Everyone knows the story: at the stroke of midnight on August 1, 1981, the new cable station Music Television (MTV) first aired, playing a steady stream of heretofore little-seen "music videos" that redefined pop music for the rest of the decade. Their first, of course, was The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star": a prescient choice, though not even a single from the '80s (it topped the U.K. charts and dented the U.S. Top 40 in 1979!) - and, as a new collection from Cherry Red underlines, The Buggles didn't record it first!

Indeed, that honor goes to one of the song's writers, Bruce Woolley, who left the Buggles project early on to form his own group, The Camera Club. Their rockier arrangement, apparently how it was intended to sound, is part of The Definitive Anthology 1978-1981, a forthcoming 3CD set that will take listeners through The Camera Club's complete studio output, with more than three dozen unreleased tracks, to boot! The set is packaged in a clamshell box featuring a 28-page booklet offering rare and unseen photos and track-by-track annotations from three of the band's members: Woolley, guitarist Dave Birch and a then-rising keyboardist named Thomas Dolby.

Woolley had worked with musicians Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes since 1977, crafting demos for an as-yet undetermined project. ("We had this idea that at some future point there'd be a record label that didn't really have any artists - just a computer in the basement and some mad Vincent Price-like figure making the records," Horn later said, effectively describing a major arc of his career and perception.) Among them was "Video Killed the Radio Star," which netted the trio - by then jokingly going as The Buggles - a deal with Island Records. But Woolley felt dissatisfied with the direction his collaborators were traveling, and left the project midway through. With him, he took two songs he'd written with the pair: "Video" and "Clean, Clean." He then assembled a band of his own, recruiting Birch on guitar, Dolby on keyboards, Matthew Seligman on bass and Rod Johnson on drums. The Camera Club, as Woolley named them, would perform his songs with a bit more of an edge - less new wave, more power pop, compared by at least one reviewer to 10cc - on the 1979 album English Garden, which was praised by critics (and, to some, sporting a superior version of "Video Killed").

But Bruce Woolley and The Camera Club would not enjoy the same success or longevity as The Buggles. A second album was recorded and rejected by CBS Records, who nonetheless meted out some of its material for singles under solely Woolley's name in 1980 and 1981. The band would break up shortly thereafter, with Dolby achieving great success as a soloist and sideman throughout the decade; Woolley didn't do so bad himself, co-writing every song on Grace Jones' albums Slave to the Rhythm (1985) and Inside Story (1986) - the former of which was produced and additionally co-written by Trevor Horn. Woolley also founded the Radio Science Orchestra, an electronic music ensemble, in the '90s and participated in live performances with The Buggles in the '00s.

The Camera Club's Definitive Anthology 1978-1981 includes an expanded edition of English Garden, featuring single-only material, U.S. versions and outtakes from the original album sessions. (It also includes a single by studio assemblage The Killers - not to be confused with the '00s American hitmakers of the same name - performing album cut "No Surrender" and B-side "Killer on the Dancefloor.") The set's second disc offers an assembly of the unreleased second Camera Club album, Polaroid - Snapshots of Sound, along with demos and outtakes from the same sessions. The collection closes with a disc presenting two unreleased live sets from the band: one at the High Wycombe Town Hall in England in 1979, and another from nearly a year later at the Long Island club My Father's Place.

The package is available November 15 and can be preordered below. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.)

The Definitive Anthology 1978-1981 (Cherry Red CRCD3BOX188 (U.K.), 2024) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

* previously unreleased

Disc 1: English Garden (Expanded Edition)

1. English Garden
2. Video Killed the Radio Star
3. Dancing with the Sporting Boys
4. Johnny
5. No Surrender
6. Flying Man
7. You Got Class
8. WW9
9. Clean Clean
10. Get Away William
11. Goodbye to Yesterday
12. Goodbye to Yesterday (Reprise)
13. You're the Circus (I'm the Clown)
14. News (Eden Studios) *
15. No Surrender - The Killers
16. Killer on the Dancefloor - The Killers
17. Clean Clean (U.S. Version)
18. Video Killed the Radio Star (U.S. Version)
19. Goodbye to Yesterday (U.S. Version)
20. Bobby Bad - Bruce Woolley
21. You're The Circus (I'm the Clown) - Bruce Woolley
22. You Got Class (Soundsuite Studios) - Bruce Woolley *
23. Going to the City - Bruce Woolley *
24. Needletime - Bruce Woolley *
25. Sugar Daddy (8-Track Demo) - Bruce Woolley *

Tracks 1-13 released as English Garden - Epic EPC 83983 (U.K.), 1979
Tracks 15-16 released as Satril U.K. single SAT 129, 1978
Tracks 17-19 released on Bruce Woolley & The Camera Club - Columbia JC 36301 (U.S.), 1979
Tracks 20-21 released as Epic U.K. single S EPC 7116, 1979

Disc 2: Polaroid - Snapshots of Sound

1. I Set Fire to You *
2. Ghost Train - Bruce Woolley
3. Killer on the Dancefloor (Olympic Studios) *
4. Trouble Is...
5. Only Babies Can Fly
6. All Real Americans *
7. Morning Shadows *
8. Ghost Train (Olympic Studios) *
9. All At Once
10. Warning Shadows *
11. Blue Blue Victoria - Bruce Woolley
12. 1000 MPH - Bruce Woolley
13. The Black Girls Understand - Bruce Woolley *
14. Ghost Train (Club Mix) - Bruce Woolley
15. How Do You Say Goodbye? *
16. Too Late for Tears (Demo Version) *
17. Blue Blue Victoria (Demo Version) - Bruce Woolley *
18. You Got Class (Revox Demo) - Bruce Woolley *
19. News (Olympic Studios) *
20. House of Wax
21. Radio Pictures (Bye Bye Love) *

Tracks 2 and 14 released as CBS U.K. single A1234, 1981
Track 4 released on CBS U.K. single S CBS 8314, 1979
Track 5 released on Bruce Woolley & The Camera Club EP - Columbia 1-11264 (U.S.), 1980
Tracks 9 and 20 released as CBS U.K. single S CBS 9020, 1980
Tracks 11-12 released as CBS U.K. single S CBS 9453, 1981

Disc 3: In Concert *

1. You're the Circus (I'm the Clown)
2. You Got Class
3. Too Late for Tears
4. Clean Clean
5. The Problem
6. Goodbye to Yesterday
7. Johnny
8. Video Killed the Radio Star
9. No Surrender
10. Dancing with the Sporting Boys
11. News
12. Flying Man
13. You're the Circus (I'm the Clown)
14. News
15. You Got Class
16. Trouble Is...
17. Johnny
18. Get Away William
19. Dancing with the Sporting Boys
20. I Set Fire to You
21. No Surrender
22. English Garden
23. Video Killed the Radio Star

Tracks 1-12 recorded live at High Wycombe Town Hall, Buckinghamshire, England - 5/6/1979
Tracks 13-23 recorded live at My Father's Place, Roslyn, NY - 3/25/1980