So as Ruby has already said, we've now finished our thriller unit and therefore we're moving swiftly onto the next unit - Music Videos! To begin this unit our teacher has asked us to research an iconic music video from before we were born - I've chosen to look at the music video to 'Video killed the radio star' by The Buggles.




The Buggles are a British New wave group, they released 'Video killed the radio star' as their debut single on the 7th of September 1979. It was also one of the songs from the album 'The age of plastic'.
The song topped the music charts in several countries - this was most likely very much due to the music video helping to promote the band.
One reason it was an extremely iconic video is because it was the first music video ever to be shown on U.S MTV; it was shown at 12:01am on the 1st of August 1981 and was the first sign that MTV was going to be successful.

The song itself has a very straight forward narrative - that video killed the radio star - the song itself seems to explain a singers career cut short due to TV...it means that due to the advance in technology and the ability to create music videos and share them on means such as television, the radio will no longer be an important factor in creating stars and musicians. The lyrics also suggest that although radio has been such an important factor in so many peoples lives, any generations below them will not appreciate radio and will not understand how much of an impact it had on so many people. "I met your children..What did you tell them? Video killed the radio star. Video killed the radio star. Pictures came and broke your heart."
When interviewed, Trevor Horn (a member of the band) exclaimed that he felt 'an era was about to pass'.

The song became an instant hit around the world, and since then has been used in numerous films such as 'Take this Waltz' - 2011 and also it's one of the songs on the hit game 'Just Dance'. Not only this, it's been used in the video game 'Grand Theft Auto'. The obvious success of the song could be partly down to the fact that it had such an iconic music video, used in such an iconic way.

The video was directed by Russel Mulcahy, who before this video had mostly shot entirely performance videos, as this was the norm for music videos around this time. He worked with the band to create an abstract narrative for the video. He went on to create many other music videos for various artists including Elton John, Duran Duran and Billy Joel.

The video includes a variety of 'Goodwins 7' theories about stereotypical music videos - this is perhaps iconic due to the fact that this video was created near the beginning of music video history therefore helping to manufacture Goodwins 7. The most noticable theory that 'Video killed the radio star' sticks to is the numerous close ups of the main singer - often due to the demands of the record label. From the beginning of the video the main singer is usually in the clip - and the camera shot is usually a close up on him. There are other shots of the band but not frequently and they are usually only shown for a few seconds. 

The video also incorporates the theory that there is a link between lyrics and visuals, as this music video is loosely a narrative one. At the beginning when he is singing about tuning in on a radio to listen to music there is a small girl tuning a radio - therefore linking the visuals that we see and the lyrics that are being sung.
There are of course intertextual references throughout this song as the lyrics are all about popular culture, television and radio. 


I think this music video is an extremely interesting one, as it was so iconic in the fact that in it's time it was linked to exactly what was happening in the music world and in culture and technology in general. I also think it's so iconic as it was the first music video ever shown on MTV - and it's quite an ironic video to show to start off MTV's career due to the fact that it's not really glamourizing music videos, more like saying it's a shame that they are becoming so popular!