Synopsis

A young girl listens to a radio as images of Trevor Horn singing through an old-fashioned microphone appear beside her. When the radio explodes, she is transported into a futuristic world of television screens, metallic costumes, laboratory imagery, and electronic machinery. Horn and Geoff Downes perform amid the visual chaos, while a woman in a transparent tube suggests the transformation of performers into technological products. Blending black-and-white nostalgia with stark sci-fi imagery, the video turns the song's concerns about changing media into a surreal pop fantasy.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was made in 1979, two years before MTV launched in the United States. It became the first music video broadcast by MTV at 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981.

• It was produced on a reported budget of $50,000, filmed in one day in South London, and edited over two days.

• Around 30 takes were needed for the shots involving the actress inside the transparent tube.

• The exploding television was intended as a dramatic visual statement, but it also attracted criticism from some early viewers who considered the image too violent.

• Hans Zimmer makes a brief appearance playing keyboards. At the time, he was working as a musician and arranger; decades later, he became one of the most prominent film composers in Hollywood.

• The female vocalists heard on the recording, Debi Doss and Linda Jardim, also appear in the video.

• Trevor Horn's oversized glasses were inspired by Elvis Costello's distinctive eyewear.

• The song's futuristic imagery was consistent with The Age of Plastic, the Buggles' debut album, which explored the cultural impact of technology and changing media.

• The video's historical importance is deliberately ironic: a song warning that video was replacing radio became the opening statement of the television music-video era.