IN: The Buggles were an English new wave band formed in London, England in 1977 by singer and bassist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoffrey Downes. They are best known for their 1979 debut single "Video Killed the Radio Star" that topped the UK Singles Chart and reached number one in 15 other countries. The duo released their first album, The Age of Plastic, in January 1980 with "Video Killed the Radio Star" as its lead single. Soon after the album's release, Horn and Downes joined the progressive rock band

Downes claimed the group's name derived as a pun on the rock band the Beatles, saying: "It was originally called the Bugs ... studio insects--imaginary creatures who lived in recording studios creating havoc. Then somebody said as a joke that the Bugs would never be as big as The Beatles. So we changed it to the Buggles." Horn later spoke of its name: "I know the name's awful, but at the time it was the era of the great punk thing. I'd got fed up of producing people who were generally idiots but called themselves all sorts of clever names like the Unwanted, the Unwashed, the Unheard ... when it came to choosing our name I thought I'd pick the most disgusting name possible. In retrospect I have frequently regretted calling myself Buggles, but in those days I never really thought much about packaging or selling myself, all that really concerned me was the record."  Horn began his career producing jingles and punk rock groups. Downes was a keyboardist in She's French and graduated from Leeds College of Music in 1975, after which he moved to London for keyboard work. The two first met in 1976 at auditions for Tina Charles' backing band and worked with her producer, Biddu, whose backing tracks had an influence on their early work as the Buggles. Horn met musician Bruce Woolley while playing the bass guitar in the house band at the Hammersmith Odeon. Both expressed an interest in Kraftwerk and Daniel Miller, leading them to read Crash by J.G. Ballard. Said Horn, ""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 ... One of the groups this computer would make would be the Buggles, which was obviously a corruption of the Beatles, who would just be this inconsequential bunch of people with a hit song that the computer had written ... and would never be seen."  In 1977, Horn, Downes and Woolley got together and began recording a selection of demos in a small room above a stonemason shop in Wimbledon, south west London, including "Video Killed the Radio Star", "Clean, Clean" and "On TV". Though unsure on what they wished to do with them, Downes remembered that "we knew even then ... there was some distant goal that had to be reached", and proceeded to re-record the songs at a 16-track recording studio in north London. Initial searches for the right record label to record and release an album failed, but Horn, having begun a relationship with Jill Sinclair, a co-founder of Sarm East Studios, managed to secure plans for a potential deal. However, the demo of "Video Killed the Radio Star" caught the attention of producer Chris Blackwell of Island Records and, on the day Horn and Downes were due to sign with Sarm East, Blackwell offered them a more lucrative deal, which they accepted. Downes claimed Island rejected them three times before a final deal was agreed upon.

what happened in 1977?

OUT: In 1977, Horn, Downes and Woolley got together and began recording a selection of demos


IN: The Maronites are a Christian group who adhere to the Syriac Maronite Church with the largest population around Mount Lebanon in Lebanon. The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church in full communion with the Pope and the Catholic Church, with self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, one of more than a dozen individual churches in full communion with the Holy See. They derive their name from the Syriac Christian saint Maron, whose followers migrated to the area of Mount Lebanon from their previous location of residence around the area of Antioch, establishing the nucleus of the Syriac Maronite Church. Some Maronites argue that they are of Mardaite ancestry, but most historians reject such claims.

Phoenicianism is an identity on the part of Lebanese Christians that has developed into an integrated ideology led by key thinkers, but there are a few who have stood out more than others: Charles Corm, Michel Chiha, and Said Aql in their promotion of Phoenicianism. In post civil-war Lebanon since the Taif agreement, politically Phoenicianism is restricted to a small group.  Among leaders of the movement Etienne Saqr, Said Akl, Charles Malik, Camille Chamoun, and Bachir Gemayel have been notable names, some going as far as voicing anti-Arab views. In his book the Israeli writer Mordechai Nisan, who at times met with some of them during the war, quoted Said Akl, a famous Lebanese poet and philosopher, as saying;  Akl believes in emphasizing the Phoenician legacy of the Lebanese people and has promoted the use of the Lebanese dialect written in a modified Latin alphabet, rather than the Arabic one, although both alphabets have descended from the Phoenician alphabet.  In opposition to such views, Arabism was affirmed at the March 1936 Congress of the Coast and Four Districts, when the Muslim leadership at the conference made the declaration that Lebanon was an Arab country, indistinguishable from its Arab neighbors. In the April 1936 Beirut municipal elections, Christian and Muslim politicians were divided along Phoenician and Arab lines in the matter of whether the Lebanese coast should be claimed by Syria or given to Lebanon, increasing the already mounting tensions between the two communities. Phoenicianism is still disputed by many Arabist scholars who have on occasion tried to convince its adherents to abandon their claims as false, and to embrace and accept the Arab identity instead. This conflict of ideas of identity is believed to be one of the pivotal disputes between the Muslim and Christian populations of Lebanon and what mainly divides the country to the detriment of national unity.  In general it appears that Muslims focus more on the Arab identity of the Lebanese history and culture whereas the older, long-standing Christian communities, especially the Maronites focus on their history, and struggles as an ethnoreligious group in an Arab world, while also reaffirming the Lebanese identity, and refraining from Arab characterization as it would deny them their striving achievement of having fended off the Arabs and Turks physically, culturally, and spiritually since their conception. The Maronite perseverance lead to their existence even today.

Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?

OUT:
refraining from Arab characterization as it would deny them their striving achievement of having fended off the Arabs and Turks physically, culturally, and spiritually since their conception.