"Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles

It was 45 years ago today that "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles was released. The song would go to no. 1 on the UK singles chart, as well as charts in Australia, Austria, Belgium, FRance, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. It only went to no. 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, but it would gain everlasting fame in the US as the first video ever played by MTV in 1981. The song was also recored by  Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club at around the same time and appears on their album English Garden. Regardless, it is The Buggles' version that remains famous.

"Video Killed the Radio Star" was written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes, and Bruce Woolley (essentially the original members of The Buggles. Trevor Horn took inspiration for the song from two sources. One was the short story "The Sound-Sweep" by J. G. Ballard, which was first published in Science Fantasy Volume 13 Number 39 (February 1960). Teh story concerns a mute boy who hoovers up stray sounds in a world devoid of real music. He befriends an opera singer who lives in an abandoned recording studio. 
Trevor Horn stated in a 2018 interview with The Guardian, "I'd read J.G. Ballard and had this vision of the future where record companies would have computers in the basement and manufacture artists." Another sources of inspiration was Kraftwerk's The Man-Machine. Speaking to the Red Bull Music Academy in 2011, he commented, "It was like you could see the future when you heard Kraftwerk, something new is coming, something different,. Different rhythm section, different mentality."

Sadly, with the advent of AI,it seems as if the future described in "The Sound-Sweep" and "Video Killed the Radio Show" could come true if we allow it to. AI currently has the ability to generate music, even vocals. In 1960 "The Sound-Sweep" probably sounded far fetched and in 1979 "Video Killed the Radio Star" may have simply been considered a catchy tune. Today they are visions of a frightening possible future.