Gorillaz has always been one of my favorite bands ever since I could remember. Recently, they just released a new album and as I was listening to it, I started to think how crazy it is that this is their 8th studio album. That is just wild to me, 8th studio album! Back when Plastic Beach released 13 years ago (13 years!?), I felt like the band would never put out new material ever again. I’m so happy that we did eventually get more releases from them. Gorillaz would always have these long hiatuses and breaks in between records back then up until 2017 really. But this really made me stop and think about why I even liked this band, why was I even attracted to them in the beginning and how they became a very formative part of my taste. So I’m gonna go ahead and just do a fun retrospective on the band and my experiences with them as I remember it.
Lets back up a bit, Gorillaz are a fictional/virtual cartoon band headed up by Damon Albarn (of Blur) and Jamie Hewlett (artist, Tank Girl) started up Gorillaz after watching MTV together and realizing there was just nothing of substance on. So they created this fictional band that would basically be commentary about the state of popular music and the venues they occupied (radio and tv). How times have changed as 20 some years later, MTV is basically on life support and now music streaming services are king. I was around 9 years old when I first heard Gorillaz in 2001 as their music videos for Tomorrow Comes Today and Clint Eastwood. This was a huge moment for me.
As a kid, I was listening to a lot of music on the radio and whatever my dad would play in the car but I was started to become a big fan of rap music. I was into some pop music and stuff on MTV at the time, but there was something else happening at the same time. Rap was becoming bigger than ever and started to appear in rock music more often. Eventually creating a new genre sometimes called rap metal or nu-metal. I thought this was awesome as it was more intense than anything else I had heard before that. Just as a reminder, I was listening to stuff like *Nsync and Backstreet Boys on CD while my dad would play stuff like The Beatles and 90s rock bands like Smashing Pumpkins in the car. I would say that once the 2000s came around I was starting to pay more attention to music and gravitating towards a different sound. When I first heard Tomorrow Comes Today, it felt like I was watching something out of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. Here was this weird, animated cartoon band, singing over these crazy weird (at the time) hip hop beats and the music video was just these cartoons singing around the UK.
Once Clint Eastwood would drop however, everything would change. This song had an insane rap feature from Del the Funky Homosapien as well as a way bigger budget music video. This time there was a plot and story and the characters were fully animated and introduced some key lore for the group. I was hooked. This was some next level stuff and I can confidently say now that I had just heard some of the best songs of my entire life at that point. Once the video for 19-2000 was released, it was a wrap. I had become a fan for life. I was a big on anime growing up like DBZ and Ranma at the time and the only other thing I had seen remotely similar were the music videos for Daft Punk’s Discovery a year prior. I did not know it but these would become formative experiences for me that would influence which kind of music I would come to love for the next 20 years. Its hard to realize in the moment what exactly are these formative experiences. With Discovery, the anime music videos really got me to appreciate Daft Punk and dance music as a whole. But with Gorillaz, now the sounds turned more alternative and frankly weird. As a 9/10 year old, it completely opened up my imagination on what music could be.
There was just something very special to it. All of these factors such as the art, the animation, the music, and the immersive world building were huge for me. Songs like New Genius (Brother) and Latin Simone (¿Qué Pasa Contigo?) (featuring Ibrahim Ferrer) opened up a whole new realm of possibility in music. And it was thanks to the incredible production of Dan the Automator. The out there hip hop production alongside Kid Koala handling the turntables put me on to these sounds for life. Its hard to describe what the taste of a 9-10 year old is especially at the turn of the millennium. What I can tell you was that I was very much pulled in by its visuals first which got me hooked to the music. Jamie Hewlett is just as important as Damon Albarn in bringing this band to life. Gorillaz was pioneering a form of visual media that is very much the norm now. Music videos with high budgets had already existed before and there were some with connective tissue (NIN and GnR videos come to mind from certain eras), but none really quite brought you into their world than how Gorillaz did. For lack of a better word, it was just really really cool. The visuals had, a somewhat hybrid anime and western cartoon vibe. Some features would look realistic or be 3D CGI while others would just be straight up live action. It was a much more distinct style than cartoons while definitely taking inspiration from anime.
