The Age of Plastic track listing
"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" Sample

"Living in the Plastic Age" (on some releases simply listed as "The Plastic Age") is a synthpop song written, performed and produced by The Buggles. It was released as the second single from their debut album The Age of Plastic on 14 January 1980.

The B-side of the single, "Island" was written as a 'Thank You' to their record company, Island Records.

The lyrics of "The Plastic Age" comment on the coldness of the culture of plastic technology in the 1980s. The song is 5 minutes and 8 seconds long, and is played at a tempo of 140 beats per minute. The song begins with sounds of telephones ringing, and brief, garbled yells, before a piano, synthpop bass and drumbeat start the song. There are also vocals that build up each chorus of the song.

Trevor Horn remembers about the song:

"Listening back to the piano, bass and drums tracks was extraordinary. Paul Robinson played the drums on 'Video Killed The Radio Star' and Richard Burgess played the drums on 'Living In The Plastic Age', and I do remember that by the time we'd finished playing 'Living In The Plastic Age' Richard Burgess was pale! He was so worn out because we insisted that it sound perfect and that he played it perfectly. And the funny thing is that when you listen to it, it sounds like a drum machine. Both tracks sound like drum machines because at the time we were so manic about them having that spot-on perfect techno feel, not some sort of bullshit Elton John groovy album feel."

The 7" vinyl UK and Spanish version of the single included both the album version of the song on its A-side and the song "Island" on its B-side. In Spain, the song was released as "La Edad Del Plastico". The single's French and Netherlands 7" vinyl release included an edit version of the song on their A-side, but the song "Island" was still on the B-side of both those releases. The Canadian release of the 7" vinyl included the edit of the song on the A-side, but, instead of "Island", the song "Johnny on the Monorail" was included on the B-side.

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Wikipedia