Adventures in Modern Recording

Adventures in Modern Recording
In a space with clouds, green grass of shading patterns, and a sky that fades from white to blue lies a plant with various fruits growing out of it and glasses reflecting a window, with the right shade broken and opening another dimension that's black-and-green and grid-like.
Studio album by
ReleasedNovember 1981 (1981-11)
StudioSarm East, London[1]
GenreProgressive electronic
Length34:29
Label
Producer
The Buggles chronology
The Age of Plastic
(1979)
Adventures in Modern Recording
(1981)
Singles from Adventures in Modern Recording
  1. "I Am a Camera"
    Released: 2 October 1981[2]
  2. "Adventures in Modern Recording"
    Released: 8 January 1982[3]
  3. "Lenny"
    Released: March 1982 (EU)[4]
  4. "On TV"
    Released: 9 April 1982 (UK)[5]
  5. "Beatnik"
    Released: 7 October 1982 (France)[6]

Adventures in Modern Recording is the second studio album by English new wave group the Buggles, released in November 1981 by Carrere Records. Although the Buggles began as a duo of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, the album ended up as mostly Horn's solo effort, as Downes left to join the English rock band Asia on the day recording was originally scheduled to begin. It contains nine tracks, including a version of a track from the Yes album Drama (1980), recorded during Horn and Downes' short initial tenure with the band. Originally named "Into the Lens", the Buggles rendition is titled "I Am a Camera". A stylistically and sonically varied progressive electronic album, Adventures in Modern Recording depicts Horn perfecting his skill as producer and was described by journalists as a document for how he would produce his later works. It was one of the earliest albums to use the Fairlight CMI, one of the first digital sampling synthesizers.

Upon its release, Adventures in Modern Recording faced mixed reviews from music critics and performed poorly commercially in the United Kingdom, failing to make it on the UK Albums Chart. The album did well in other territories, such as in North America and mainland Europe, reaching number 161 on the US Billboard 200. Additionally, retrospective reviews praised how comparable in quality its sound was to music released in later years.

Five singles were released from Adventures in Modern Recording: "I Am a Camera", the title track, "On TV", "Lenny", and "Beatnik". Except for "Beatnik", the singles were minor hits in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, "Lenny" being a top-20 hit in the latter country. Both "We Can Fly from Here" and "Riding a Tide" (appearing as demos on the 2010 reissue) were re-recorded by Yes (with Horn as producer and Downes on keyboards) for their twentieth studio album Fly from Here (2011).

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference albumnotes was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Music Week" (PDF). p. 30.
  3. ^ "Buggles singles".
  4. ^ "Buggles singles".
  5. ^ "Buggles singles".
  6. ^ "Buggles singles".