I didn’t really have their first album until a few years later, but I do remember downloading a lot of their songs with p2p music applications back in the day and their respective music videos. It just felt like such a lived in world and fit the vibe of the time alongside stuff like the Daft Punk Discovery videos as well as the hip hop vibes from things like Toonami. It just felt very right place and right time. Fast forward a few years later for their second album, and my personal favorite, Demon Days. I actually remember when I first saw the music video for Feel Good Inc, and it really felt like this wild level up from the band. Not only was the music sounding tighter, but the visuals felt like they had a much bigger budget as well. Gorillaz had finally arrived fully formed it seemed. Demon Days also marked a huge shift for the band musically as this brought the arrival of the heavy guest Gorillaz album. Now with the side-project becoming the main project, Gorillaz enlisted more features from collaborators and showcasing a different side to this quirky and fun alternative hip-hop/rock that Damon Albarn was bringing to the table. Which feels like I’m reducing the variety of genre that is brought here. You got weird samples, songs that sound like you are in a swamp, multiple choirs (Children’s and Church), MF DOOM is on here. Demon Days just felt like a much bigger statement and catapulted the band to even greater heights, which they then built on top of their mythology.
Again Gorillaz has immaculate selection of singles, on an album with a plethora of tracks and deep cuts to back up the record. I want to give a special mention to the spoken word on here from Dennis Hopper which should be the corniest thing ever honestly, but it totally works. This is a very sincere album, somber and emotional tracks like El Manana Every Planet We Reach Is Dead showcase this. It just all feels so big and grand. Feel Good Inc brings in De La Soul who absolutely kill this track. From their iconic laugh which has been sampled to death to the simple but catchy and fun verses, its the whole package and a great party starter. Frankly its just a perfect album and there really is no skips on here. It works great conceptually, and the pacing feels just right. Ending the album on the epic and soaring final two tracks is perfect and and really emotional. I’m around 13-14 now and this band basically catapults to the front of my all-time favorites. It was really easy to become a big fan of the band too as you felt them growing up with you. The characters this time looked older and just had even more attitude than before. Gorillaz just has this all-encompassing thing to them that next thing you know, it basically becomes your whole personality, at least music-wise around this era.
What I mean is that Gorillaz has always been a go-to for nerdier folk and people who may not be that into current releases, but were pulled into the wider world of genres such as rap and dub. This is where the band can be looked as either embarrassing when you’re growing up or as a kids thing since its still cartoons. Teenagers can be very mean and for no reason but when you’re in age where a lot of people just want to grow up as fast as possible, cartoons are perceived as childish. But Gorillaz were nothing but. Two albums in, not only had they created an musical soundscape for these characters and world, but the music really held up its own end of the bargain. And frankly giving legends like MF DOOM, De La Soul, and Bootie Brown to shine and their flowers showcases the taste levels that Damon and Jamie were operating in.
Following another long hiatus, all we had as Gorillaz fans to hold us over was the D-sides compilation album of extras and remixes and the now legendary live performances of Demon Days. I felt as though the shadow that Gorillaz had cast loomed large over pop music as they had already reached insane heights with Demon Days. The Gorillaz duo of Damon and Jamie would go on to work on an opera called Monkey: Journey to the West. Rumors would start to swirl for a new album and now fast-forward to 2010, and we have the third Gorillaz project: Plastic Beach.
Plastic Beach released when I was 18, 13 years ago this week and its held a strange spot in my mind for as long as possible. I love this album to start off. There is a brighter and more electronic pop sound to it while still holding true to the Gorillaz roots. Bringing even bigger guests to the table and expanding on their sound palette with what could possibly be their strongest concept to date. Plastic Beach is about an island that is made out of plastic. With pollution at an all time high at the time and honestly still to this day, there were themes of environmentalism but also in some ways the state of the world. Having now grown up to be 18 years old and digesting this album was crazy because it definitely met all of my expectations, but in the time that this album was waiting to be released I was already getting way into discovering so many different types of music. I would like to say that I thank Gorillaz for that as they opened so many musical doors and even whilst being accessible, was a challenging listen at times as well.
