Music review: Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

Time for a new post me thinks. A breath of fresh air, as the smog hanging over this blog is in need of a good clearing.

How fortunate, then, that Gorillaz released their new album, Plastic Beach, last week.

I came across Gorillaz in 2005 when AOL advertised their new single Feel Good Inc. I'd be lying if I said it was not the artwork that got me hooked at that moment. This was the first picture I saw of them:


I was instantly hooked. Then I watched the video for Feel Good Inc. and fell in love with the smooth animation and Damon Albarn's luscious voice. I was suddenly reminded that I had seen/heard them before, back in 2000. Clint Eastwood was cool back then, but I was only 10 and had no interest in music. Now I re-watched everything they had ever done, and listened to their debut album with squeaky clean ears.

Anyway, the point is, I absolutely fell for this band. Their music is like nothing I've heard, and is echoed similarly by Jamie Hewlett's graphite-encrusted artwork. I'd never seen anything like it. I was a young, rebellious art-head with delusions of Manga-inspired success. Jamie Hewlett polished his shoes and gave me a well-earned boot up the arse, telling me there was more out there than just Japanese art. And Albarn shoved a pair of Skullcandys on my head and blasted me with electrip-hopping-punk-pop music. This is where I really started to understand music, not just enjoy it.

I can see now I'm getting ahead of myself, but I've never written a music review before, let alone a Gorillaz one, and I guess it's been building up.

So forgive me for being biased, but Plastic Beach is by far their best album yet. Gorillaz was a teenage-house party, Demon Days was the College years. Plastic Beach is full blown University life; freedom and youthful abandon, but with a well-earned maturity and sense of direction.

It follows the narrative that the World has all gone to pot, absorbed in self-centeredness and commercialism. The proverbial faeces of this way of living has drifted off into the middle of the Ocean and combined to create the Plastic Beach, on which the album was recorded by cartoon band-dictator, Murdoc Niccals. God I've missed him and his funny ways.

For those of you who don't know, Gorillaz is "made up" (in more ways than one) of four animated members. Satanic bass-shredder, Murdoc; Japanese guitar prodigy and martial artist Noodle; vacant but lovable 2D, the singer; and man-mountain New York drum-factory, Russel Hobbs.

In the last album, Noodle "died" and the band separated. Long story short, Murdoc went to rescue Noodle to reform his band, found her to be no more, scraped up her DNA and had her made into an Android version of her former self. He then kidnapped 2D and took him to his Plastic Beach studio. He sent out an invite to Russel who, having swum through miles of sea and eaten everything in his path, is now more man-planet than mountain, having mutated to enormous size. It's all very straight-forward.

So onto the music. This album, I would say, calls for thee to be open-minded and totally relaxed. If not, it will relax you anyway, but you really need to just chill out with this one. It works wonders. I'd say if you love Bjork, Enya, Kate Bush, any of those, then you're on the right track. Mix in a bit of the Sugar Hill gang and Stevie Wonder and you're pretty much ready for Plastic Beach.

The Orchestral Introduction sets the tone of the album. It sees you drifting through misty ocean airwaves, heading for something unknown, but ultimately warm and beautiful. And there you see it, in the distance. The pink floating paradise, like used bubblegum stretched over Tracey Island, but more exciting.

And as you land, Snoop Dogg welcomes you with trumpets blaring, and his dark-chocolate voice (no black-guy jokes intended) soothes you and invites you in, "Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach". I personally have never ran out and bought anything with his name on it, but this track is a snappy opener.

Then White Flag kicks in with an opening that screams of Albarn and Hewlett's previous project Monkey: Journey to the West, an Opera. Panpipe playing satyrs spring to mind in a Fantasia-esque intro that is quickly brought into the new-noughties by a cracking hip-hop track with an Arabian overlay.

By far my favourite track on the album, Rhinestone Eyes appears out of nowhere like Atari's Pong game did back in the '70's, blip-blopping until Albarn's sleepy voice sings the engmatic lyrics "I'm a scary gargoyle on a tower/that you made with plastic power/your rhinestone eyes are like/factories far away". This track left me feeling a bizarre mixture of twisted-tin romance, the urge to play on a SNES and wanting to campaign about environmental issues. Can't put it any better.

