Buck Rogers (song)

"Buck Rogers" is a song performed by the British rock band Feeder. It was written by frontman and lead guitarist Grant Nicholas for the band's breakthrough album Echo Park.

The song entered the UK charts at #5, and also peaked at #1 on the 5FM radio chart in South Africa. It is seen by many fans of British rock music, as one of the singles that is often identified with the genre in 2001, and as a result is today still played on UK radio.^[1]

It is also considered by many Kerrang! readers and XFM listeners as one of the best single releases of all time. It was also performed by the band at the Live 8 concert in Edinburgh.^[2]

1 Background
2 Music video
3 Reception
- 3.1 Chart performance
- 3.2 All-time list appearances
4 Formats
5 References

[edit] Background

The song was written by frontman Grant Nicholas for their third album Echo Park. During the year the band played festivals in the UK which previewed the material they were working on at the time, and would then play a series of small venues near the end of the year. Amongst the new songs they played, was their then forthcoming new single "Buck Rogers".^[3]

The song is about a relationship ending, in which the character in the song meets a person named "Buck Rogers" who owns a "brand new car" that "looks like a Jaguar". His partner leaves him for the "Buck Rogers" character, which leads him to say "but I don't want to talk about it anymore", before looking on a positive side saying that he thinks he's going to make it through if he buys "a house in Devon", and starts "all over again" with her. Grant also said the song employs an element of humour.^[3]

The track's name came about when Grant was playing on a keyboard and invented a piece of music he said was "futuristic", and asked his engineer Matt Sime what to call the piece. They both thought "Buck Rogers" would sound appropriate for a working title which then stuck.^[3] The recorded song was originally for an American band named 'Radio Star', but was convinced by producer Gil Norton not to part with the song as he believed the band could have a hit with it.^[4]

From its very first live performance in 2000, the song has been played at every gig on tour, one-off gigs and festivals, until a gig played at Northumbria University on 21 May 2008, seen the song dropped from a setlist (excluding TV appearances), for the first time in its history.

[edit] Music video

The video starts with the band walking out from a spaceship, which is disguised as an elephant. During the first chorus after they walk out they are holding various fast food items, while looking around the velodome looking complex, wondering where they have landed. After the chorus, shots of the band standing still in mid-air positions are shown, and then the band mostly performing the song in fast motion with occasional freeze-frame shots added in.

Before the last chorus, the band make their way back inside the elephant spaceship and look surprised as the inside is bigger than it looks on the outside. Here the band perform the last verse playing on instruments already inside the elephant, while the camera pans round the band before the screen turns black as the song ends at the same time.

The video was shot in Berlin, Germany in an underground car park.^[5]

[edit] Reception

In the UK the single was released on January 8, 2001. The song was played on Radio 1 and appeared on their A-list, meaning the single would be in high rotation.^[3]

On the day of single release, the band performed an in-store at the now closed London branch of Tower Records.^[6] Due to the single selling strongly during the course of the week, the band were invited onto The Pepsi Chart Show on Channel 5, and BBC One's Top of the Pops. The band were forced to cancel two signings as a result of this.^[3]

[edit] Chart performance

"Buck Rogers" entered the official UK Singles Chart at #5, it went on to spend a second week in the top 10 at #8 with a total of six weeks in the top 75.^[7]

In South Africa, the track was very well received by radio DJ's by reaching #1 on the 5FM top 40.^[8] Later in the year the band were invited by the radio station as a headline act for their 26th birthday celebrations concert, due to the success the band had with them at the time.^[8]

After the top 5 success of the single, Grant was asked in an April 2001 edition of a Feederweb fanzine if he felt under pressure to deliver another radio-friendly song, in reply he said:-^[9]

"Not really, I think with the radio thing you have to be really careful; at the end of the day Feeder's not a typical daytime radio band, but what we've done is that we've proved that a guitar band - a British guitar band, and a band that doesn't have the profile of U2 or someone can still get into the top ten. It is possible!, it just seems to be that it's always the big Amercian bands who sort of dominate the top ten; a Limp Bizkit or whatever, but saying that I think the whole Travis and Coldplay thing has been really good as sort of a stepping stone, and also I think people are getting fed up of just seeing Westlife or Steps on the TV. I think people are finding rock, and real bands again - I think that the market is currently so bombarded with pop stuff that we're just quite refreshing. Rock never went away, but it never really got the exposure. Hopefully it'll get "Seven Days in the Sun" away..."

Grant said in a 2005 Q magazine interview that he didn't want to be remembered for it, as he said it's "a throwaway pop song" and he's more of a dark songwriter. However, he said if it wasn't for the song, Feeder wouldn't be here today.^[4]

[edit] All-time list appearances

"Buck Rogers" has made numerous appearances in the all-time lists conducted by Kerrang! magazine, and the radio station XFM. The track charted at #37 in a December 2002 readers poll conducted by Kerrang!.^[10] This was later followed up by four successive appearances in the annual XFM X-List, with a #25 peak in 2004.^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14] Kerrang!'s writers have also approved of the track as one of the 666 Songs You Must Own, when it appeared at #5 in the rock section in November 2004.^[15]