Music Monday (Adventures in Modern Recording)

The whole point of covering The Age of Plastic by The Buggles in my last post, was to introduce what happened next, and also how it reverberated more than 30 years later.


In 1980, Horn and Downes began work on a second album, working in a studio next door to Yes, who had recently lost vocalist Jon Anderson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman. Both members of The Buggles, and Horn in particular, had been long-standing fans of Yes. The Buggles offered a song to Yes, We Can Fly from Here, but at the suggestion of Brian Lane, manager of both bands, Yes' bassist Chris Squire invited them to actually replace Anderson and Wakeman as members of Yes. Horn and Downes accepted the offer, and joined Squire, Steve Howe, and Alan White to record the Drama album which I covered here and here.

Yes officially disbanded, although temporarily, in early 1981, shortly after the Drama tour came to an end. After Yes broke up, Downes and Horn resumed work on a second Buggles album, the aforementioned Adventures in Modern Recording.

However, Downes left the group before the recording of the album to help found another band with former Yes bandmate Steve Howe. You may have heard of them. Yep, this is also where Asia came from. It's interesting how many different things got splintered off from one situation. By the way the other band members were Carl Palmer from ELP and John Wetton from King Crimson. Yeah.

Horn then had to complete the album with several new musicians. Adventures in Modern Recording was released in late 1981, and the five singles released from it failed to live up to the legacy of the first album and "Video Killed the Radio Star". It was at this point that Horn officially brought the Buggles to an end.

********************************************************************************

The Music

1) Adventures in Modern Recording - Appropriate as it took a lot to get this album done.

********************************************************************************

2) Beatnik

********************************************************************************

3) Vermillion Sands

********************************************************************************

4) I Am a Camera - Un-Yessified version of Into The Lens.

********************************************************************************

5) On TV

********************************************************************************

6) Inner City

********************************************************************************

7) Lenny

********************************************************************************

8) Rainbow Warrior

********************************************************************************

9) Adventures in Modern Recording (reprise)

********************************************************************************

Now, about that song that they originally brought to Yes...