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The Buggles
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
The Buggles was an English new wave band, formed in London in 1977. The best-known line-up was a duo: the singer and bassist Trevor Horn and the keyboard player Geoff Downes. Bruce Woolley took part briefly until 1979. Horn was then working as a producer of jingles and punk groups; Downes had played in a band and studied at the conservatoire in Leeds. They met in 1976 at an audition for Tina Charles's backing band. The name was a joke on the Beatles. Horn later said that in the punk era he deliberately wanted an ugly name.
Music and breakthrough
In 1977 they recorded demos in a small room above a stonemason's in Wimbledon, including Video Killed the Radio Star. Island Records under Chris Blackwell heard the demo and offered them a contract. In September 1979 the single appeared, and reached number one in the United Kingdom and fifteen other countries. The debut album The Age of Plastic came out in January 1980, followed by singles such as Living in the Plastic Age, Clean, Clean and Elstree. The second album, Adventures in Modern Recording, followed in 1981.
Influence
Horn and Downes moved to the prog rock group Yes shortly after the first album. The Buggles ceased to exist in 1981. Their music sounds like technological pop: clear synthesizers, tight production and lyrics about the new media. On 1 August 1981 the video of Video Killed the Radio Star was the first music video on the American channel MTV. The song has since been seen as a harbinger of video clip culture, and the band later influenced acts such as Daft Punk, Justice and Phoenix.
Listening
Discography
Studio albums
- 1980The Age of Plastic
- 1981Adventures in Modern Recording
In School of Rock
The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.
- Mixtape 7: The 1980sNL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- MTV and the music video Technology
The first video was Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles.