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The Relevance of “Video Killed the Radio Star”

Sarah Fisher
3 min readJan 5, 2024

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Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

We’ve made it to 2024, so it’s time to look back at how far we’ve come with advancements in video technology. There is no better way to take a retrospective look at 2023 other than paying homage to the very first video to premiere MTV.

“Video Killed the Radio Star” is a song written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley in 1979. It was first recorded by Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club then later mixed for The Buggles’ album, “The Age of Plastic”. The video for “Video Killed the Radio Star” premiered on MTV at midnight on August 1, 1981.

A spiritual successor to the movie Singin’ in the Rain, which was about how the rise of what were known as “talking pictures” wrecked the careers of those talented silent film actors whose voices wouldn’t translate to film. The song relates to concerns about, and mixed attitudes toward 20th-century inventions and machines for the media arts.

“Video Killed the Radio star” is a nostalgic song which references the technological changes in the 1960s, the desire to remember the past, and the disappointment that children of the current generation would not appreciate the past.

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Sarah Fisher
Sarah Fisher

Written by Sarah Fisher

CEO of Blue Lotus Films — a video marketing + video production co that helps businesses create a memorable brand. Join my Udemy course: https://bit.ly/3IATN74

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