22/09/2026
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On this day in 1979, The Buggles single “Video Killed The Radio Star” debuted on the UK Singles Chart at #57 (September 22)
The Buggles, who formed in 1977, first consisted of Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley.
They recorded the first demo of "Video Killed the Radio Star" on a Revox A77 tape recorder, one afternoon in 1978, in Downes' flat located above a monumental stonemason's in Wimbledon Park, London.
The song was built up from a chorus riff developed by Woolley, and is one of just three Buggles songs on which he assisted in writing, including"Clean, Clean".
A later, more detailed demo of the song, featuring Horn's then-girlfriend Tina Charles (yes, the “I Love To Love” 70s disco singer) on vocals, became the blueprint for the final record.
They then set about trying to interest labels in the song, but were turned down multiple times, including by Island Records.
Downes' then girlfriend worked for Island and was able to get the song listened to again by company executives, who eventually decided to sign Horn & Downes to the label, to go on to record and release the Buggles’ debut album “The Age of Plastic”,
Woolley left during recording to form his own band The Camera Club (with Thomas Dolby on keyboards), who did their own version of "Video Killed the Radio Star", as well as "Clean, Clean" for their album “English Garden”.
"Video Killed the Radio Star" was a massive global hit for the Buggles, hitting the #1 spot in sixteen international music charts, including the UK, Australia, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, and Japan.
It also peaked at #2 in Germany and New Zealand, #6 in South Africa and Canada, #12 in Belgium, #15 in Argentina, and #16 in the Netherlands, but only reached #40 in the US.
The video clip for "Video Killed the Radio Star", was done frugally and quickly.
It was written, directed and edited by Australian Russell Mulcahy, produced on a shoestring budget of $50,000, shot in just one day in South London, and was edited in two days.
Fun fact: a very young, future Academy Award-winning film composer Hans Zimmer is actually in the film clip playing keyboards.
The video is best known of course, for marking the debut of MTV, when the US channel started broadcasting at 12:01 AM on 1 August 1981.
Then on 27 February 2000 it became the one-millionth video to be aired on MTV, also opening MTV Classic in the UK and Ireland.
MTV co-founder Bob Pittman said the video "made an aspirational statement. We didn't expect to be competitive with radio, but it was certainly a sea-change kind of video."
Click on the link below to watch:
https://youtu.be/W8r-tXRLazs
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