It's here where I'll point out the fact that the word "Plastic" features in almost every song as the theme for the album.

Stylo is up next. One of the most electronic songs on the album. Just check out the video, that's all I'm gonna say.

Suddenly, you hear a breakfast cereal jingle and are taken back to the 1960's: "This morning, you've got time for a hot, home-cooked breakfast. Delicious and piping-hot in only three microwave minutes!" Yes it's a song. De La Soul barge their way into this one in a welcome return, last heard on Feel Good Inc. Rapping about a breakfast cereal called Superfast Jellyfish, it's more like breakfast sureal. But this one is surely the catchiest, bounciest track on the album. "All hail King Neptune and his water-feeders" this wouldn't be out of place on a episode of Spongebob Squarepants!

Empire Ants takes place on clouds floating above the Plastic Beach, as Little Dragon seduces you with her sweet, other-worldy voice. You fall asleep on the ether, woken suddenly by what sounds like Paul McCartney asking "Where's North from 'ere?"

Glitter Freeze is a banging nineties tune, complete with a virtual drum kit, swirling electric beats and echoing laughter on empty motorway landscapes. This is a kick-ass driving tune. Plastic Beach's M1A1 track (see Gorillaz).

Lou Reed jumps in to chat with us in Some Kind of Nature with a voice so cool it could freeze fire. This song is funky-fresh, almost Bowie-era stuff. The chorus is a carousel of swerving soft vocals from Damon and Mr Cool (that's what I'm officially calling Lou Reed now).

On Melancholy Hill is the album's ballad of sorts, reminiscent of El Manana from the last album (see Demon Days) without the unhappy ending. On Melancholy Hill, despite it's name, is optimistic, dreamy, wistful. Even cute. The next track, Broken, doesn't steer far from the same theme. With crackling beats and an organ buzzing in the background, Damon creates a sombre lyrical piece that lacks the typical emo-isms of a song with such a title.

Sweepstakes, unfortunatley, is my least favourite track. Not exactly a bad track, and certainly catchy, but the rappers sound so bored and unenthusiastic. Perhaps that's just how they work. Music-wise, the satellite beeps and bongos make for an interesting record that eventually improves as the music drowns out the rappers.

In the album's signature track, Plastic Beach, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon, of The Clash fame, are reunited to collaberate with Damon on this guitar-stained, swimmingly smooth song. Slow and sensual like a tide, with a thumbing bass-line during the chorus, this is a cracking number.

Another of my close favourites is To Binge. Almost as if you've just arrived on Hawaii, it sails in peacefully against a sunset background. This is an ice-cream-melting-on-the-beach song and super to chill out to. Little Dragon, that tiny minx, is back to seranade you with her lovely vocals, joined in a duet by Damon. It's beautiful and inspires visions of long summers by the seaside. Love it.

Bobby Womack, from Stylo, returns on Cloud of Unknowing with his killer soul voice, helping you sink into this one, and later followed by a symphony of strings that make this the second most orchestral track after the intro. It ends on an echo that reverberates into a digital voice singing "Pirate Jet", as the clanging of a ship coming into port opens the song. Pirate Jet has a massive, catchy beat to it that you can't help but tap along to. Damon raps on the last track of the album in the spirit of Clint Eastwood and Blur's On Your Own. It's a great way to end a number one album.

But I can't end there without mentioning the artwork. Jamie's style has improved a lot since the debut album. He still works in photoshop, but has played about with watercolours and model-making; for the album "teaser trailers" a huge model of the Plastic Beach was built. It can be seen on the album cover. Hewlett's gritty, smoking work is dotted with humour, drama, and is often just plain sexy. My favourite piece so far being this one of Android Noodle:


I mean how awesomely sick is that? Very juicy.

So I look forward to the next project from these two nutters, which there have been hints at. But so long as Damon Albarn continues making music, and Jamie Hewlett carries on churning out shit-hot artwork, I can live happily ever after.