Buggles - Adventures In Modern Recording

About "Adventures In Modern Recording"

Adventures in Modern Recording is the second and most recent studio album by English new wave group the Buggles, released on 11 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).