DEEP DISCOG DIVE: Gorillaz

[Music] welcome back to the deep discount dive many thanks to all of you who voted in last month's poll I'll be running another one that ends on July 1st which you can find in the description and feel free to suggest other artists you'd like to see covered in the comments also a brief programming note the next long-form video or examining video is gonna be out in two weeks instead of by next week it's the biggest video I've done since the defining 2010 one in February and it just needs the extra time I was almost positive that Radiohead was gonna be the artist that we covered this month but it turns out there was a dark horse in the list well not a horse but a different kind of animal today we're talking about gorillas let's dive in gorillas is made up of 2d Murdoch Russell and noodle and no one else this particular dive poses an interesting challenge because gorillas aren't real I knew it it's actually the multimedia project of blur frontmen Damon Albarn and British comic animator Jamie Hewlett on the musical end the duo has released six main studio albums plus other assorted releases that I'll touch on briefly but the fictional band has an entire universe unto them one that covers multiple artistic disciplines so I'll be breaking this video up into sections not only based on the albums but also the phases of the fictional band's story I will try my best to give compact summaries of everything that happens but I'll also leave resources down below if you want to check those out too their origins are as old as time itself notorious hoodlum Murdock desperate for some kind of musical stardom tried to break into uncle norms organ and poor iam I'm sure you're all familiar by crashing his van into it in the process he drove directly into one of the workers Stuart pot denting one side of his head and putting him in a coma Murdock was then forced into community service and to take care of Stuart which he did by denting the other side of his head while trying to impress a girl and waking him from his coma friendship this also led to his nickname 2d meaning to debts after acquiring Kong studios as a home base Murdock recruited Russell Hobbs a New York native who possessed great talent in both percussion and hip-hop but who was also possessed by ghosts of his former musician friends who were all killed in a drive-by shooting finally the gang put an ad in NME for a guitarist and the very next day a box came to them containing an 8 year old girl with a Les Paul she stepped out played a riff to end all riffs and said one word noodle thus Gorillaz was born now in the real world Albarn and Hewlett met after Hewlett interviewed his band blur at the request of guitarist Graham Coxon hitting it off almost immediately the two soon moved in together Hewlett said that the inspiration for the band came from watching MTV together seeing how vapid the programming could be and wanting to create something that commented on it and so the first Gorillaz album produced by Dan the Automator released in March of 2001 maybe it's just because Albarn already had experience fronting one of the most beloved British bands of the 90s but this first gorillas record is solid the whole virtual band concept proved to be an effective way for all born and his collaborators to just go hog wild with genres and try everything from trip-hop to dance rock to standard hip hop to electronica any person who keeps the melodica alive in popular music deserves props even if it does sound a little dated by today's standards it's the kind of dated that reflects well on its time period if that makes sense it's like yes I do want to get the cool shoe shine but what do i do once I have it following this record there was also the East Side's collection G sides and a reggae dub remix album by space monkeys called like a come home they exist the band went on a tour to promote their new album and also tried to get a movie made that was ultimately cancelled in real life this was because Albarn and Hewlett didn't want to deal with Hollywood executives in the Gorillaz universe it was because everybody was doing drugs all the time because of that end Kong Studios closing down the band took a hiatus to D spend time working at his dad's amusement park Murdoch went to Mexico and got thrown in jail for passing faulty checks Russell was hiding out in Ike Turner's basement to avoid the grim reaper who had freed all of the ghosts within Russell's body finally someone let them out of their cage noodle reunited with her mentor dr. Caillou's Oh in Japan where she learned that she was a government super soldier whose memories were wiped and then brought back by the phrase ocean bacon she was the first to go back to the now monster infested Kong studios and she eventually got everyone else back together for their second studio album Hewlett said in an interview that one of the driving forces for making a second gorillas album was to show that the idea just wasn't a gimmick I think they proved it this time around the main producer was Danger Mouse who at the time was most known for the grey album I know people will have mixed feelings on him today but I still think this is his best producing work to date this has a far darker tone and even though it's not as diverse in its tambour as the first record was overall it leads to a more cohesive experience Albarn has said that Demon Days is supposed to be a guided tour through the nighttime with each track depicting a different demon not only is Albarn at the top of his game in terms of lyricism and songwriting but the guests here are all great I was legit excited when I first heard MF DOOM on November has come and of course De La Soul my first taste of this record was certainly not unique it was watching feelgood Inc on NTV to hear this song and see this video as a kid in 2005 was such an off-kilter