Thanks to that though, I felt like I was adequately prepared for this album despite it at the time felt almost like a step back. I’ll explain. The first two albums had a distinct and dark sound that were able to go beyond its limits and make a huge pop hit. Plastic Beach arrived at a time when, maybe that pop audience may not have come back the way it would before. The first single Stylo was more of a low key grower of a track than a straight forward banger like Feel Good Inc, and the style of the music videos also changed bringing in live action and 3D CGI models for the band (and Bruce Willis in a fantastic spot too). I say low key because these days Stylo has grown to be one of the bigger bangers on the entire Gorillaz discography. Bobby Womack and Yasiin Bey (fka Mos Def when the record dropped) gave Gorillaz an entirely new vibe and some much needed soul. Props again to Damon and Jamie for bringing all of this together and while it was turbulent time for the band, the work they made was just off the charts. I mean they even got Lou Reed to record for this album and he actually delivered. You got grime artists coming Kano and Bashy doing there thing, Snoop Dogg knocks it out of the park with his intro track, literally welcoming you to the world of the plastic beach. It was an incredible time to be a fan, only for it to get better when the world tour was announced.
Its hard to pick out a stand out track when the whole album is the complete package. From the beginning with Snoop Dogg, to Little Dragon, to Lou Reed, its just wild. You even have two surviving member of The Clash on this album too and they would then go on to be members of the live band! However it is clear that Bobby Womack is the standout featured guest on this album, just because he delivers the strongest vocals out of everyone. They are just so powerful and filled with emotion.
This was insane to me and felt like a dream that could possibly never happen again. Watching Gorillaz play at Coachella on a livestream in 2010 excited me beyond measure. I had already seen my favorite band, Nine Inch Nails, play in 2008 but here came a new opportunity to watch another of my faves. I knew I had to take the opportunity and with no one else to go with, I took the plunge and bought myself the ticket and drove up to Austin to watch the show. Exiting a shy shell, I was able to make friends around me (a skill or basically social muscle that I now use all the time ) which was great because, finally I get to hang out with people who like this band as much as I did! But it also felt like the end of something. You just couldn’t help but feel like the band would leave again and probably never come back. This was such a wild conceptual album and success. Damon Albarn really is a one-of-a-kind musical chameleon as he navigates all these genres and collaborators.
But even without guests, Gorillaz were on top form. This 3 album run is definitely going to go down in history as one of the greats. Every album in this run has great concepts and practically no skips. These guys are successful for a reason. Its just really good music. And honestly, this album came at a time I had moved away from rap and helped get me back into it as I had been learning how to listen to other genres that were buzzing on the internet like no wave, shoegaze, ambient, psychedelic and more. Basically everything and anything that had to do with guitars and being loud and aggressive. Especially bands like HEALTH. Gorillaz were still there for me though and showed me that you can have this varied taste and its better that you do.
So what am I even trying to say with this whole post? Gorillaz was a very formative band and a huge part of my life growing up. There is a lot to explore and learn with these 3 albums and sure while the 4th album, The Fall is more of a throwaway iPad album, they still have stuff to bring to the table. While it definitely exists, its still the weakest entry in the entire discography. There are some great ideas on the record, but they only really amount to just ideas. If it had been just a few years down the future, it probably could have been better since the tools we have to record music on the road have greatly improved since then. God knows you can probably make a better album today than back then on an iPad but such is life.
I’m very thankful for Gorillaz since I probably wouldn’t have been daring to open my mind to different genres or just being sincere while appreciating in music. This is goofy stuff, but it can also be very melancholic or chaotic. I don’t know, Gorillaz just rules. It is so much better to have this knowledge of rap, of rock music, of reggae and dub, of pop, of all these legendary alternative artists (Mark E. Smith, Bobby Womack, MF DOOM, list goes on) than just have maybe one specialization.
