"I Love You (Miss Robot)"
Song by the Buggles
from the album The Age of Plastic
Released1980 (1980)
Recorded1979
Genre
Length4:58
LabelIsland
Songwriter(s)The Buggles
Producer(s)The Buggles
The Age of Plastic track listing
8 tracks
  1. "Living in the Plastic Age"
  2. "Video Killed the Radio Star"
  3. "Kid Dynamo"
  4. "I Love You (Miss Robot)"
  5. "Clean, Clean"
  6. "Elstree"
  7. "Astroboy (And the Proles on Parade)"
  8. "Johnny on the Monorail"
Audio sample
First verse
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"I Love You (Miss Robot)" is a song written, performed and produced by the Buggles, a duo of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, for their 1980 debut studio album The Age of Plastic. It was not released as a single. The song is, according to Downes, about "being on the road and making love to someone you don't really like", although music critics consider the song's subject having to do with a robot. The song was performed live in 2010, as part of the first performance of all the tracks from The Age of Plastic.

Production

"I Love You" is the fourth track of The Buggles' debut studio album The Age of Plastic,[1] although it was not released as a single. Plastic was recorded in 1979,[2] and was made on a budget of £60,000.[3] The backing track of "I Love You" was recorded at Virgin's Town House in West London, with mixing and recording of vocals held at Sarm East Studios.[3][4] Gary Langan mixed the song on a Sunday in 1979, between 11:00 p.m./12:00 a.m. and 3:00/4:00 a.m. Langan has said that the song was "one of the best mixes I've ever done", and considered the song to be a "pukka mix".[4]

Composition and critical response

When performing "I Love You" at the Ladbroke Grove's Supperclub, a live performance known as "The Lost Gig", Horn said that he conceived the idea of the song after playing Moon River on a bass guitar every Tuesday night.[5]

"I Love You" is an electropop new wave song.[6][7] Downes is also a vocalist on the track, which he sings through a vocoder.[8] He said that "I Love You" was really about "being on the road and making love to someone you don't really like, while all the time you're wanting to phone someone who's a long way off."[3]

Despite this, AllMusic, in their review of The Age of Plastic, considered the song to be about "a metaphorical love affair with a robot" that "explores modern man's relationship to, and dependence on, technology",[7] and Craven Lovelace of the Grand Junction Free Press noted the song as an example of the increased popularity of robots as a musical subject in the early 1980s.[9] Theo Cateforis wrote in his book, Are We Not New Wave?: Modern Pop at the Turn of the 1980s, that the title of The Age of Plastic and the songs "I Love You" and "Astroboy" "picture the arrival of the 1980s as a novelty era of playful futurism".[10] Chuck Eddy from Spin viewed the song title as a proof The Age of Plastic was "firmly in Kraftwerk's future-tech tradition".[11]

Live performances

In September 2010, the song was performed live at Ladbroke Grove's Supperclub in Notting Hill, London, billed as "The Lost Gig".[5][12] This saw the first live performances of all songs from The Age of Plastic.[12][13]

Personnel

References

  1. ↑ The Age of Plastic (Media notes). The Buggles. Island Records. 1980. ILPS 9585.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  2. ↑ "The Buggles". ZTT Records. Archived from the original on 25 June 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 Deller, Fred (21 February 1980). "Life With the Buggles". Smash Hits. Vol. 32.
  4. 1 2 Buskin, Richard (December 2011). "The Buggles 'Video Killed The Radio Star'". Sound on Sound. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
  5. 1 2 The Buggles – (I Love You) Miss Robot (Live at Supper Club London 2010) on YouTube. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
  6. ↑ Vincent L. (7 December 2003). "Buggles – The Age of Plastic". Krinein Magazine (in French). Retrieved 28 April 2013.
  7. 1 2 Montesano, Jeri. "Buggles – The Age of Plastic". AllMusic. All Media Network. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
  8. ↑ "Buggles Rehearsal – Sarm West – Geoff Downes". Sonic State. 24 September 2010. Retrieved 13 July 2013.
  9. ↑ Lovelace, Craven (30 April 2010). "KAFM Notes: March of the robots". Grand Junction Free Press. Archived from the original on 5 February 2011.
  10. ↑ Cateforis, Theo (2011). Are We Not New Wave?: Modern Pop at the Turn of the 1980s. University of Michigan Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0472034703.
  11. ↑ Eddy, Chuck (22 June 2012). "We Are Also the Robots: 8 Essentials of Post-Kraftwerk Pop". Spin. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
  12. 1 2 Petridis, Alexis (29 September 2010). "Buggles: The Lost Gig". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
  13. ↑ "Buggles All Around". Mojo. No. 205. December 2010. p. 15.
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