experience it stood out so well among this and this and this is such a wonderfully unique song even today which is why I feel compelled to tell you there's a Kidz Bop version overall a stellar record front-to-back they are definitely not a gimmick at this point also just like the first record there was an accompanying 'besides collection called D sides the first half is all b-sides the second half is all remixes a Hong Kong is great as is the DFA remix of dare otherwise it's not crucial to enjoying their work by the end of Diamond Aizaz press cycle noodle was thinking of leaving the band for a bit and she eventually decided to leave after they finished the filming for the music video for El manana during this scene when windmill island is attacked noodle was supposed to jump off with a parachute however the island fell without sight of her escaping and among the ruins was an unused parachute but no noodle this event and noodles general disappearance spurred another hiatus for the band during this interim Murdock went Murdock around the world and as was his want he got into trouble with a band of pirates called the black clouds he decided to burn down Kong studios cash out the insurance money and flee the country he eventually came across an island that was entirely comprised of landfill which he spray-painted pink notes a new gorillaz HQ on top of and renamed Plastic Beach from there he tried to recruit the other band members back with varying degrees of success noodle still couldn't be found anywhere but Murdock was able to create a cyborg noodle based on a sample of her DNA from the crash he also had newcomer the boogie man kidnapped 2d who is hiding out in Beirut and finally Russel had basically disappeared off the face of the earth so Murdock just replaced him with a drum machine sad the music videos at the time also depict the band members travelling to Plastic Beach Murdock 2d and cyborg noodle driving through the desert and narrowly escaping Bruce Willis as far as I'm aware he does not have an in-universe name he just I guess Bruce Willis just hates gorillas we eventually learned that noodle had been hiding on a cruise ship that was attacked by the black clouds in addition Russell had been swimming all the way from some undisclosed location to Plastic Beach he's also massive as a result of eating too much ocean waste no matter how you slice it the band was back together again on Plastic Beach [Music] [Applause] well this is certainly a sonic shift from demon days instead of the moodier sound that Danger Mouse brought the palette here consists of sounds that are bright synthetic even you know spite the chipper Sonic's though the lyrics often delve into our treatment of the environment both by individual and corporation it also reflects the most worldly group of collaborators Albarn has amassed yet Snoop Dog little dragon the late Lou Reed mos def Bobby Womack at the hypnotic brass ensemble and the National Orchestra for Arabic music yet even with all these guests Albarn still finds ways to shine on his own specifically on standouts on melancholy Hill and broken this record also has my favorite three song stretch of any guerrillas record with stylo superfast jellyfish and empire ants with that build unlike not it's so good from I'd POV Plastic Beach is the band's peak as a vessel for artist collaboration with al burns presents more in the background the setup for the Plastic Beach tour was that 2d Murdock and cyborgs noodle were all ready to go out and play on stage but oh no they got locked in their dressing room I guess the touring band is just gonna have to go out and play instead for every single show during this forced downtime 2d got to writing songs on his iPad the resulting collection of songs was initially available for free on the band's website in 2010 but was then made its own purchasable album in April 2011 many people out there consider the fall to be a mainline Gorillaz album and I don't know why it's basically just a bunch of songs that Damon Albarn wrote on his iPad while he was touring for Plastic Beach that doesn't mean it's bad it's perfectly acceptable and it has one of my all-time favorite guerrilla songs in revolving doors though I'm also biased because that was one of the first riffs I ever learned on ukulele it just feels slight after Plastic Beach a bunch of enjoyable musical experiments but nothing essential their output immediately following the fall and touring was small there was the greatest hits collection the singles collection but the real star of the show is do you thing okay so back in 2010's converse used to put out these singles where three artists would collab the last one they ever put out was a track with gorillas James Murphy from LCD soundsystem and Andre 3000 it is and I mean this with no hyperbole one of the best things all three of them have ever done nowhere especially the 13 minute extended cut which hoo boy I won't spoil it for you but it is so worth checking out as a musician Albarn certainly kept busy there was his underrated solo record his reunion with blur he even produced the late Bobby Womack's last album which was really good there was also a brief period where Albarn and Hewlett had a falling out due to Hewlett believing that his artworks role in the band was starting to take a backseat by around 2013 their rift had been fixed and the two of them got to work on the next Gorillaz album this break in the Gorillaz universe is a big convoluted since it involves retconning basically there was a big battle on Plastic Beach which led each member to go their separate ways the initial explanation was that Murdock ended up in Hawaii and started his own radio show to commemorate the band's tenth anniversary everyone else found him at some point and then they all started living together in London which is depicted in the do you think