WS - Deconstruction 1 - Video Killed the Radio Star - The Buggles

Artist - Buggles

Song Title - Video Killed The Radio Star

Year - 1981

Genre - New Wave, Synthpop

Director - Russell Mulcahy

Video Killed The Radio Star, by The Buggles was the first video to be shown on MTV when it first began broadcastic on August 1st, 1981. For this reason it seems an appropriate video to start with when looking into the Music Video industry.

The song belongs to the genres of New Wave and Synthpop. New Wave is a sub-genre of rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970's.  Synthpop is a genre of popular music in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. The Synthesizer can be heard throughout the song, and is seen during the video, a sure sign that this video belongs in that genre.

The lyrics of the song can be quite closely linked to the video and the visuals. For a lot of the video, the lead singer is on screen and the video uses lip-synching. However, there are also parts of the video, such as near the beginning where there is a little girl listening to a radio, and later on where the lead singer is been shown through a TV, that link in with what the lyrics are saying. Lip-synching is a big part of this music video however, keeping a strong link between the lyrcs and the visuals.
In many ways the same could be said for the relationship between the Music and the Visuals. At different stages throughout the video, a member of the band playing a Synthesizer can be seen, as well as objects such as radios and television, all potential sources of music. The singer is also using a microphone and singing into it, adding to the feel of the performance based style of the music video.

There are, included in the video, a number of close-up shots on Trevor Horn, the lead vocalist. There are also shots of Geoff Downes playing instruments, although fewer than the number of shots of Horn. This shows that more emphasis is put on the vocals (in this video at least) than on the band members playing the instruments. 


This particular music video is very much performance based. Whilst there is aspects of Narrative to it, such as the girl near the beginning and the female who appears in the tube during the middle of the song/video, the majority of the video is based around the band performing the song, making it a perfomance based video.

Below is the Music Video for "Video Killed The Radio Star"