Well, here it goes.
I believe that when an artist has to explain his or her work, the work has failed...and worse, listening to the said artist explain is often painful to say the least, so I will keep this brief.
Recently in Bologna, at a cafe, this song came on, and the person I was talking to did not know the reference of this song.
The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" was the FIRST video that was played on the fledgling MTV station 1 1/2 years later in 1981.
I remember being a young lad in Amarillo, Texas, having just moved from Louisville, Kentucky, and not have many friends, found my best friend in MTV (and Thundercats, the original), and I was blown away. Now, there were only so many videos in circulation...Haircut 100, Mott the Hoople, Def Leopard, Herbie Hancock, Billy Ocean, Duran Duran and a few others, but the Buggles would come up daily.
So, here we are, some thirty years later, and Youtube and other -Tubes have basically made the video of MTV and VH1 obsolete...in a very short time. MySpace was somewhere in between, but no one would ever think of being on MTV first now, yet, when it replaced the radio, you were DEAD if you did not get on MTV. Alan Hunter (cameo in David Bowie's "Fashion", Kurt Loder, Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, the impish Martha Quinn and J.J. Jackson were the VJ's who had the Caesarian thumbs up or the thumbs down to make or break a band's career.
But, then, like the laity of the Church, again moving from the priestly to the flock, videos went from the vaulted to the garage band variety of Youtube, which is, momentarily where we find ourselves.
So, the Video, in all of its glory, actually was its own undoing...hence the title of this blog...sorry to be so didactic, but I realized I must have failed in my subtlety as most people have missed this reference, so there it is, and here are the Buggles...
I believe that when an artist has to explain his or her work, the work has failed...and worse, listening to the said artist explain is often painful to say the least, so I will keep this brief.
Recently in Bologna, at a cafe, this song came on, and the person I was talking to did not know the reference of this song.
The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" was the FIRST video that was played on the fledgling MTV station 1 1/2 years later in 1981.
I remember being a young lad in Amarillo, Texas, having just moved from Louisville, Kentucky, and not have many friends, found my best friend in MTV (and Thundercats, the original), and I was blown away. Now, there were only so many videos in circulation...Haircut 100, Mott the Hoople, Def Leopard, Herbie Hancock, Billy Ocean, Duran Duran and a few others, but the Buggles would come up daily.
So, here we are, some thirty years later, and Youtube and other -Tubes have basically made the video of MTV and VH1 obsolete...in a very short time. MySpace was somewhere in between, but no one would ever think of being on MTV first now, yet, when it replaced the radio, you were DEAD if you did not get on MTV. Alan Hunter (cameo in David Bowie's "Fashion", Kurt Loder, Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, the impish Martha Quinn and J.J. Jackson were the VJ's who had the Caesarian thumbs up or the thumbs down to make or break a band's career.
But, then, like the laity of the Church, again moving from the priestly to the flock, videos went from the vaulted to the garage band variety of Youtube, which is, momentarily where we find ourselves.
So, the Video, in all of its glory, actually was its own undoing...hence the title of this blog...sorry to be so didactic, but I realized I must have failed in my subtlety as most people have missed this reference, so there it is, and here are the Buggles...
