I have a recurring dream where I am a Rōnin Samurai: traveling through the countryside of ancient Japan, usually drunk, dressed like Tuxedo Mask, and without fail, The Plastics debut album, Welcome Plastics (1978) plays wherever I go, to the utter confusion of everyone I encounter, as I also yell about my eating fish, in English, a language that will not touch their shores for another few hundred years. I have clocked the era of my visits at around 200 hundred years before Tom Cruise.
Having shared all of that, Welcome Plastics reaches the height of New Wave music and its silly charm that guarantees its relevancy for this era and more to come. A few years ago, Stereo Total, covered one of the albums tracks, “I love you, oh no!” which caused the band to have a small resurgence, at least among my friends and I.
The album does not make sense. I mean, it is not complicated, it is just hard to understand why this album is not a bigger deal. Though, to be fair, Rolling Stone Japan rated the album #19 on their “100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time,” list.
The track, Robot, is exactly how I imagined Japan growing up after seeing Akira.
You know those Japanese joints that have pre-made food, behind glass like vending machines? They are called Automats. Well, Delicious, should be playing on a loop, at all of them. It has the same feel that an automat would have, at least in theory, I have never been.
Last Train to Clarksville, covers The Monkees hit, of the same name, and it is tied for my favorite song on the album, along with Top Secret Man. This is one of those rare albums where every track is catchy. You will not be suffering through any B-sides here.
Review by Timothy White. Follow him on Twitter @tiptothehip.
