The Age of Plastic is the debut album by the English new wave duo the Buggles, first released on 10 January 1980 on Island Records.

Bassist Trevor Horn was chiefly inspired by Kraftwerk's 1978 album The Man-Machine and sought unconventional recording methods for The Age of Plastic.

[13] Sarm East mixer Gary Langan used a 40-input Trident TSM console to record and mix the album, which was housed inside the same control room as were two Studer A80 24-track machines and outboard gear that included an EMT 140 echo plate, Eventide digital delay, Eventide phaser, Marshall Time Modulator, Kepex noise gates, Urei and Orban equalizers, and Urei 1176, Dbx 160 and UA LA2 and LA3 compressors.

"[11] Langan has noted that balancing the backing vocals in the songs was an issue because of the limited storage capacities of the time: "We'd make it as clean as we possibly could, bounce that down to two tracks and then we'd erase.

: Modern Pop at the Turn of the 1980s, Theo Cateforis writes that the album's title and the songs "I Love You (Miss Robot)" and "Astroboy" "picture the arrival of the 1980s as a novelty era of playful futurism.

[18][21] Downes has said that he used five synthesizers in making The Age of Plastic,[18] which were used to "fake up things and to provide effects we won't use them in the manner that somebody like John Foxx does.

[22] The Age of Plastic is a tragicomic[13] concept album with lyrical themes of intense nostalgia and anxiety about the possible effects of modern technology.

[25] The album's lyrical concept was compared by Orange Coast magazine to that of the works of Canadian progressive rock band Klaatu.

"[10] Wave Maker magazine viewed the song as "a darkly soothing, bass guitar-driven ballad which brings us back into cyberpunk country.

[28] Wave Maker found "Elstree," the album's sixth song, as lyrically similar to "Video Killed the Radio Star," as it follows "a failed actor taking up a more regular position behind the scenes and looking back at his life in regret.

"[20] The slow-tempo ballad "Astroboy (And the Proles on Parade)",[21] according to Wave Maker, "once again revisits cyberpunk with a much lighter vibe, although the keyboards do occasionally border darker realms, expecially [sic] with the post-chorus hook,"[20] and the album closer "Johnny on the Monorail" has a "pop atmosphere" that "better suits the flow of the rest of the album.

[11] Initially, songs from The Age of Plastic were played on English radio stations from 31 December 1979,[7] and two advertisements for the album were also released.

[42][43] A Trouser Press writer recalled that "The Age of Plastic was a disappointment to fans of the Buggles' cogent 45s ... technically stunning, reasonably catchy and crashingly hollow.

"[44] Upon release, Betty Page from Sounds commented that the group "stretches uncomfortably out into the long playing medium like a skein of well-chewed bubblegum.

"[33] Dave Marsh and John Swenson, writing for The Rolling Stone Record Guide (1983), opined that "aside from the wonderful 'Video Killed the Radio Star' — perhaps the most successful recent example of a single where the production was catchier than the material", the album was "high-tech dreck.

"[31] Conversely, Melody Maker noted that the album is "all jerky twitchings and absurdly inflated post-punk melodrama" and named it as "essential.

"[29] The Canberra Times's Keith Gosman found the production excellent and said the album sounded "crisp as fresh dollar bills.

"[51] Napster's Nicholas Baker liked the album's composition and concluded that "this LP is not so much a guilty pleasure as an essential point in electropop history.

"[4] Metro Pulse's Anthony Nownes found the tunes "punchy, memorable" and "accessible", concluding his review with "If all rock records sounded like this—shiny and slick and highly processed—the world would be terrible.

"[52] Less favourably, Joseph Stannard opined that The Age of Plastic "sounds like unfinished business, a series of good ideas in need of elaboration.

"[53] In a review of the album's 1999 reissue, Richard Wallace of the Daily Mirror wrote that the record "shows how [The Buggles] pioneered the synth-led nonsense which fused much of the decade's pop, but had little creative imagination.

"[55] Popular French bands such as Justice, Daft Punk and Phoenix have been influenced[clarification needed] by The Age of Plastic.

[61][62] Source for section names and lengths of "Video Killed the Radio Star": [63][64] All tracks are written by Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, except where noted.