The band's 2001 debut album Gorillaz, which featured dub, Latin and punk influences, went triple platinum in the UK and double platinum in Europe, with sales driven by the success of the album's lead single ' Clint Eastwood'. With Gorillaz, Albarn departed from the distinct Britpop of his band Blur, exploring a variety of musical styles including hip hop, electronic music and world music through an 'eccentrically postmodern' approach. Gorillaz' music often features collaborations with a wide range of featured artists, with Albarn as the only permanent musical contributor. Their fictional universe is presented in music videos, interviews, comic strips and short cartoons. The band primarily consists of four animated members: 2-D ( vocals, keyboards), Murdoc Niccals ( bass guitar), Noodle ( guitar, keyboards, vocals), and Russel Hobbs ( drums). It took nearly two decades, but even Noel Gallagher came round in the end.Gorillaz are an English virtual band formed in 1998 by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, from London, England. But the greatest testament to the strength of Albarn and Hewlett’s vision arrives when you play 2017 single “We Got the Power” and twig which Britpop legend is singing backing vocals.

By scuffing away genre boundaries while they helicoptered collaborators in and out, Gorillaz anticipated the pop of today. The album’s reach was certainly broad-selling seven million copies worldwide-and its impact is still audible.

Albarn wanted Gorillaz to be for everyone-a mainstream catalyst for exploring all corners of music. 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. Rarely had Albarn achieved such a fine balance of adventure and directness. 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)”. 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”. 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. There’s no mistaking the careworn voice carried by rolling hip-hop beats on opener “Re-Hash”. 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?Īlbarn 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. Retreating behind comic-book creator Hewlett’s animations gave him a new freedom to experiment. 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. However, the concept of a virtual band had another appeal for Blur frontman Albarn: It allowed him to disappear. 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.

Gorillaz songs download