Following this first decade of output, Gorillaz would go on hiatus again with some bright spots along the path (DoYaThang ft Andre 3000, James Murphy). But they would next come back in 2017 with the divisive Humanz. And that is when I felt, is this finally over? Is this just, never going to be as great as it was? Personally I loved Humanz, but it was a mixed bag for many I can’t lie. But I truly believe, time will be kinder to this album. The concept for this album was, what if Trump became president, what would the next day be like? Recording this before the 2016 election, it truly does feel a bit prescient. While we live in a world where did this happen, it really was hard to imagine this would even be a possibility. A lot of us where caught off guard, and many of us thought there just wouldn’t be a way this would even happen. But not Gorillaz, who tend to live in this darker world. Well sometimes real life can copy fiction and we now had our first album commenting on the realities of this new world.
Humanz is all over the place, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have strong ideas. While not as focused as the previous records (not counting The Fall), Humanz finds Gorillaz working with a whole new generation of artists. You get much more contemporary artists here like Vince Staples, D.R.A.M., Pusha T, Kelela, Kali Uchis, Danny Brown and much much more. This could be seen as a weakness as well since the album features so many guests that the vocals from 2-D (Damon Albarn) are just not present or sidelined for the main event guests. This was a jam packed album with guests and there just wasn’t enough room for anything else. Therefore the album goes through so many different genres and vibes and loses quite a bit of focus. But at the same time, there are songs on here that have stuck with me. Humanz released in 2017 so that means I had turned 25 and entered an entirely new phase of my own life. It was weird because I was already graduated from my university, but I was remembering the legendary status the group held amongst my friends and peers. Gorillaz had transcended into this huge and frankly legendary band, and so the expectations for a new album, if it were to even happen were high. For me songs like Submission, Ascension, Andromeda, and Let Me Out easily fit into Gorillaz canon.
The music videos returned this time featuring a hybrid of normal 2D animation alongside 3D CGI and live action once more. But gone were the days of the smaller scale music video for the band as they kept pushing boundaries on what they could do. But I’m 25 now, I’m listening to this album and it just felt like this band grew up alongside me. This time around, I already knew practically every featured guest on here. That’s partly why I still love this record for the most part too. But while I was able to go on my musical journey as I grew up, many didn’t and were disappointed. But for me, this was awesome. I was already on these waves, I was a huge Pusha T, Vince Staples, De La Soul, Danny Brown, Kelela and Kali Uchis fan already. There might be more interludes and more guests, but I do feel like the album tells a good story in a way. It ends abruptly with the final track “We Got The Power,” but it is what it is. The song also contains work from Noel Gallagher which is huge considering the rivalry between Blur and Oasis before. So that was nice. But overall, Phase 4 turned out to be a blessing and marked a new start of a productive period for the band.
Gorillaz went back to touring the world and I was able to catch them again, this time for a second time. They headlined ACL 2017 down here in Texas, and they played some rare tracks from their debut album (Re-Hash, which was the first time they ever played this since 2002!) and even brought out guests like Del the Funky Homosapien to rap over Clint Eastwood. It felt like I closed the book to another chapter of the band again. While having some sort of finality again. Being 25 I was able to note just how much my life had changed between Humanz and Plastic Beach and the person I had become. With Plastic Beach I was still opening my mind to so many different types of music, but with Humanz I was now much more confident in my tastes in music and media. But also it was very nice to just look back at how much good music Gorillaz had given us in the years before and how it became a soundtrack to our real lives.
Eventually a new Gorillaz album was on the way, this time titled The Now Now and it was sort of released like The Fall. This obviously set off a few alarms and red flags as it was another album that was recorded whilst on tour. I’m happy to report that it is better than The Fall, but still falls short of being one of the more iconic Gorillaz releases. This time, there are only two features and its mostly because the band was on the road. But the album featured a much brighter and warmer sound profile than previous releases. The other thing that was difficult to do, at least for me was digesting the previous album in time for this one. There were these long breaks and hiatuses in between albums and in that time I would just dig into the Gorillaz album and fully explore the worlds they would provide. This time around not so, as this album would drop a year later in 2018, almost without warning. Gorillaz was now a well-oiled machine, touring the world and constantly working.
