Gorillaz

One Liner: Damon Albarn's rap-centric cartoon electronic experiment
Wikipedia Genre: Alternative rock, electronica, trip hop, alternative hip hop, rap rock
Spotify Says Similar To: Blur and Damon Albarn (and then the Avalanches and Ratatat)
Home: Essex, England

Poster Position: 1
Slot: Sunday, ?

Thoughts:  You probably know Gorillaz, but you might not remember it.  I just had a conversation around the pool with a friend who had no clue who they were, but as soon as I sang a few bars of their hits, some of it rang a bell.  I'll give you a pretty true to life re-cap of our conversation.

Jack: "Yeah, man, uh, OK, remember the one that is like 'FEEL GOOD *bow wacka bow wow wow wooooow!* FEEL GOOD'"

Guy: "oh, yeah!  That song is good!"
Jack: "yeah!  And De La Soul sound tight on that track, its a great, funky bass line and rap track, with the cool interlude in the middle about the windowsill.  Great song.  199 million streams!"
Guy: "right.  Weird you know so many facts about that song." Jack: "Oh, and how about the one that is like 'loooocoooocoooocoooo,' *very slow, dreary voice* 'I ain't happy, I'm feeling glad, I got sun shine, in a bag'"

Guy: "oh yeah, I remember that one too."
Jack: "yeah!  That one is called "Clint Eastwood" and is weird, but pretty catchy, and the raps from Del That Funky Homosapien are pretty solid too. 122 million streams for that one. Come to think of it, are all of their songs rap?"
Guy: "I dunno, how do you just know the stream counts for songs?"
Jack: "And how about the one that is like 'BOW, DUWABA Knee NO, BOW, DUWABA Knee NO, the world is spinning too fast, I got lead Nike shoes,' and then like has a chorus that just kinda goes 'diiiiddoooobaa' a bunch before a girl says to 'get the cool shoeshine'?"

Guy: "uh, wut?  Did you just make that up?"
Jack: "no way!  That is "19-2000," from their first album, and it has a cool video and a good groove.  Only 20.9 million streams though, so maybe it makes sense you don't remember it. Maybe only I loved it.  Nope, its the most popular track from that first album after "Clint Eastwood.""

And then I sat there for about ten seconds and went, huh, I guess they don't have that many big hits.  I think of Gorillaz as being massive, but that might just be because Blur was so massive, and so people slide some of the shine from Damon Albarn (lead singer of both Blur and Gorillaz) over to this band. I don't know.  Well, I guess if you have a track with almost 200 million streams and you aren't Drake, then yes, you are massive.  But it is surprising how few real hits they have.  If you look at their awards on Wikipedia, all of them are about "Feel Good, Inc." and "Clint Eastwood," or whole albums, or videos.  Looking at their singles, the ones with certifications are only those two, plus "19-2000," "Rock the House," "DARE," and "Dirty Harry."
But the "band" is made up of cartoon characters with cool names (which you can see in the second video above) of 2-D, Murdoc, Russel, and Noodle.  Their first album was a big hit, and took some of the pop brains of Blur's sound and then scrubbed it through the hip hop strainer to create very cool, beat heavy tracks that are generally rapped over by guest rappers.  And since then, they've gone progressively more electronic and less Blur-ish, but have stuck to the plan of using guest vocalists and rappers to make their tunes.

I had to drive a few hours up to north Texas yesterday for work, and I took the time then to listen to their new album, Humanz, several times without interruption.  My opinion?  It is pretty terrible.  I hate to say it, as I've thought that Demon Days is great for a long time, and thought that Plastic Beach was good in bits, but this album is not good.  The beats/tunes themselves are uninspired and kind of boring, and while some of the cameos are cool (Pusha T with Mavis Staples), a lot of them add nothing at all to the song other than initial interest to hear what Grace Jones is going to do, but then disappointment when the answer is nothing of note.  Probably the worst, just because of how good they are on "Feel Good, Inc." is the De La Soul track called "Moments," which just thumps as loud as it can without any soul or pleasure.

I always try to avoid reading other people's reviews of stuff before I listen and write, just so I can have my own ideas and comparisons and whatnot.  So after writing the above, I went to see what others had said about Humanz.

• Pitchfork - 6.9 (out of ten) - "No matter the rotating cast, Gorillaz tracks come in a few basic colors and flavors: A stew of fat drums, gloomy synth patches, crooned and muttered hooks from Albarn in the background. With this reliable frame, every guest ends up smeared with Gorillaz makeup and bearing a whiff of Suicide Squad-style corporate menace."
• Spin - "For all the talk paid to how Humanz is Gorillaz’s dance album, the beats generally don’t quite scan as such. De La Soul return, but rather than deliver “Feel Good Inc. Pt. II,” “Momentz” is a low point for the storied trio and cartoon band both, their Auto-Tuned vocals and Dance Dance Revolution backdrop making for a forgettable moment."
• Rolling Stone - 3.5 stars - "This mix-and-match mob is never dull, but it yields magic just intermittently. When it does, however, it's something to behold."

So it sounds like they liked bits, but not others.  Fair enough.  I don't expect to listen to that album ever again.

But, this brings me to a question - how do they do this live?  They are cartoons, playing electronic music with 80 guest vocalists.  Is it pretty much a DJ show?  Do they ship in all of these guests vocalists (or any of them)?  So here they are from a 2017 show, let's see:

Takes a while to kick in, so go to 2:50 and you can see them play the first track off of their new album, "Ascension."  It looks like they kind of do a hybrid, they play the track of the rapper and beat (with Vince Staples in the background on a video screen as though he is really there), but then they just layer over some real drums and Albarn's lyrics and some bits of other live instruments.  But then the second track has the singer from the album (I suppose, sounds like him) there to sing his parts live.  That track, "Strobelite," is even better in that live format with real instruments than on the album version.  In fact, this is a performance of most of their songs from the new album, so you can try the tunes out there, live, and I think they are quite a bit better sounding that on the album.  Even saying that, I made it about 30 minutes in before I had to turn it off, just annoying sounding at times.

So, despite the fact that when I heard they were coming to the fest I was pumped up, I kind of doubt that I would chose them over any of the other top headliners  (except Garrix), so I likely won't go see them play.  Now that they've been announced as up against The Killers, I'll probably just go see Run the Jewels on Sunday night and then stay at whatever stage has that show to see either Gorillaz or Killers.