| "Buck Rogers" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Feeder | ||||
| from the album Echo Park | ||||
| Released | January 8, 2001 | |||
| Format | CD, 7" single | |||
| Recorded | Great Lindford Manor Studios | |||
| Genre | Alternative rock, Grunge, Punk Rock | |||
| Length | 3 min 13 s | |||
| Label | Echo | |||
| Producer | Feeder and Gil Norton | |||
| Certification | Gold | |||
| Feeder singles chronology | ||||
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"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 was originally written by Grant for an American band called Radio Star, but the band's label and producer Gil Norton liked the song and convinced the band that it could be a hit for them.[1] It was also performed by the band at the Live 8 concert in Edinburgh.[2]
Contents |
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. The character then reunites with his friends to "drink cider from a lemon". While lyrically incisive and a scathing dissection of a meaningless coupling, Grant also said the song employs an element of humour upon closer scrutiny.[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]
The first ever live performance of "Buck Rogers" at Glastonbury in 2000 featured the lyrics "Driving wheel to stone" instead of "Looks like a Jaguar", the song has been played at every gig on tour, one-off gigs and festivals, until the May 2008 tour, which saw the song dropped from setlists (excluding TV appearances and a gig supporting Coldplay), for the first time in its history. Since then the song has made a comeback into the bands sets. It also appeared in the video game Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, the DVD & VHS versions of the 2003 Human Bodyboarding Teahupoo Challenge, as well as the high-impact Top Gun style opening sequence of 2001 film Behind Enemy Lines.
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 and a sports complex.[5]
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]
"Buck Rogers" entered the charts at #5 in the United Kingdom, it went on to spend a second week in the top 10 at #8.[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 American 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 did not want to be remembered for it, as he said it is "a throwaway pop song" and he is more of a dark songwriter. However, he said if it was not for the song, Feeder would not be here today.[4]
"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 songs list in November 2004.[15] In May 2009, listeners of XFM were invited to vote for their top 10 fave British singles of all-time; their top song would get 10 points, while their 10th song would get just the one with all the points added up to compile the order. "Buck Rogers" ended up at #86 in their all-time top 100 list with "Just a Day" at #81.[16]