Living in the Plastic Age

"Living in the Plastic Age" or Plastic Age is a New Wave song by The Buggles recorded in January 1980 and only available on the album The Age of Plastic. Although it is the first track on The Age of Plastic, it was recorded after Video Killed the Radio Star. The song reached #16 in the UK charts. The song alludes to plastic surgery and the stress of modern culture. The Buggles also created an unusual, futuristic and illusion-like music video for this song which came out in the same year. The video was only rarely shown on music channels but sometimes VH1 Classic occasionally airs the video.

[edit] Music video

The music video for "Living in the Plastic Age" employed bright colours, harsh source lighting, and provocative motiffs (women in body paint portraying inanimate objects).

The Music Video for the song takes place sometime in the future, with 3 young boys dressed as demons, wearing coloured goggles (as part of a futuristic appearance) entering out of a dark cave. One of them points to a building in a small city-scape which appears to be a model. In a mechanical room, Trevor Horn awakes from a moving bed wearing yellow rubber gloves and a grey suit. Horn opens a door and sees a woman in white make-up, almost semi-nude, who throws a mysterious spark (the spark reappears throughout the video). Horn then staggers through a stylised "neighbourhood," wearing a silver suit. Geoff Downes is playing a keyboard, dressed as a beggar in an overcoat and hat, holding out his money for spare change. There are also two girls in bright, plastic rain gear and coloured glasses, sitting on a railing reaching for Horn, who grabs at his chest. He then appears in a small box-like room with a ceiling only about 4 feet (1.2 m) tall. An unseen figure drags him through the door.

In one of the video's more memorable scenes, light comes up in a stark white room where Downes (here wearing black leather clothing and pink rubber gloves) is playing two "keyboards": two older girls painted in black body paint and black face, their backs arched and imprinted with piano keys. Horn is then seen in an English "phone booth," another girl made up in red and white body paint.

A boy in plastic rags runs away (ostensibly from the mock "city"); he is pursued and apprehended by "heart police" (a reference in the song) on flying kick scooters, wearing black leotards. Horn is seen squatting on a slowly-revolving yellow flying saucer. Downes appears in the white room again, wearing a white tuxedo and playing a white piano. Horn reappears in similar garb, being grabbed by the dancing "heart police." Horn, Downes, and the two girls in rain gear run in front of a rear-projection of the video game Space Invaders. At the end, the Demons from the beginning of the video lift their heads singing the chorus and Downes flies overhead playing a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5