“Youtube Killed The Video Star” - Armand Amos
Photo Credit: Artist EPK
Hailing from Detroit, Armand Amos’ new album, Youtube Killed the Video Star, is a sparkling, tongue-in-cheek, synth-laced trip through everything that’s good, bad, and beautifully absurd about living in the age of the algorithm. It’s Owl City meets Black Mirror, with the nostalgic bounce of The Cars and the club-friendly sheen of David Guetta, but filtered through Amos’ singular lens — one eye on the dance floor, the other on your WiFi signal strength.
Youtube Killed the Video Star isn’t just clever wordplay on the Buggles’ classic. It’s a conceptual reflection on our increasingly tech-woven lives. From dodgy Zoom calls to TikTok dopamine loops, this album doesn’t critique so much as observe — with equal parts humor, heart, and synths.
This is what happens when a seasoned music veteran lets the machines into the room, not just to perform, but to co-create. Armand isn’t just using AI — he’s playing with it, jamming with it, shaping it like clay. The result is both polished and unpredictable, like an 8-bit jazz band crashed your Spotify playlist.
Production-wise, the album bounces between lofi glitter pop, synthwave, power pop, and electro-indie, all tied together with that Amos knack for hooks that lodge themselves in your head before you realize what hit you.
You’ll hear glitchy, processed vocals layered with earnest harmonies, neon-drenched synth lines that feel like they crawled out of a 1980s arcade game, and smart percussive textures that keep everything moving — like a pixelated heart with a drum machine inside it.
Imagine if The Postal Service and Weezer got stuck inside a Google server and decided to make a breakup album about the internet. That’s the vibe.
Amos leans into everyday tech pain — the buffering blues, the dopamine drain, the ghosting, the endless scroll, the existential dread of a dropped connection. But there’s also an underlying sweetness — a yearning for connection, nostalgia, and a love for the awkward beauty of this modern life.
The title track, Youtube Killed the Video Star, is a meta-banger that could easily become the anthem for creatives stuck in the click-based economy — all hooks, heartache, and that signature Amos smirk.
This isn’t some cold, algorithmic project cooked up in a sterile lab. The album was recorded across two cities — gritty, soulful Detroit and the cool, conceptual underground of Berlin. That duality shows up in the vibe: warm meets weird, analog meets glitch.
Amos brings three decades of hands-on music-making to the table, but he’s not stuck in the past — he’s future-flexing, blending AI tools into his songwriting like they’re another instrument. Instead of fearing tech, he’s flirting with it, molding it into his own creative playground.
Just Armand, mostly — though he brings the ghost of bands past along for the ride. If you’ve heard his work with Count to 9, Ibiza Sunset, Orwell After Midnight, or Ambitus, you’ll recognize the DNA. But this is something new. Weirder. Smarter. Maybe even better.
Because Youtube Killed the Video Star is the kind of album that feels like it understands the very specific exhaustion of living right now — but instead of wallowing, it gives you a glittery, groovy, self-aware soundtrack to keep dancing anyway.
It’s human and digital. Nostalgic and next-gen. Witty and sincere. It’s weird pop for weird times.
“Youtube killed the video star” is available now on all major streaming platforms
Listen to Armand Amos and other similar artists on our Spotify Playlist ‘New Music Spotlight - Pop’
