Age Of Plastic, The [Remastered] - Buggles > Reviews > Age of Plastic The Buggles

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Lacking inspiration
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	contains hard to find hit singles
Disadvantages:	of its time

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

If your old enough to remember Tomorrows World and its weekly glimpses into the future then this record could be considered a musical version of that great televisisual institution,song after song of futuristic promise and techno romance set against mysterious synthesisers and crashing drum machines,certainly a step up from beat boys in the jet age but not quite brand new world ,nevertheless it contained one of the finest pop songs ever written about a domestic appliance in "
Video Killed the Radio Star ",this was 1979 and with MTV just around the corner .

The album first appeared in January 1980 optimistic of maximising on the success of "Radio Star",the title track and opener "The Plastic Age" was released as a follow up ,not dissimilar in sound though less melodic and a tad more urgent ,
in retrospect the overall effect is one of charm rather than
innovation ,a futuristic manifesto for any kid who had a saturday job in Dixons or Curry,s and wore a skinny leather tie (burgundy being the main offender),and its almost touching to witness such a naieve and misgiuded vision of a time to come as seen through the eyes of a pair of boffins raised on post war optimism and black and white television ,the perfect example of this being the fine but failed single "Elstree",a worthy stab at restoring their 15 minutes which was rapidly ticking away .

The future-folk of top 20hit "Clean Clean ,maimtains the albums
electo pop credentials as do stand out non singles "Johnny on the Monorail"and "Island "all sparklingly meodic and almost ambient in their content ,but the extremely challenging notion of making an album fronm the bones of a hit single is all too apparent on "I Love You (Miss Robot)"and "Kid Dynamo"a definite case of ideas looking for songs and vice versa .

The story would have ended there ,somewhere between Top of the Pops and Tomorrows World ,an obscure piece of pop folly
thouroughly consigned to its time ,had it not been for the tenacious Trevor Horn determined to pursue his vision of new pop for a new generation ,this fledgling project certainly allowed him to grow in confidence and in a short space of time would have the pop world in his hands shaping an entirely new sound for the rest of the decade and beyond ,this was the dawning of the age of Plastic.

This wasnt any better or worse than the standard electronic pop of 1980 though its song structures and quick to date content put
me in mind of that recent Tomorrows World spoof "Take a Look"
all earnest and focussed but sounding post modern before it had chance to put on its jet pack ,bur as a document to the inception of electronic pop its unbeatableand you will enjoy it as a time piece at least twice and ive bought a lot of albums that never even got that far !.