Featured In
ALBUMCracker Island (Deluxe)Gorillaz
Albums by Gorillaz
ALBUMCracker Island (Deluxe)Gorillaz
ALBUMSong Machine, Season One: Strange Timez (Deluxe)Gorillaz
ALBUMThe Now NowGorillaz
ALBUMHumanz (Deluxe)Gorillaz
ALBUMThe FallGorillaz
ALBUMPlastic Beach (Deluxe Version)Gorillaz
ALBUMDemon DaysGorillaz
ALBUMLaika Come HomeGorillaz & Space Monkeyz
ALBUMGorillazGorillaz
Gorillaz's Popular Music Videos
Clint Eastwood
Gorillaz
Stylo (feat. Mos Def and Bobby Womack)
Gorillaz
Feel Good Inc
Gorillaz
On Melancholy Hill
Gorillaz
Dare (feat. Shaun Ryder)
Gorillaz
Tranz
Gorillaz
Tormenta (feat. Bad Bunny) [Visualiser Video]
Gorillaz
Saturnz Barz (Spirit House)
Gorillaz
Dirty Harry
Gorillaz
19-2000
Gorillaz
Artist Playlists
Gorillaz Essentials
A cartoon prankster and a Britpop heartthrob take you on a genre-bending journey.
Gorillaz Video Essentials
Damon Albarn: The Zane Lowe Interview
Zane talks to Gorillaz co-founder Damon Albarn about their latest album, Cracker Island.
Artist Biography
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.
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.
Hometown
London, England
Genre
Alternative