Mediocrity killed the reality star

The Quinq is still absorbing the signifance of this. Today sees the 30th anniversary of the seminal track, Video Killed The Radio Star, by the unfortunately named Buggles, then the vehicle for the talented Trevor Horn. Today, as yesterday and the day before, we’re seeing the first publicity for the release of the album Robbie Williams is describing as a turning point in his career, Reality Killed The Video Star, produced by Trevor Horn. Now, back in 1979, few of us saw the relevance or the prescience of the Buggles track. If we liked it, we did so against our will. Many of us have never liked Robbie Williams, who has never had his own style, while borrowing a bit of everyone else’s (mind you, much the same can be said of Madonna, but nobody does). So, some of us will see this new album title as being about Robbie Williams and some will see it as being about Trevor Horn. The Quinq knows where he stands. But the thing is, The Quinq remembers exactly what he was doing 30 years ago the first time he heard Video Killed The Radio Star playing on the radio. Driving up the M1 motorway in a blue Austin Allegro to a rented back-to-back terraced house off Otley Road in Bradford, where he was due to start co-habiting with his then partner for the first time. After months of waiting and preparing, he had finally torn her away from her parents’ smothering clutches and was happily moving up the motorway with her and their seven month-old daughter towards what he thought was going to be the first day of the rest of his life. How optimistic. How wrong. Robbie Williams wouldn’t have known anything about it. He was five years old at the time, fifteen years younger than The Quinq. And his nemesis. In my mind and in my car/We can't rewind, we've gone too far.

markgriffiths@idealconsulting.co.uk