(Credits: Far Out / Billboard Charts / Immo Wegmann)
Sun 22 March 2026 1:30, UK
It’s easy to forget that there are some artists who only ever manage to break one side of the US or UK charts pond. It happened back in 1979, and it still happens now.Â
Social media makes us think that we are all largely living under one sky, where trends transcend, culture correlates, and music is the same. But there are legions of artists who would be met with screaming adoration in the UK while barely turning heads in America, and vice versa. It’s an odd phenomenon, but just the way it happens sometimes.
After all, you wouldn’t think that a song seemingly so integral to the fabric of music culture would effectively be immune from a certain extent of popularity in the US. But that was exactly the fate that played out with ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ by The Buggles: a song that significantly signalled a huge changing of the tides in every other part of the world, except the States.
In fairness, The Buggles were never exactly a storming cultural phenomenon. Their most famous song was actually their debut in 1979, and although it shot to the top of the charts in the UK and a slew of other countries, the appeal never quite caught on in the US, where it only ever reached number 40.
Maybe the Americans simply felt they were dodging a bullet, because as their unfortunate trajectory would have it, the band never came near to experiencing the same shot at success again and had broken up by 1981. With one massive song to ride on their legacy, it was the epitome of go big or go home – just without any of the follow-up plaudits.
What was the significance of the song after its release in 1979?
Of course, everyone knows that ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ took on its own lifeblood when it was used as the anchor point for MTV in both its birth and death. Being the very first and very last song to be played on the channel in its lifespan from 1981 to 2025, it was a tune that was very much a symbol of its era.
And with the rise and fall of MTV, it seems only right that the song will be remembered as a hallmark of that massive time in music, even if it didn’t necessarily have the universal chart success that translated to go with it. In that sense, America’s loss was everybody else’s gain.
While members of The Buggles went on to be part of the band Yes or created their own production back catalogue, it must be quite a satisfying thing to know that a piece of history you created is just sitting there in your back pocket, with the royalties inevitably continuing to roll, even after four-and-a-half decades.
The Buggles may have only existed for a short period of time, but their impact will never be forgotten. They were the shining beacon for an entire sonic revolution without even realising it, and although they never managed to break the United States, that almost paled in comparison to everything else they achieved in the space of just a few quick years.
