The Buggles - History

History

A demo of the first song which they recorded, "Video Killed the Radio Star", was sent to Island Records in the summer of 1979, who signed them immediately. This demo featured vocals by Tina Charles, who also helped fund the project. Although the song was chiefly a Woolley composition, he left shortly before its release to form a new band, The Camera Club, who would release their own version of the song. Released in September 1979, "Video" was the 444th number one in the UK charts, spending one week at the top, as well as reaching number one on the singles charts of fifteen other countries

The video, directed by Russell Mulcahy, was to be the first video ever aired on MTV two years later, at midnight on 1 August 1981. Award-winning film composer Hans Zimmer makes a brief appearance in the video.

At the time of "Video"'s original release, the duo didn't have an album's worth of material to record, and so they wrote most of the other tracks for their 1980 debut album, The Age of Plastic, while travelling around Europe promoting their first song. Three subsequent singles were released from the album: "(Living in) The Plastic Age", "Clean, Clean", and "Elstree", which also charted in the UK. Debi Doss and Linda Jardim (now Linda Allen), the female voices on "Video Killed the Radio Star", contributed their vocals to other songs on the album.

During this period, the band performed live on BBC Radio 1: "The Plastic Age" on 2 July 1980 and "Clean Clean" on 4 October 1980.

Later in 1980, Horn and Downes began work on a second album, working in a studio next door to progressive rock band Yes, who had recently lost vocalist Jon Anderson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman. Both members of The Buggles, and Horn in particular, had been long-standing fans of Yes. The Buggles offered a song to Yes, We Can Fly from Here, but at the suggestion of Brian Lane, manager of both bands, Yes' bassist Chris Squire invited them to actually replace Anderson and Wakeman as members of Yes.

Horn and Downes accepted the offer, and joined Squire, Steve Howe, and Alan White to record the Drama album (1980, UK No. 2, U.S. No. 18). A track called "Into the Lens" was released in its full eight-and-a-half-minute form, on a limited-edition one-sided 12-inch single. Essentially it was an unfinished Buggles song originally entitled "I Am a Camera", re-worked and completed by Yes - the original would later appear on the completed Buggles album, Adventures in Modern Recording in 1981. Another incomplete Buggles song, "We Can Fly From Here", did not appear on Drama, but was performed on the Drama tour, and can be heard on Yes' The Word Is Live CD set (2005), along with another unreleased Yes track from that era entitled "Go Through This". Although made for Adventures in Modern Recording, "We Can Fly From Here" would not be released until said album's 2010 re-release by ZTT Records, on which the original Buggles version can be heard in two parts. A year later in 2011, the song would play a crucial and titular role in Yes' Fly From Here album, which would also mark the second time that both Horn and Downes would work with the band.

Overall, the "absorption" of The Buggles by Yes was well received by fans both on record (the UK chart position for Drama is testament to that), and on stage. Trevor Horn was the first to admit that he did not have Jon Anderson's vocal range or style, and many fans missed this, but most were still keen to give the new incarnation Yes a chance. The critics and some fans, however, were far less forgiving, especially in the United Kingdom. Yes officially disbanded, although temporarily, in early 1981, shortly after the Drama tour came to an end.

After Yes broke up, Downes and Horn resumed work on a second Buggles album, the aforementioned Adventures in Modern Recording. As originally intended, I Am a Camera was brought to completion as a Buggles song under its original title. However, Downes left the group during the recording of the album to help found Asia with former Yes bandmate Steve Howe, citing musical differences, and Horn completed the album with several new songwriting partners and musicians. Adventures in Modern Recording was released in late 1981, and the five singles released from it (I Am a Camera, Adventures in Modern Recording, On TV, Lenny and Beatnik) failed to live up to the legacy of the first album and "Video Killed the Radio Star". It was at this point that Horn officially brought the Buggles to an end.