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As the answer to the trivia question "What was the first act ever played on MTV?," the Buggles assured their place in pop music history. Vocalist and bassist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoff Downes formed the electro-pop duo in England in 1979 after meeting two years prior as session musicians. Their first single, "Video Killed the Radio Star," hit number one in the U.K. in late 1979; when MTV went on the air in 1981, the prophetically-titled record's video was the first ever broadcast on the fledgling cable network.
Although the Buggles enjoyed three more British hits — "The Plastic Age," "Clean Clean" and "Elstree" — both Horn and Downes were more interested in production than performing; in 1980, they helmed Yes' Drama, and later joined the group as replacements for Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson. After Yes' break-up, Downes signed on with Asia, while Horn formed ZTT Records and produced hits for the likes of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and ABC.
Trevor Horn (b. 15 July 1949, Durham, England) and Geoff Downes (b. August 1952, Stockport, Cheshire, England; keyboards) first met as session musicians in 1977, and, after appearing in a backing group for Tina Charles, they pooled their resources under the name Buggles. Their debut single 'Video Killed The Radio Star', co-written with Bruce Wooley of the Camera Club, became Island Records' first number 1 single at the end of 1979 and its innovative video was later used to launch the MTV music channel in the USA.
And now we meet in an abandoned studio.
While this spoof simply adds to the fuel started by the Buggles in 1981, one fact remains true, "Video Killed the Radio Star" was somehow, eerily prophetic. On August 1, 1981, Music Television (MTV) began operation out of a small, temporary studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. This fledgling cable broadcast station was the first of its kind, with the mission of playing music videos around the clock. Unfortunately, the producers of MTV were at a loss; at the time, music videos were nearly unheard of, and certainly they had no important role in the formation of a music artist. So why would anyone create a music video??
In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone to far
Thus, there were few videos available to use on that debut day. To the joy of MTV, a disbanded British duo known as the Buggles has actually created a video to promote "Video Killed the Radio Star" and so it was that the Buggles were the first to air on MTV.
Of course, at the time, no one had any idea what to expect from this new medium. MTV was a company in its infancy run by a bunch of Yahoos running around with musicians (just check out one of the their MTV behind the scenes specials). It took years for even mainstream artists to recognize that Video truly had killed the radio star. Those unwilling (or unable) to create videos to support their careers were often doomed to extinction.
Pictures came and broke your heart.
And granted, while MTV ushered in a new era of music entertainment, the MTV generation is not without its suffering either! This new visual stimulation allowed for songs and artists such as David Lee Roth's, "California Girls" and N'Sync to dominate the industry using their aestetics to make headway.
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