#14
Reviewed by Peter Zachos
January 10 1980
The Buggles
The Age of Plastic
Genre: New Wave/Pop
Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5/4.25 on Post-Zachos listen.
Peter’s Rating: 4 out of 5
Allen’s Highlights:
Video Killed the Radio Star
Peter’s Highlights:
Video Killed the Radio Star
Elstree
I Love You Miss Robot
By Peter Zachos
What 1980 brought in terms of a tone and aesthetic was the overwhelming sense of, shall we call it, “futurist optimism.” Everything is science fiction, space-age, computers, lasers, robots, video games, and it’s all gradually emerging everywhere you looked with it this fantastic sense that anything is possible. The counterculture warring between rock’s overbloated reach and punk’s savage response is essentially cast aside, opening up space for new kinds of genre-fusing.
The Age Of Plastic, along with probably Devo’s “Freedom Of Choice”, represents in my mind the real introduction to proper New Wave, and in it you hear punk’s rootings blended with disco, pop, ballad, musical theater, rock and synth. In prog rock, nothing was off the table. In New Wave, nothing is off the table **so long as there are tight, enjoyable riffs and melodies.** Horn and Downes hit all the berries I just mentioned, musically, culturally, futuristically. And yet, most people who know only the global hit “Video Killed The Radio Star” find the album wanting. This is because The Age Of Plastic is not a pop album; not really. It’s more of a rock opera. Or a New-Wave opera, if you will, and if one approaches it in that context, it really makes a lot more sense.
The Age Of Plastic does something pretty amazing: it’s both prescient and nostalgic. Its songs touch on subjects and themes that were all the rage of the futurist mindset at the time (and not a few have come to pass in their own way, and come to pass again reshuffled: you can sing along… “MP3 killed the compact disc star”, or “Internet killed the media stars”, and so on.) But lyrically, it bears a strain of melancholy, as though the album in 1980 was sent back from 2050, and it was longing for things of the future-past. This lyrical dichotomy, coupled with Horn’s production and the duo’s outstanding arrangement and layering, elevates this record from just a collection of pop songs into something….deeper. More meaningful. Listening to it somehow simultaneously puts you exactly in time (in the early 80’s) and completely out of time, in an ageless timespace.
Jeez, did I just write that? Take that, punk rock!
The GOOD:
• “Video” is just a stunner, and there’s a reason it remains a timeless classic like other megahits of the decade. Bruce Woolley was still in the group when they were writing it, and he’d recorded it with his Camera Club group. It’s telling to go hear Camera Club’s version; it features other aspects of the arrangement more prominently, and its missing precisely the thing that makes New Wave what it is. Horn & Downes apparently went to Wardour Street to get female backup singers for the chorus and the “Oww-wah-ohhhww”, which was a masterstroke. Another great thing about “Video” is how Horn was pushing Padham and Gary Langan, two enormous talents, into new standards of mixing and arrangement, and it’s unsurprising that Horn later emerged as the award-winning producer that he became.
• Also in “Video,” there’s an outtro on the album version, which is left off the single and video version. Downes creates probably the most beautiful section of the entire album, an instrumental synth & piano arrangement; it’s like the song is already nostalgic for the song itself. It’s a nifty little time-travel trick and so fitting with the theme of the album.
• The tight production and balanced mixing continues throughout the entire record. No instrument is superfluous and no arpeggio, accompaniment, or counter line is out of place. It’s all really nicely composed.
• “Elstree” has a fantastic chorus. “Kid Dynamo”, let’s be honest, is “Mr. Roboto” three years before “Mr. Roboto.” “Astroboy” has this really nice Godley & Creme-like refrain; it’s moments like those that build on the world and the colors of the whole album’s experience.
• Horn is a great bassist, and Downes is a prolific keyboardist; he doesn’t just noodle, he orchestrates.
• The album is short, cut and mastered for LP. (That’s another thing; I sort of miss “sides.” It was part of the album-listening experience, and tracks were programmed with the sides in mind. Due to some technical limitations of record playback, you’d often hear a softer or less dynamic song close out side 1, and it was a nice setup to the slam of the open of side 2. That applies perfectly here: closeout of side 1 with “I Love You (Miss Robot)”, and opening side 2 with “Clean Clean.”)
The BAD:
• Horn just isn’t that great a singer, something he himself admitted to and contended with in one world tour with the band Yes as its lead vocalist. Sure, with high-pass Moog filters on his mic, his voice is perfect for “Video”, but in many of the album’s more operatic tracks, he lacks both the grit of post-punk leads and the vocal schooling of finer pop vocalists. It does drag down the weight of the content at times, though this isn’t always a bad thing….. There’s a tendency for tracks like Kid Dynamo and Clean Clean to come across with some jovial irony (something else that would become a staple of much of the early 80’s new wave) and the tenor of his voice works there. So it’s not awful. But it’s not great either.
• Also, “Clean Clean” was the other track chosen for a single release. I never liked it; more than any other on the record, it bears the stamp of its era. I’m sure it was catchy then, but I find the chorus just annoying now.
• What else…. I guess it’s also bad that the album did predict the future, but it got the elements right and the attitude wrong. We’ve got the sex robots and the Silicon Valley heroes, but it’s all shit, and Elstree really did shut down. It’s like the only things it got right were the bad things. I’m reaching here, but so what? I just got done listening to The Age Of Plastic in isolation during a pandemic. I’m kind of wishing it were 1980 right now.
BIGGEST SURPRISE:
“I Love You (Miss Robot)”. Just a lowly album track, just to fill out side 1, but what a delightful track. Without bluster or desperation, it just ticks along, like the drum side stick that keeps the beat. Probably the song that demands the least attention from you, and yet somehow that’s a plus. The vocal is also very subdued, which helps hide Horn’s lack of singing skill. It’s now my favorite track and I wasn’t expecting that.
COOL OR UNCOOL:
Mostly uncool. It’s nerd music for nerds. Plus, there’s good synth music that’s not for dancing, and there’s good pop music that’s not for dancing, and there’s good dance music that’s not pop….. but The Age Of Plastic manages to be synth pop music that you can’t really dance to. Sure, I know, you can wail around and dance to anything, but it doesn’t GROOVE, if you know what I mean.
Having said that, it’s heavy on the vocoder and the vocoder is and will always be cool.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5KKpKvLOS4tCV7cSOwIOWF?si=PosXY-O5TteWOBpbA1R7Nw
No comments:
Post a Comment