Age of Plastic [Import]

age of plastic [import]

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Limited edition Japanese pressing of the 1980 album. The fun, quirky single 'Video Killed the Radio Star' garnered The Buggles international attention in 1980, but it was just one of The Age of Plastic's fascinating, futuristic visions. From the title track's opening strains, Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes transform your living room into a world of Jetson-like proportions. It's a world, though, where technology is seen for what it is full of both promise and frightening implications. On 'I Love You Miss Robot', a metaphorical love affair with a robot explores modern man's relationship to, and dependence on, technology. 'Kid Dynamo's' spirited tempo, biting lyrics, and menacing vocal track questions the loss of imagination plaguing the mass media age. For the most part, The Age of Plastic is a fun record that doesn't need to be taken too seriously, though a subtle sense of loss is woven throughout. 8 total tracks. Island. 2005.

Age of Plastic,Buggles,Rock/Pop

Age of Plastic [Import]

Average customer rating:

Irresistible!
Soundtrack of the times
Holds Up Well -- Much More Than You Think
the 5 bucks special returns!
Trevor Horn's mush-free mixing

Age of Plastic (+3 Bonus Tracks)
The Buggles
Manufacturer: Umvd Import
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

New Wave | New Wave & Post-Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Dance Pop | Compilations | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Rock | Imports | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

Vienna
Hunting High and Low
Rage in Eden
Electric Dreams - Soundtrack
Pop Muzik

ASIN: B0000257O9
Release Date: 1999-07-19

Tracks:

The Plastic Age
Video Killed The Radio Star
Kid Dynamo
I Love You (Miss Robot)
Clean, Clean
Elstree
Astroboy (And The Proles On Parade)
Johnny On The Monorail
Island
Technopop
Johnny On The Monorail

Amazon.com

Part of the early-1980s great explosion of pop music (witness: Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson) to have any real impact, an accident of fate-titled "Video Killed the Radio Star" inextricably links the Buggles to the rise of MTV. Unfortunate for the band's future, the two best Buggles tracks (the other, "Clean Clean") were cowritten with Bruce Woolley, who simultaneously released them (with less success) with his new band, The Camera Club. The artificial sound of these comparatively primitive keyboards and drum machines, once embraced by nihilist popsters on the edge of punk, has since mutated (Gary Numan, Eno, Woodentops, etc.) into the all-but-voiceless electronic music of the late '90s. Regardless, the Buggles manifested a handful of pop gems in science fiction clothing. And why not? We still read Bradbury and Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. Oddly, what once seemed such smart and jaded music now plays as the voice of joyous optimism. Go figure. --Grant Alden

Album Description

Remastered reissue of 1980 new wave classic includes three bonus tracks, 'Island', 'Technopop' & 'Johnny On The Monorail (A Very Different Version)'.

Album Details

Digitally Remastered Version of the Influential Album that Heralded the Recognition of the Music Video Age. "Video Killed the Radio Star" was the First Clip Played at the Birth of MTV in 1981 and Has Remained It's Defacto Theme Song. The Duo of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes Created Electronic Music that Flowed Well with the New Wave They were a Part Of. They were Destined for Greater Things Though, as Both Later Joined Yes, Downes Later Joined Asia and Horn Went on to Co-found the Ztt Record Label (Home of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Art of Noise, 808state and Propaganda, Among Others). Also features Three Bonus Tracks: 'island', 'technopop', and 'johnny on the Monorail (A Very Different Version)'.

Customer Reviews:

Irresistible!.......2007-05-05

I was pleasantly surprised by this offering from producer-extrodinaire Trevor Horn. Previously, I knew Horn only for his work with the cheesy 80s dance act Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I got this album in a mass purchase of New Wave music from Amazon. This album contains the immortal "Video Killed the Radio Star". There is so much more, however. Tracks such as "The Plastic Age", "Kid Dynamo", and my favorite song, "I Love You Miss Robot", are fresh catchy quirky-synth-pop with intelligent lyrics reflecting technology and the modern world.

Much has been said about the album's production and I must say that I was impressed. The sound is unbelievably crisp and modern. It is not overproduced but is very shiny (in a good way!).

For Horn's work with this album and his work with the pop group ABC later on, I can truthfully say that he ranks among my favorite producers...up there with Brian Eno, William Orbit, Phil Spector, etc.

This is a great album filled with irresistible synthesizer pop from that era's golden age. As many reviewers have said, this album (made at the very dawn of the 1980s) predicts what would happen to much of the mainstream in music during the 1980s.

Oh, and the cover is way cool.

Soundtrack of the times.......2005-11-13

This album was a definitive soundtrack of the times, that being 1980 and thereabouts, a forgotten time period for many. It seemed the world was poised between disco and New Wave, a gap that Blondie so nicely covered with "Heart of Glass." It's all about the synth-pop here. Early 80's sci-fi lyrics, running commentary on media and its place in society, and dark optimism aside, this disc is pop, pure and simple. As an acquaintance at the time put it, "It's music even your mother can enjoy." Uh, yeah...especially I Love You Miss Robot, Elstree, and Astroboy.