video however most of that was deemed non canonical once the rollout for their fifth album started in this new timeline Murdock in cyborgs noodle escaped the island but were caught by EMI Murdock was then thrown into jail underneath Abbey Road Studios I'm sure you're all familiar and forced to make a new album everyone else had their own little escapades which were detailed in Twitter threads noodle spent time in Japan as a pearl diver and at the battle an ancient demon Russell was shown off in North Korea as their Godzilla until he returned to normal size and 2d was swallowed by a whale and got stranded in Mexico until Murdoch found him so the gangs back together after their longest break to date what do they got the first track they released after their hiatus was hallelujah money weird choice guys they followed that up with six more singles with the release of humans in April 2017 how abarnes vision for this album was a dance party to soundtrack the apocalypse which was inspired by the political and cultural climate of early 2016 any good party needs guests and boy are there guests of plenty on this thing if you are listening to any prominent artists between 2013 and 2017 and thought to yourself man they would work really well on a gorilla's track chances are they're on here Vince staples Pusha T any Brown pop can a lost soul returning and so many more this emphasis on guests means that Albarn gets pushed back a fair bit there's only one track on here that doesn't have any guests so as a bright off-the-wall dance party album this works fairly well as a cohesive album though less so when the album skews closer to the end of the world party idea like on Ascension submission let me out even hallelujah money in the context of the album it pays off but then there are tracks that sound too artificial or that have a really shoehorned positive message like we got the power even though it does feature former Britpop rival no Gallagher so that's a nice touch overall I still come back to some tracks occasionally but I don't listen to the full thing that much these days one last side note cuz I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to bring this up again I'm like 95% sure that ascension samples the oh yeah mr. krabs vine well you can live your dreams following a huge tour and a music festival of their own the band won Best British band at the 2018 Brits during the acceptance speech Murdock was arrested for an unknown crime my favorite kind despite losing their precious Murdock the band decided to release another album that year they found a new bass player in Ace and if you're wondering why ace looks really familiar have you ever watched Powerpuff Girls meanwhile Murdock hatched a plan to escape from jail find the demon crime lord that framed him Almeida and clear his name he managed to rope in noodle to help who believed that this same devil had taken 2ds soul the rest of the journey involved Murdock nearly drowning in sewage a health spa and a yak named Madge Point is noodle found out that Elmyra had given up crime years ago Murdock lied about most of the situation and Toodee had been acting differently because Murdock wasn't around to bully him the two then rejoined the band for the tour behind their most recent full-length album on the guerrilla spectrum humans is at one end and the now now is all the way at the other it's laid back it's more focused on grooves and there are only two tracks on here that have guests it's a nice breezy record but I feel like a hypocrite for saying this I wish there were more guests or even just more variation in the instrumentation like I said it's enjoyable but it also tends to stick in its Lane more so than any other gorillas record still I think it's aged well like a more fulfilling version of the fall I will go to bat any day for tracks like humility and Lake Zurich it's weird because there's a part of me that wants to say that there's a great album to be found by mashing the best bits of humans and the nownow together but they're also such different projects that I feel like in practice the result would be really disjointed and messy I don't know I'm glad they both exist I'll end this dive by bringing up their song machine series about every month is here they've released a new song and music video and may featured artists like slow tie Skepta and Peter Hook from new order and all the songs are really good my favorite being désolée I don't know if they have plans to combine them into some album by the time it's done but it's still worth checking out if you enjoy the band in any capacity and as it turns out it's really easy to enjoy this band between Hewlett's iconic artwork Albarn songwriting and the cavalcade of contributors Gorillaz has done some incredible work even if they don't fully succeed every time their efforts are always a joy if you want to get into their work I highly recommend both the Demon Days and Plastic Beach and then go from there depending on which one you enjoy more again the link to vote in the next dive is in the description and feel free to leave other artists suggestions or your favorite guerrilla songs or albums in the comments below oh it looks like Shawn Ryder's about to say another word so see you next time [Music] [Applause] [Music] haha

Channel: Mic The Snare

Views: 119,504

Rating: 4.966938 out of 5

Keywords: micthesnare, mic the snare, music analysis, video essay, gorillaz, damon albarn, demon days, feel good inc, plastic beach, stylo, clint eastwood, 19-2000, tomorrow comes today, humanz, ascension, saturnz barz, the now now, humility, tranz, song machine, desole, the fall, revolving doors, full album, review, reaction, dare, Friday 13th, octavian

Id: hiiDBDLyMxc

Length: 17min 30sec (1050 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 08 2020

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