One big welcome was the focus on the visuals again. Gorillaz characters themselves felt like they almost got sidelined and lost on Humanz but they were back front and center for The Now Now. Damon Albarn takes the lead on this album and provides a new perspective on the sunny side of Gorillaz. I do take issue with songs like Tranz on the record sounding a bit less powerful and impactful than they do live though. A new issue then rises, how can we translate the live Gorillaz experience onto record. This was a whole new challenge it seemed as previously it was mostly about how to adapt Gorillaz to a live stage. I felt somewhat disappointed by The Now Now on release, but I have definitely warmed up to it by now. But now with so much more music from Gorillaz at a higher rate than before, it was so easy to get lost. I mean we were now in Phase 5 of the band, and in a twist of fate the character Ace from the Power Puff Girls had replaced Murdoc in the band! This is the type of world building for this fake cartoon band that I can really appreciate. Its just so wild, like what!?
Gorillaz had now conquered the world so many times over but yet kept finding new ways to present themselves. Only one thing was a constant and it was change. You had to adapt to these changes in order to stay as a fan, but also with these changes came challenges. I think Gorillaz is the perfect band to get into if you want to dip your toes into different artists and genres, while offering a very accessible on-ramp so to speak for these artists.
To mark end of their second decade though, Gorillaz would go on to drop one of their most ambitious projects to date. The year was 2020 and they were going to be dropping singles all year with different guests. We all know now that 2020 would mark quite the change in everyone’s lives thanks to COVID-19, but Gorillaz were there to at least provide us with this soundtrack and have some hope for the future. I’m not going to lie though, 2020 is basically a lost year thanks to the pandemic and staying at home. But I was very grateful for this new Gorillaz project as it was something to look forward to. Its so weird to describe, but I was living alone at the time and it could get really boring. You couldn’t really leave your place and hang out with people like before, the curfews were in place and there was a lot of time just being alone and finding new ways to spend the time.
Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez was the album that resulted from these year-long collaborations and brought new energy and frankly re-energized the band. While I did like the previous two albums, Song Machine had a different kind of energy to it. Guests like Robert Smith and Schoolboy Q just absolutely destroyed their features while we would reach new heights with guests like Elton John! It just feels so wild to look back on the humble origins of the band and seeing where ended up, despite being locked at home, it was just awesome to see. Gorillaz was still Gorillaz and was still there for me. Only Gorillaz would have Elton John and 6lack on the same track or Chai and Jpegmafia. The songwriting was also markedly an improvement from The Now Now and probably Humanz as well. I would have to listen to all of these albums again to give a final opinion on it, but it was just really good to see that the band was not over and they still had gas in the tank. In 2021 the band would then go back to their roots and drop a 3-song EP titled Meanwhile EP and featuring a back to basics reggae and dub sound that they pioneered on their first album.
Which now leads us to today. Three years after Song Machine dropped, Gorillaz dropped their 8th studio album, Cracker Island. Eight studio albums! I am now 31 and well yeah this band has been a part of my life for the last 20+ years and I’m eternally grateful for them. A lot of my personal style and taste comes from Gorillaz and I always wrestle with my 9 year old self and how I felt when each album dropped when I listen to them today. When I listen to Cracker Island for example, I like to put myself in a time and place. How would I react to this if I was 9? 13? 18? 25? 26? 28? 31??????!? I think about this often. As a lifelong fan of the band and have seen them perform live now 4 times, I can safely put them in the pantheon of musical geniuses that paved the way forward in a positive fashion.
Its wild honestly and I feel so lucky to have been there every step of the way.
Anyway that was so long, but I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing about it and taking a trip down memory lane. I will go ahead and review Cracker Island for my next post, so you can see what I think about that album soon. But that’s been the Gorillaz retrospective from my memory. Thanks for reading!