his later works. The album was one of the first commercially available albums to feature sounds from the Fairlight CMI, one of the first digital sampling synthesizers, and was one of Horn's earliest times working with sampling techniques he'd later incorporate into his works for Grace Jones, Art of Noise and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Release and promotion Initially, Carerre only planned three single releases of Adventures in Modern Recording tracks: "I Am a Camera" with a B-side of "Fade Away" in October 1981, the title track with "Blue Nylon" as its B-side in January 1982 and "On TV" with a longer version of "Blue Nylon" later that year. However, the album's success in continental Europe led to the label releasing both "Lenny" and "Beatnik" as singles in 1982. "On TV" and "Fade Away" garnered an exclusive flexidisc release via Trouser Press magazine, while the title track ran on the seventh issue of SFX Cassette Magazine, where guest critic Richard Skinner applauded Horn's singing and compared it to the works of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Critical reception Reviews of Adventures in Modern Recording upon release were mixed. Tim de Lisle of Smash Hits praised Horn's production and the first five tracks for having "enough strong tunes, witty ideas and funky noises", but generally found the album "much less than the sum of the parts, and Side Two deteriorates into tedious Yes-style pomposity". A reviewer from The Morning Call also made an unflattering Yes comparison towards some of the songs, like "Beatnik"; he wrote that while it has the "melancholic frenzy" of the duo's biggest hit "Video Killed The Radio Star", it also has the same Yes-style mixture of "pretentious, meaningless lyrics" and "soaring, grandiose harmonics". Opined Mike Gardner in Record Mirror, "Instead of an invigorating glimpse into their world of hi-sci techno wizardry, we get a weedy piece of whimsy." A Record Mirror review by Sunie Fletcher of the title track negatively compared it to the "yukky strain of studiedly bouncy, vacuous pop" of "Video Killed the Radio Star". Smash Hits published an unfavorable review of "I Am a Camera", written by Fred Dollar. However, it also ran Martin Fry's review for "On TV", which noted its ahead-of-the-curve production, particularly with its huge drum and clear recording quality. Retrospective reviews were far more enthusiastic, noting how Adventures in Modern Recordings sound was comparable in quality to music released in