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RUN FOR COVER: THE BUGGLES VS. JOYCE MANOR: “VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR”

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The Buggles Joyce Manor

Run For Cover is a weekly music column comparing cover songs to the original version. Prepare for a major bending of rules as we hear musicians throw around genres, tempos, style, and intent. Whether they’re picking up another’s song out of respect or boredom, the results have impressed us.

“‎Video Killed The Radio Star” used to stand out in my head as a jumpy, dramatic song that was used in The Wedding Singer flawlessly. It had clean ’90s riffs, a semi-feminine male singer, and a band name I believed to be way too cool at the time: The Presidents of the United States of America.

It wasn’t until later that I found that, no, The Presidents of the United States of America did not write that song. That’s accrediting way too much to the government.

Instead, the song was born way back in 1979 — 20 years before The Wedding Singer even came out. It was first recorded by Bruce Woolley and The Camera Club, but two of the song’s three writers, Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, were from The Buggles and saw their version explode in pop culture. When the British new wave band released their debut album, The Age of Plastic, in 1979 with the hit, it shot up on radio charts. Just one year later, however, Horn and Downes went on to join prog rock legends Yes.

“Video Killed The Radio Star” had bubblegum backup singers getting each “oh-e-oh” to sound like the most flirtatious “tell me more,” and frontman Trevor Horn filtered his voice through the microphone to sound like a radio broadcast out to the people of the world, begging for their help. So of course it was the first music video shown on MTV in the United States, an eerie pre-cursor to the video mayhem that would unfold. As such, the one-hit wonder will never be removed from its place in history, and neither will The Buggles.

California pop punk group Joyce Manor have been catching eyes and ears with their third album, Never Hungover Again. Full of the quartet’s usual youthful antics, gleeful group choruses, and melodic 12-string riffs, it carries a lightness despite the powerful topics it address and the weight of a band growing up. How else are lines like “I wish you would’ve died in high school so you could be somebody’s idol” able to be sung with a smile?

The best part of band like Joyce Manor is their ability to capture their live energy on a record.

There’s no hushed production that rounds out the slide of an index finger between frets or a tenth re-take to make up for an unorganized ending. Their energy is what makes them infectious, and cutting that out of their full-lengths would be a mistake. The best place to hear this is on their sophomore LP, Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tiredand most specifically on their cover of The Buggles’ hit.

Joyce Manor’s take on “Video Killed The Radio Star” hits the chorus out of the park. With an original swap of chords and the title lyric being held out on different parts, they make it a brand new sing-a-long that comes at you full force. There’s no dainty flourishings or feminine sweetness. Instead, they keep the drums pounding one second ahead, letting it run faster than the vocals can keep up. In a little over two minutes, they play the kind of cover that makes you feel like you’re re-living it as a pre-teen, singing with your best friends while your voices crack carelessly.

Out of all the covers this song has gotten–LEN, Ben Folds Five, Erasure–Joyce Manor’s is a noteable standout. They change it for their own, keep the original’s best parts (except stripping the “oh-e-ohs”), and give us an even more energetic cover that makes us feel youthful again not just from the words, but the energy at its core. For that, we’re incredibly thankful.


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