about the passing of an era, but it happened 30 years before they thought.
Trevor Horn, the singer with the glasses would go on to be on of the most prolific and respected record producers of the 80's. Like an 80's Phil Spector, but without being a complete nasty nutjob. For instance, Realx, by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, is one of his.
@@NoCanDu Yes, but BEFORE 90125, he joined Yes as lead vocalist (and fretless bassist) on the album, Drama, after Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman left the band. Keyboardist Geoff Downes replaced Wakeman on that album and would go on to form Asia with John Wetton, Steve Howe, and Carl Palmer (of ELP).
The first time I heard this in 79. I got it, it still makes me sad to this day.Trevor Horn went onto produce the best album of the 80s. Lexicon of Love by ABC.
This song still makes me a little sad. I grew up with top-40 radio stars, but by 1979-80, everything started changing... and eventually radio DJs and music programs faded away and radio became "canned." MTV and videos killed the radio stars. And then MTV stopped showing videos, so...yeah, that happened. The singers were supposed to sound like an old transistor radio.
This song is the spiritual child of the movie “Singing in the Rain” which was about “talkies” taking over from silent movies, but here it’s the visuals of tv taking over from radio shows.
Oh man, you gotta watch the official music video. It is so sci-fi, surreal and cheesy. Considering that the video was made in 1979, they did a good job on it. Here's a link if you want to see it, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-W8r-tXRLazs.html.
It was released in 1979, but was the first video played at 12:01am on August 1, 1981 on the brand new MTV. The 2nd song played was much better, Pat Benatar, “You Better Run”.
I used to loved this song back in the early 80´s , I guess this song is actually from the late 70´s (the disco era) but it was huuuge in the 80´s. anyway husg guys!!! lots of love from Argentina.
Yes, first video on MTV...i personally saw it when MTV came on in 1981!! We were so excited bc all we had at the time was Friday Night Videos late at night. Thanks for the nostalgia. ❤️❤️❤️
Check out " I am a Camera". It is a song the band Yes covered too. The two guys in the Buggles ended up joining Yes. The keyboard player Geoff Downes is in the band again right now.
I remember when this first aired, I remember begging My Dad to let Me stay up till midnight to see MTV launch. My dad hated it cause of the way the guys dressed lol, but its a memory Ill Never forget
I never thought of this song as a stand alone type of video or song, it for me represents a shared moment of millions of GenX sitting watching the count down until our time began, and it was great... at least for a few years until the baby boomers sold out as usual, Boomers grew up with Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll, and left GenX with Aids, Addiction, and corporate controlled MTV, shoving their voice altered, choreographed dancing, boy bands down our throat, programming Millennials from birth, to buy and consume the crap they say without question, people wonder why GenX is so sarcastic and dont have 2 fucks to give about anything boomers have to say, its to train GenZ to not get brainwashed by this corporate world they were born into, GenZ raised by their GenX parents and grandparents, are being raised to burn this corporate world to the ground and GenX is supplying the matches... So... yeah... this video brings back alot of memories... sorry about that...
It was also the one millionth song played on MTV. But the song is more about television killing radio programs in the 1950's. Also, there were music videos decades before MTV started.
An orchestrated song by the music industry? No. And the song was a hit a two years before MTV. The two members of the Buggles ended up joining Yes on their Drama album. VTR is video tape recorder - the precursor to VCRs. They used reels of tape rather than cassettes (the "C" in VCR). It's a nostalgic reference (the song starts off talking about listening to the radio in '52).
Back in the day, you didn't really care what the people in the band really looked like, as long as the music was good. But in the video age, if you weren't beautiful, you didn't make it and your music wasn't played (as much). So, video did kill the radio star. Now were stuck with "Boy Bands" and corporate built acts.
Back when this came out, "back in '52" was thirty years in the past. It's the equivalent of saying, "back in '92" nowadays. Even though this duo was a one hit wonder, they scored hits as members of other groups. Trevor Horn and Geoffrey Downes were members of Yes, and Geoffrey Downes also played with '80s supergroup Asia. Trevor Horn went on to produce hits for '80s megastars like ABC and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
VTR = Video Tape Recorder. It became VCR shortly after. Trevor Horn was referring to television taking people away from listening to the radio. When he was a kid, more and more English people were starting to buy TV sets. This being the first MTV video was probably done in a spirit of irony.
this is one of my favorite 80s songs. When the kick comes in, those background vocals. I always sing along at the end to "You areeee a radio staarrrrr" lmao this song also has a lot of potential for a good House remix, but i'm sure that's been done plenty of times already
Released in late 1979, reached #1 on virtually every chart in Europe in 79-80 and did pretty well in a bunch of other places too. So poppy, so story, so atmospheric, so iconic. I was 15 and living in the UK. This song made #1, and the number #1s list from that year has some huge songs in it. "Y.M.C.A." Village People "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" Ian Dury and the Blockheads "Heart of Glass" Blondie "Tragedy" Bee Gees "I Will Survive" Gloria Gaynor "Bright Eyes" Art Garfunkel "Sunday Girl" Blondie "Ring My Bell" Anita Ward "Are 'Friends' Electric?" Tubeway Army "I Don't Like Mondays" The Boomtown Rats "We Don't Talk Anymore" Cliff Richard "Cars" Gary Numan "Message in a Bottle" The Police "Video Killed the Radio Star" The Buggles "One Day at a Time" Lena Martell "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman" Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show "Walking on the Moon" The Police "Another Brick in the Wall Part II" Pink Floyd
OMG I feel so damn old I remember this being the first one in 81 on MTV!!! Crazy! When it premiered!!! but when MTV Premiered everyone was having a WATCH PARTY EVERYWHERE
The band may have been a one hit wonder, but Trevor Horn went on to become one of the most prolific record producers in the business and produced countless hits.This was first video every played on MTV.
