Buggles
The Age Of Plastic
(Island Records, 1980)

Every time I play this disc I expect the worst. I keep thinking it's going to suddenly prove to be crap, like so many other discs that seemed to be good at the time but over the course of passing years have lost their shine and relevance. Every time I play this disc, that doesn't happen.

It seems impossible to talk about the Buggles without mentioning "Video Killed The Radio Star" was the first video played on MTV (kids, believe it or not, MTV used to play VIDEOS 24 hours a day...). [Hardly trivia by the way - trivia would be what was the SECOND video played on MTV? "My Girlfriend" by The Cucumbers - that should have been a sign of the future...] That, plus the eventual paths that connected the band to Yes, Asia and Frankie Goes To Hollywood have perhaps colored the respect and note this album deserves. It's a pretty great album on a number of levels.

On a purely technical level, this is one well recorded and mixed album. Unlike other synth bands of the time, The Buggles actually have a good mix of guitar, bass and drums with the synths and drum machines. Lots of backing vocals and harmonies to boot. Listening now to digital copies, it's hard not to notice the quality of the recording and mixing. It's a textbook example of each instrument having its own space in the frequency spectrum augmented by careful mixing and placement in the stereo field. It shouldn't be too surprising given Horn's future involvement with some of the best produced and most innovative recordings of the mid 80s (Malcolm McLaren's DUCK ROCK, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Yes 90125, ABC's LEXICON OF LOVE, the first two Art Of Noise albums, Grace Jone's SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM). But good production doesn't a great album make - though it makes a bad album less painful to listen to.

THE AGE OF PLASTIC is full of catchy tunes - top notch pop songs though a melancholy sadness that permeates everything, surprising given that most of them are at least partially in the vein of "synth pop". Topically there is a retro-futurism a la Dan Dare in the songs: people falling in love with robots ("I Love You (Miss Robot)"), the coming of video ("Video Killed the Radio Star"), faded movie stars ("Elstree") and Tom Tomorrow-esque characters ("Astroboy", "Johnny on the Monorail"). But through the cheesy sci-fi, there is a sense of loss - emotional loss, loss of human warmth, loss of humanity.

"Video Killed The Radio Star" is still as catchy as it was 25 years ago - my barometer being my seven year old who asked me to replay the song three times in the car the other day, singing along by the second time. The tasteful blend of the still novel synthesizer with regular instruments gives the album warmth and keeps it from sounding as sterile and dated as its contemporaries (i.e. Tubeway Army, Human League, Heaven 17, John Foxx).

Following this recording, Horn and Downes joined Yes and with them produced the highly underrated DRAMA, an album that infused the duo's sharp, clean recording and pop sensibilities with the virtuoso instrumentalists of Yes (and managed to notch back the bloat that was creeping into their music i.e. TORMATO.) After leaving Yes a year later, Horn released the Buggles swan song, ADVENTURES IN RECORDING, which features Downes on a few tracks . Also a good record, but neither of these latter efforts approach the perfect little world created on this unassuming disc.

Posted 1 January 2006.