Its timeless beauty lies mainly in Trevor Horn's production; anyone owning this album in its heyday knew Horn would go on to huge success, which of course he did.

If you like the songs, you must check out Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club's "English Garden." He co-wrote "Video" and "Clean Clean" and the sound is much more of a rock band--and a young Thomas Dolby plays the keyboards to boot!

Holds Up Well -- Much More Than You Think.......2005-09-16

There is a lot going on in this album than the one-off novelty of "Video" suggests -- this is a complex sci-fi ode to a discomforting, sometimes optimistic, occasionally joyful future. It's rendered in an engaging, deft mix of "new-wave" synth sounds, sterile guitar and drums, and washes of sound that manage to capture the tone and feel of this near-future dystopia quite effectively.

To me, it's a bit like The Cars' Panorama or Todd Rundgren's The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect, both recorded at the same time, in that what is created here is an insular world, a bit cold and distant, providing a glimpse at the future that, to my ears today, ironically sounds quaint, inviting, and comforting. To be honest, as the headlines today blare continuing bad news, I'm going to keep going back to this future as it's often preferable to our present....

the 5 bucks special returns!.......2005-06-25

"video killed..." sounds like the 15 year old tracy merop singing in the song

Trevor Horn's mush-free mixing.......2005-06-20

I'll let others enthuse about the music in this album; enthusiasm I wholeheartedly endorse. Instead, I'll enthuse about the quality of its recording and sound engineering.

It's amazing how Trevor Horn creates complex mixes without turning them into mush. Check out the bass guitar in "Video Killed the Radio Star", somehow sounding clean and muscular through the already dense sound. And the chunky, woody arpeggios played by Geoff Downes at the end of "Clean Clean". The power of the three-note riff in "Island". And other aural delights throughout the album too numerous to mention.

To hear what I hear, you have to play the CD through audio equipment that's strong on rythmic drive and is able to grip the lower frequencies. This is not an album for low powered valve amplifiers. But play it through something like Naim amplification, for example, and every time you hear the kick drum at the opening of "Video", you'll find yourself sitting up and paying attention.

Average customer rating:

Plasticated and oddly undated

The Age of Plastic
The Buggles
Manufacturer: Japanese Import
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

New Wave | New Wave & Post-Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General | Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Dance Pop | Compilations | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Rock | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00005R0VU
Release Date: 2002-03-26

Tracks:

Living in the Plastic Age
Video Killed the Radio Star
Kid Dynamo
I Love You (Miss Robot)
Clean, Clean
Elstree
Astroboy (And the Proles on Parade)
Johnny on the Monorail
Island [*]
Technopop [*]
Johnny on the Monorail [A Very Different Version][*]

Album Description

Japanese reissue of 1980 album, packaged in a miniature LP sleeve. Includes the bonus tracks 'Island', 'Technopop' & 'Johnny On The Monorail (A Very Different Version)'.

Album Details

Japanese Limited Edition in an LP-STYLE Slipcase. Also features Three Bonus Tracks: 'island', 'technopop', and 'johnny on the Monorail (A Very Different Version)'

Customer Reviews:

Plasticated and oddly undated.......2004-11-29

I have a special place in my heart for this quirky melding of synth-pop and sci-fi. To me, it ranks with the Alan Parsons Project's "I Robot" and Kraftwerk's "Man Machine" as the perfect mesh of human and android musicality. Given that the novelty status of The Buggles will forever be secured by "Video Killed the Radio Star," that may come as a hard pill to digest. But there was much more to "Living In The Plastic Age" than that wonderful single.

There was a fair amount of imagination involved with the making of this album. Horn and Downes obviously, in retrospect, had a lot more ambitions than making cotton candy new wave. If you listen to the lyrics, you'll find fear of the Reagen/Thatcher power mongering of the time ("Clean Clean"), wariness of technology isolating people from humanity ("I Love You Miss Robot"), and the title track's cynical look into a future of replaceable parts and governmental control.

Unfortunately, the album did suffer from the fact that neither Horn nor Downes was much of a singer. While that lends a certain charm to a song like "Elstree," it does suck the power out of "Kid Dynamo," which really would have been more convincing if the vocal had more muscle. (In fact, I remember the shock of many of my friends when it was announced that Horn and Downes had been recruited for Yes...how the heck could the singer on this record possibly stand in Jon Anderson's space?) Regardless of the performance weaknesses, "Living In The Plastic Age" sounds better after the 20 plus years since its release than, say, A Flock Of Seagulls, and, as a document of Men Vs Technology, still stands strong.

PS: I also recommend Bruce Wooley and The Camera Club's "English Garden" CD in addition to "Living in The Plastic Age." He was a founding member of the Buggles and cowrote some of their best songs, but broke off before they hit. His versions of "Video Killed the Radio Star" and "Clean Clean" are played as straight ahead power pop and can be found on his album.

Music:

Music

music