Artist · chart history
The Buggles
Band Wimbledon United Kingdom Active 1977–1981
The Buggles formed in 1977 in Wimbledon, United Kingdom and was active until 1981. The Buggles has 54 chart appearances on 51 radio countdowns from 16 stations on RockLists, spanning 1988–2023. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Video Killed The Radio Star”, which appears on 50 lists with a best position of #42. The station that charted The Buggles most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 14 appearances.
The Buggles were a London duo with a gift for gleaming, slightly eerie pop: Trevor Horn singing and playing bass, Geoff Downes surrounding him with keyboards, and Bruce Woolley on board in the early days before he moved on in 1979. Their debut single, "Video Killed the Radio Star", arrived in September 1979 as the opening shot from The Age of Plastic, a slice of synth pop with a hook as shiny as chrome, and it went to number one in Britain and in more than a dozen other countries besides.
The album followed in January 1980, all glossy synthesizers and sci-fi wistfulness, and "Living in the Plastic Age", "Clean, Clean" and "Elstree" kept the singles coming, if only as modest hits. Horn and Downes were busy behind the desk as well, producing the Jags' "Back of My Hand".
Then came an unlikely swerve: the pair joined the progressive rock band Yes and made Drama. A second Buggles album, Adventures in Modern Recording, followed, but after a tour to promote it the group was finished by 1981. That August, their big song got the last laugh anyway, when its video became the first one ever shown on MTV in the United States.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Buggles on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Video Killed The Radio Star | 50 | #42 | – | – | |
| 2 | Clean Clean | 1 | #135 | – | – | |
| 3 | Living in the Plastic Age | 2 | #1259 | – | – | |
| 4 | I Love You (Miss Robot) | 1 | #1775 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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