![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/buggles.jpg\")
The late 1970s were an odd time for popular music. Today’s listeners know that punk made its mark in the middle ’70s, but it’s worth noting that from a commercial standpoint \u2013 especially in the U.S. \u2013 punk rock was a comparatively insignificant phenomenon. Instead, its effect was felt mostly in the ways in which it wold influence the music that followed in its wake.<\/p>\n
Much of that music, loosely defined, would be described as new wave. Though a term so broad that it’s in danger of being rendered meaningless, new wave music in most of its forms shared a few core values. Though there were plenty of exceptions, it was comparatively stripped down, especially when considered in light of the progressive rock of the ’70s. New wave also often featured determined use of state-of-the-art synthesizers, then entering a new phase.<\/p>\n
Just a decade earlier, synthesizers were massive machines with endless rows of knobs, switches and patch cords, and their keyboards were capable of playing only one note at a time. That all changed thanks to developments by American innovators Moog and Arp, British firms like Electronic Music Studios and \u2013 most significantly as the decade wound toward its conclusion \u2013 Japanese concerns like Korg and Roland. As the digital age dawned, features like polyphony (the ability for a synthesizer to play several notes at once), sequencing and arpeggiation opened up new frontiers for musicians. And MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) technology provided a level of control heretofore unimagined.<\/p>\n
While the progressive rock scene (and to a lesser extent the world of jazz fusion) had been home to most of the exploratory synthesizer work of the early and middle ’70s, it was a subgroup of new wave artists who would seem to have the most success with the new breed of machines. The term synth-pop<\/em> is sometimes applied to these practitioners, due both to the artists’ building of their core aesthetic around synthesizer textures and to their focusing on relatively accessible melodic material.<\/p>\n And by the time that MTV launched in August 1981, there were enough synth-pop acts in existence that the nascent music video outlet could build its programming on a steady diet of that sort of music. Great Britain supplied many of them, including A Flock of Seagulls, Depeche Mode, Eurhythmics, Human League and Ultravox. And in fact the first music video played on MTV was a kind of clarion call for the new wave, The Buggles’ \u201cVideo Killed the Radio Star.\u201d Though the song wasn’t composed to herald the dawn of MTV \u2013 in fact it was written a few years earlier \u2013 it served that purpose.<\/p>\n \u201cVideo Killed the Radio Star\u201d would become a smash hit single in more than a dozen countries. And the group (duo, really) that created it would release its debut album, The Age of Plastic<\/i>, a few months later, in January 1980.<\/p>\n Furthering the prog vibe, The Age of Plastic<\/i> is a concept album, though it’s safe to assume that most listeners who picked up a copy of the LP didn’t consider it as such. Instead they likely enjoyed the science fiction-meets-synthpop feel of its eight songs. The musically ambitious \u201cLiving in the Plastic Age\u201d has more in common with the sweeping, cinematic productions of 10cc and the complex arrangements of Yes (more on them forthwith) than the moody, stripped down synthesizer-based music of, say, Depeche Mode. And it’s that progressive rock feel that may have helped \u201cLiving in the Plastic Age\u201d make it (however briefly) onto AOR playlists of 1980.<\/p>\n The shimmering pop of \u201cVideo Killed the Radio Star\u201d suggests a futuristic glam-rock version of Elton John crossed with ELO at its most fussy, but with an irresistible beat and catchy chorus vocals that recalls ABBA. Downes’ multilayered keyboard work adds filigree to a straightforward pop song, but the arrangement is actually far more complex than it first seems. Though the sound and texture of the Buggles’ music may have been new wave, there’s an underlying progressive aesthetic at work.<\/p>\n The remainder of The Age of Plastic<\/i> isn’t as memorable as its two opening cuts, but \u201cKid Dynamo\u201d has a sweeping feel that suggests what Boomtown Rats’ Bob Geldof might have sounded like had he been backed by the cast of The Rocky Horror Show<\/i>.<\/p>\n Trevor Horn’s bass work on The Age of Plastic<\/i> rarely gets its due; he plays with a funk-disco feel, rendering the album suitable for dancing. Even now-dated textures like Vocoder (used extensively throughout the record) feel fresh and new in this context. \u201cClean Clean\u201d is something of a mindless dance floor ditty, but it’s fun for what it is. \u201cElstree\u201d suffers slightly for its strong resemblance to \u201cVideo Killed the Radio Star,\u201d but considered on its own merits, it’s a catchy song with all the qualities that made \u201cVideo\u201d a success.<\/p>\n \u201cAstroboy (And the Proles on Parade)\u201d employs stacks and stacks of synthesizers and programmed drum beats, but Downes’ silky grand piano work roots the tune in the non-electronic world. Save for Horn’s distinctive vocals, the song could have fit nicely on a Roxy Music album of the period. \u201cJohnny on the Monorail\u201d has a vaguely ’50s doo-wop feel, updated for the new wave set. Like \u201cElstree,\u201d it sounds like a conscious attempt to score another hit. If so, it would fail in that respect, though it’s an effective set closer.<\/p>\n Horn and Downes’ progressive proclivities were never far from the surface. So \u2013 at least in retrospect \u2013 it shouldn’t come as a major shock that nearly as soon as \u201cVideo Killed the Radio Star\u201d broke, they ended up replacing Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman in progressive group Yes. They’d only last for one album, making the (then-maligned but later reassessed) album Drama<\/i>. But their subsequent work demonstrated that for all their new wave bona fides, The Buggles were more of an art-rock project than a new wave outfit.<\/p>\n Horn went on to production (most notably Art of Noise), and Downes surfaced in another act that bridged a gap \u2013 this time between prog and arena rock \u2013 Asia. And many many years later, after Downes found himself once again a member of Yes, Horn came on board as producer, bringing along some superb Buggles leftover material. Those tracks formed the backbone of Yes’ 2011 return to form, Fly From Here<\/i>.<\/p>\n In total, the Buggles were quite short-lived: one album, a break and a largely unheard followup with no Downes involvement, 1981’s Adventures in Modern Recording<\/i>. But listening to their debut 40 years after its release, The Age of Plastic<\/i> fits snugly into the creative timelines of both Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn, and reinforces the idea that they always had as much to do with continuing the, er, progress<\/i> of progressive music, albeit working briefly in the pop-friendly context of new wave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The late 1970s were an odd time for popular music. Today’s listeners know that punk made its mark in the middle ’70s, but it’s worth noting that from a commercial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,51,56,65],"tags":[438,2413],"class_list":["post-18085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-wave","category-pop","category-prog","category-review","tag-buggles","tag-yes","cat-50-id","cat-51-id","cat-56-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18085"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26784,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18085\/revisions\/26784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/buggles_back.jpg\")
Keyboardist Geoff Downes and producer-vocalist Trevor Horn had written \u201cVideo Killed the Radio Star\u201d and one other song, \u201cClean Clean,\u201d with Bruce Wooley. The remainder of the record featured compositions by Horn and Downes. And although the Buggles would be lumped in with the new wave scene, their influences betrayed a mindset that placed them closer to progressive rock: Kraftwerk, Electric Light Orchestra and art-pop group 10cc.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/buggles_bw.jpg\")
<\/p>\n