- Demon Days · 2005
- Gorillaz · 2001
- Demon Days · 2005
- Plastic Beach (Deluxe Version) · 2010
- Plastic Beach · 2010
- Humanz (Deluxe) · 2017
- Cracker Island · 2022
- Plastic Beach (Deluxe Version) · 2010
- Demon Days · 2005
- Gorillaz · 2001
- Plastic Beach (Deluxe Version) · 2010
- Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez (Deluxe) · 2020
- Cracker Island · 2022
Essential Albums
- If Gorillaz began life as a playful comment on artificiality in music (and a way for Damon Albarn to escape the shadow of Britpop) then Demon Days is their coming of age. Laden with A-grade guests—ranging from Roots Manuva to Dennis Hopper—and expansive in its scope, this second record delivers everything from off-kilter hip hop (“Dirty Harry” and De La Soul feature “Feel Good Inc.”) to neo-rave bangers (Shaun Ryder assist “Dare”) without putting a foot wrong.
- The traditional origin story says Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett conceived Gorillaz as a comment on the soullessness and artifice of pop at the turn of the millennium. However, the concept of a virtual band had another appeal for Blur frontman Albarn: It allowed him to disappear. Even as Blur’s increasingly intrepid music distanced them from the creeping conservatism of Britpop during the late ’90s, Albarn had creative urges that couldn’t be satisfied within one of Britain’s biggest guitar bands. Retreating behind comic-book creator Hewlett’s animations gave him a new freedom to experiment. After all, who was a more convincing front for otherworldly adventures in dub, trip-hop, punk, rap Westerns, and bolero sounds? A man inexorably tied to Britpop with Union Jack bunting? Or Noodle, 2D, Russel, and Murdoc, a motley gang of vaguely apocalyptic animations? Albarn originally planned to be an anonymous part of the project, but that was a futile notion by the time this debut album arrived in March 2001. There’s no mistaking the careworn voice carried by rolling hip-hop beats on opener “Re-Hash.” Other Albarn identifiers run through the record—the sharpness of melody, the air of melancholy that hangs around even the brightest moments—but he calls on collaborators to help frame them in new, divergent ways. Co-producer Dan the Automator injects an astral glimmer and rib-shaking bottom end throughout, assisted by Jamaican bass legend Junior Dan, who leads bittersweet dub odysseys “Starshine” and “Slow Country.” Listen closely and you’ll hear Tom Tom Club adding finger snaps and backing vocals to the wonky euphoria of “19-2000,” before Buena Vista Social Club’s Ibrahim Ferrer brings stately elegance and wisdom to proceedings on “Latin Simone (Que Pasa Contigo).” Rarely had Albarn achieved such a fine balance of adventure and directness. Gorillaz was dismissed as “music for 12-year-olds” by Albarn’s old adversary Noel Gallagher, but that wasn’t the insult he thought it was. Albarn wanted Gorillaz to be for everyone—a mainstream catalyst for exploring all corners of music. The album’s reach was certainly broad—selling seven million copies worldwide—and its impact is still audible. By scuffing away genre boundaries while they helicoptered collaborators in and out, Gorillaz anticipated the pop of today. But the greatest testament to the strength of Albarn and Hewlett’s vision arrives when you play 2017 single “We Got the Power” and realize which Britpop legend is singing backing vocals. It took nearly two decades, but even Noel Gallagher came round in the end.
Albums
- 2018
- 2005
Artist Playlists
- A cartoon prankster and a Britpop heartthrob take you on a genre-bending journey.
- Zane talks to Gorillaz co-founder Damon Albarn about their latest album, Cracker Island.
Live Albums
Compilations
- The mastermind behind Gorillaz joins to talk Cracker Island.
- Gorillaz co-founder Damon Albarn on 'Cracker Island.'
- Damon Albarn talks through the band’s LP Cracker Island.
- Songs from Joan Jett and Against Me!, plus a Gorillaz encore.
- Strombo celebrates Gorillaz’s self-titled album as it turns 20.
- A deep dive into the songbooks of two ever evolving artists.
More To See
About Gorillaz
One day in the late '90s, comic-book artist Jamie Hewlett and Blur singer Damon Albarn were sitting around in their West London flat watching TV—a brand-new Panasonic, eight channels on screen at once. Their eyes were glazed, their minds empty. The images just kept coming. This was the dawn of reality TV—shows that turned so-called real life into prepackaged stories and people into cartoons. The question hit them: If culture was already fake, why keep pretending it was real? 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’s work—the electro-indie pop of “Feel Good Inc.” and “Dare,” the leftfield hip-hop of “Clint Eastwood” and “Dirty Harry,” the bits of American gospel, African folk, and dub—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 vocalists and collaborators (from Elton John to De La Soul, Clash bassist Paul Simonon to Afro-Cuban singer Ibrahim Ferrer) not only undercut old ideas of what it meant to be a “band,” it projected a vision that felt communal, even a little utopian, unbound by borders cultural, stylistic, or otherwise. Even when they projected dystopia, they made the future sound bright (“On Melancholy Hill”). Bands are bands. In Gorillaz, we got a living, breathing playlist.
- ORIGIN
- London, England
- FORMED
- 1998
- GENRE
- Alternative