This is such a fun song! The clincher at the end, is that :You ARE the radio star! Most artists made the transition to videos as well as albums. A happy ending! I am really enjoying your reactions!
Michael Nesmith of the Monkees is sort of the inventor of a Music television channel. There were many promotional videos up to that point and he pushed to get a channel to air them.
I remember being on Liberty in Fort Lauderdale while in the Navy in 1981 when this was broadcast on MTV. I was in a place called the Candy Store and this first video was followed closely by the video for the song "Fish Heads." LOL.
This was the first video ever shown on MTV . And it refered to that since MTV just came out that everyone would be watching the artist in a music instead of listening to them on the radio. VInyl records , cassette tapes were still around . Of course we all know what happened to MTV these days , it disappeared !!! 🙄🙄🙄
For those of us who were coming of age when MTV started, this song (and many others) was a total game changer. What was interesting the first couple years, it was mainly British bands that had the concept videos, and the american bands were primarily live concert recordings (or lip synching while "playing" live)
The song also brings in the fact that singers had to look good in addition, to sounding good. Some would argue that being attractive and looking good on camera would become more important that singing and musical talent because of MTV .
There were many different types of music videos before this, there were even special jukeboxes for them. That's where I first heard Prince - Little Red Corvette. Michael Nesmith of The Monkees was essential in the modern development, but those jukeboxes were out in the Fifties.
This is actually by someone from the band YES. Right after this YES released the amazing album DRAMA. You should do the YES song TEMPUS FUGIT from that album.
So prophetic. MTV "killed" a lot of artists who really weren't "video/image" friendly - mainly 1970's rock & R&B bands. I remember hearing this song during my high school senior year in 1980
It's not the "first music ideo" but yes, MTV launched by playing this song and video because it was prophetic at the time (ironically MTV no longer lays music videos). This song came out in what? 1980-81? I remember hearing and loving it when it came out. it was the beginning of the music video era.
Video Killed the Radio star was the very first video to Launch on MTV - Aug 1, 1981... followed by #2 - Pat Benatar - "You Better Run", #3 - Rod Stewart "She won't dance with me", and #4 The Who - "You Better, you Bet" ..
This brightened life up a bit at the time, - it was different, fresh, unusual... Trevor Horn had the knack of producing big, fresh, unusual records. I think he was a bit embarrassed by the speccy image he had in the video so it's probably just as well the video wasn't included here.
This is the song that kicked off MTV. I remember seeing this, the first video and we were hooked. The channel used to be so fun when it only played music.
When you're guessing when something was made, know that there were no music videos, as such, in the 70's (with a few exceptions, like Xanadu). If they had a video recording at all, it was typically on stage. Actual music videos started in the 80's. Michael Jackson was instrumental in making them mainstream.
Music videos go back decades before this song Watch Pink Floyds 💕 See Emily Play (official video)1967 The Yard Birds - For Your Love (original promotional clip) The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever Pink Floyd even made Full length motion pictures. Pink Floyd's Live In Pompeii Pink Floyd's the Wall
I don't know if you can call the Buggles a one hit wonder. They released several albums and their songs "Plastic Age" and "Elstree" appeard in the top charts also. Trevor Horn is among the most successful producers of the 80s and 90s. Think of Seal, Frankie goes to Hollywood, Tatoo, just to name a few artists that he worked with.
This is cool. I was a (softmore?) in high school when I literally saw the daube of MTV with this song. Must have been around 1982?? And then they had dire straights money for nothing, that funny song from those guys in overalls … lol. What a time to be young with all that great music
Talk about foreshadowing. ON POINT. And the 70's and 80's kids witnessed it live. Dang. Brad is right. It IS historic. In a pop culture kind of way. I'm glad I was there. Even if I didn't realize what we were witnessing.
You have to think back to the days before television where the radio was the entertainment central at home and audiences would tune in to hear their favorite shows, then TV came along and all the big stars of radio quickly became forgotten. This was a well written and performed tune for its day. You should check out the live version they did as a reunion with several of the original members of the band. I think you'd dig it more, honestly.
At this time, if you wasn't played on TV or MTV, you wasn't played on the Radio. Videos determined the songs more than the music, sad to say in some ways, because it has become so Commercial now.
There were videos, as in music with song, going back a long way. The Beatles had some in the 1960s. It's hard to know when it started, since TV and movies came in a long time ago. I guess it was just a natural, slow progression. Radio really hasn't been killed, but it was a lot bigger. 1/11/22, 8:38 p.m.
There were music videos since the 60s, even short films featuring musicians back in the 30s, but only a few artists made them. MTV was the first big venue for music videos and forced artists and labels to use videos as a major part of their marketing.
Fun fact: Hans Zimmer made an appearance in this video. Also, the two lead members were also members of the band 'Yes'. You may want to check out some Yes, but most of their early songs are very long. You may have heard one of their greatest hits "Owner of a Lonely Heart" (1983). That one would be a good listen. Thanks for your videos!
