Video Killed the Radio Star: Be Kind, Rewind

Presidents of The United States Of America : Video Killed The Radio Star
Film: The Wedding Singer

Be Kind, Rewind

If you were a kid in the ‘90s, you knew two things for sure: you had to rewind the VHS before returning it to Blockbuster, and music—always changing, always rearranging—was life.

By the time The Wedding Singer hit theaters in 1998, “Video Killed the Radio Star” had already lived two full lives—first as a song by The Buggles in 1979, then reborn as a cover by The Presidents of the United States of America nearly two decades later.

That’s the thing about music (and movies, and technology, and just about everything). It never really dies—it just gets a new lead singer, remixed, re-released, and repackaged for the next generation.

The ‘90s and early 2000s were an entire era of reinvention—burning CDs from Napster, downloading ringtones that made our phones sound like futuristic jukeboxes, discovering chat rooms, Google, eBay and PayPal like online voyagers exploring a virtual new world. Oh and let us not forget flipping through late-night infomercials for Magic Bullets, compilation albums…

And of course The Total Gym.

Couldn’t get enough of it.

Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley had me fully convinced that fitness had peaked.

Was I a child? Yes.

Did I believe I needed one? Absolutely.

Do I, as a full-grown adult, now own a Total Gym and still believe Chuck Norris was onto something?

A big yes.

Video Didn’t Kill the Radio Star—It Just Gave Them a New Gig

If The Wedding Singer taught me anything, it’s that nostalgia never really goes out of style.

By the early 2000s, vinyl and cassette had given way to burned CDs, MP3 players, and early iPods.

Technology was changing fast, but music? Music was just adapting.

And that’s exactly what “Video Killed the Radio Star” was doing in 1998: not replacing the past, but keeping it going.

The Soundtrack to a Shifting Era

By the late ‘90s, music wasn’t just on the radio—it was everywhere. On MTV, in the background of every movie, and on CD players and Discmans so bulky they could double as self-defense weapons.

• If you were making a mix CD, it was a science. The opening track had to grab attention, the middle had to tell a story, and the last song had to feel like it was filled with bits of your soul.
• If you were watching music videos, you had to catch them live—or you sat there with a VHS tape, trying to record your favorite song while avoiding commercials.
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There was no rewind button for real life. No instant access, no playlists on demand.

You either caught the moment or you didn’t.

Press Play, Repeat

Hearing this version of ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’—so upbeat, so fun—feels like evidence. Evidence that music transcends time, connecting generations through the magic of lyric and sound.

Nothing golden ever really fades. It just rewinds, fast-forwards, and plays again in a different format.

A song, a movie, a mixtape, a VHS copy of The Wedding Singer gathering dust on a shelf—they’re never really too far out of reach.

They just wait for the right moment to resurface, like an old favorite playing on the radio when you least expect it.

Because nostalgia isn’t about what’s been replaced.

It’s about what we keep pressing play on—again and again.