Ryan Bassil of Vice noted that the song is "a rare tune that doesn't exactly need words to expertly describe a specific, defined feeling – one of lust, heartbreak, love, fear, adventure, loss, all caught up in the swirling midst of a night out on the town" and called the song "the best pop song in the world". As of May 2021, the video had more than 63 million views. The video garnered 24 million views before being taken down for a copyright dispute with Levenson, but was then restored in 2019 with credit given to Levenson in the video description and thumbnail. Its spread was also aided by internet memes, discussions on Reddit, and fan art of the "Sweetest Music" cover on platforms such as DeviantArt. Coinciding with the vaporwave genre's rise in popularity, Plastic Lover's upload spread rapidly throughout YouTube through the platform's recommendations algorithm. In an interview, Plastic Lover said that their video was a re-upload of a now-deleted video on YouTube. The video showed a cropped version of the cover of Takeuchi's earlier single "Sweetest Music", taken by Los Angeles-based photographer Alan Levenson. On July 5, 2017, an eight-minute fan-made remix of "Plastic Love" was uploaded to YouTube by a user known as "Plastic Lover". A twelve-inch single was released on March 15, 1985, which included an "extended club mix" and "new re-mix" of the song and reached 86th on the Oricon Singles Chart. The single was Takeuchi's twelfth single to be released. The song was first released on Takeuchi's number-one hit album, Variety (1984). tell the story of a woman who lost the man she truly loves." Yamashita also played guitar for the song, while Yasuharu Nakanishi played electric piano, Kōki Itō played bass guitar, and Jūn Aoyama played drums.
In an interview with The Japan Times, Takeuchi remarked: "I wanted to write something danceable, something with a city pop sound. "Plastic Love" was written and performed by Takeuchi and produced by her husband, Tatsuro Yamashita.