Gorillaz

At first glance, the idea of an animated “virtual band”—the sprightly 2-D, rogue Murdoc Niccals, gangsta Russel Hobbs, and sweet outsider Noodle—seemed a little gimmicky, an art-school shot at mainstream pop. But in retrospect, Gorillaz—founded by Blur singer Damon Albarn and comic-book artist Jamie Hewlett in 1998—reflected a rootless, fragmented world that has only gotten more familiar with time. That they had no fixed lineup and an ever-rotating series of singers, rappers, and collaborators not only undercut old ideas of what it meant to be a “band,” it projected a communal vision that felt unbound by borders—cultural, stylistic, or otherwise. Even then, the project’s self-titled 2001 debut could easily have remained an impressive one-off success. But Albarn and co. followed it up with 2005’s Demon Days, which sold more than 2 million copies in both the UK and the US thanks to ubiquitous singles like the De La Soul-assisted “Feel Good Inc.” Subsequent albums continued to see Gorillaz feeling several years (maybe decades) ahead of the wider music culture, savvily weaving together so many cross-genre components into a living, breathing playlist. Inspired by Albarn and Hewlett both losing their fathers in mid-2024, Gorillaz’s 2026 opus The Mountain looked for wisdom in India—and featured many collaborators who are no longer with us. The results are equally transcendental and elegiac. “It reminded us that in order to make something really good,” Hewlett told Apple Music Radio’s Matt Wilkinson, “you have to go somewhere you’ve never been or have an experience you’ve never had… India was the place this time. It gave us a lot.”