Damon Albarn is Q magazine's 4th greatest front man of all time

Via Gorillaz-Unofficial, go over there to read the article. Liam Gallagher got first place...no comment.

Party Fears Two

Scotland represent. Dundee, city of marmalade... and the Associates. Shrieking brilliance.

Single of the week: The Radio Dept. "Heaven's On Fire"

Yeah, I know, I don't do a "single of the week". However, if I did, this would be this week's offering. Sweden's The Radio Dept. have had a new album brewing for quite a while. Clinging To A Scheme should hopefully be out some time in April on Labrador Records. This new single Heaven's On Fire is off the album, and is a masterpiece of jangle-pop. You can download the single free from their website.
theradiodept.com

Sweden. Always with the cool bands and furniture.

Damon Albarn's 42, but will he ever outgrow those hats?

Wait, if Damon's turning 42 today that makes me...GASP...oh my GOD. Eveyone's old. Damon's old, I'm old. These hats never get old.

Gorillaz rehearsal in Portsmouth: Dressed to kill, like The Adventures of Portand Bill

More videos from edd345 here

Paul and Mick dressed the part, ahoy mateys. Yes, all this just to practice for the intimate Coachella show they're performing just for me. Jim fixed it for me to have a private Gorillaz show in a polo field in the desert (didn't you know?) Some people keep saying it's a whole "festival" or some-such nonsense...idiots.

Anyway shipmates, there's no youtube videos yet of the new songs being performed. Once I scan the globe for them (read: Search youtube lazily when I remember) I'll add them to this little island of a blog that only I read.

[youtube]
[gorillaz-unofficial]

Saturday Come Slow music video: Massive Attack feat. Damon Albarn

Perhaps the most harrowing part of Saturday Come Slow is the desperation you feel in Damon Albarn's voice. The lyrics are pretty benign, but paired with the pain implied in his voice it becomes entirely sorrowful. The video for the song matches this sorrow with an almost mini-documentary about the torture tactics employed at Abu Ghraib. A victim discusses his awful experiences at the hands of US interrogators using loud music as a form of torture. Meanwhile, the track is distorted to show the damaging effects.
Sorry, no snark here, just a pretty powerful track made even more so by another insightful video from Massive Attack.

See it at Feeder.ro

[Pitchfork]
[Feeder]

Has Murdoc been thieving? Boyzone certainly have.

WHY CAN'T WE LET GORILLAZ BE GREAT!?!?
No but seriously, last week began triumphantly with the Plastic Beach release, being number one in the midweek charts, generally brilliant reviews...and now?

They've been accused of plagiarizing Stylo from Eddy Grant, and Boyzone have stolen the top spot on the UK album charts!

OK Boyzone, one of you died. Fair play. There's really no way to beat the cache of a dead band member when it comes to the sentimentality of the UK album buying public. Just last year, a sad sack, abomination of a compilation album, Time To say Goodbye got to number 15 in the Tesco album charts (yes, people buy their albums at Tesco's now). Lame. It seems that British reality star Jade Goody's death needed a soundtrack, and my god did it get a rubbish one. So yeah, sentimentality will always win in Britain, and a "dead" cartoon character brought back as a robot just doesn't register high enough on the sympathy scale. Seriously, if you ever want to make a quick buck (pound) just release a version of Hallelujah after a high profile celebrity death in the UK and you're golden.
Sorry Gorillaz, better luck next time. Maybe try a posthumous greatest hits release; with a heart warming cover of "Fields of Gold" by Noodle and Susan Boyle.

OK so the plagiarism. No. No. No. Nopers.
Yes the songs sound similar in style and intent, and well, the beginning is pretty close, but I think using the same pre-fab Casio beats is not grounds for plagiarism. Sorry Eddy, it's a no-go. Maybe if they'd ripped off your Princess Diana memorial duet performed with Stephen Gately using the same technology that allowed Celine Dion to perform with Elvis you'd get some sympathy from the Brits.



[Popjustice]
[NME]
[Gorillaz-Unofficial]

Does this mean I have to like the NME again?

If Damon's back to mugging for the NME can we get more of this:
(I'd also like the free Suede flexidisc too)

Ugh, the fact that this was 16 years ago makes me feel sick. I'm old. In my day, the NME was printed on newsprint kiddies...

Do you think 1994 Damon would believe us if we told him he'd be in a cartoon band?

"Oi, 1994 Damon, I've come from the fuuuuture. Don't worry about that Stone Roses single, it was Love Spreads and it sucked, yeah Second Coming also sucked...Britpop's gonna be huge! Um, but, Blur never get that big in America except for one song they play at football games, yeah sorry... Oh, but you will make weird hip-hop influenced albums with a cartoon band. Yeah, um, no we won't need you to wistfully look out to sea with your t-shirt riding up... Nobody sees you in this band. Yes it does become big in America...but you'll have to share NME covers with a caaaartooooon."

2010, Year of Glam.

I just had a chance to listen to the new Groove Armada album, Black Light, and it's got a decidedly glam rock (and dare I say it, Disco) feel. Pair this with the new album from Gorillaz (I'm sure you've heard of them) and I think we've got the cultural references for 2010 sorted.
Welcome to 1974.
Bryan Ferry even makes an appearance on Black Light, just in case the influence of Roxy Music on the album wasn't clear enough. I, for one, am thrilled. I think it's high time that we got on this nostalgia trip.

Mark Linkous.

My favorite review of Plastic Beach...

Alexis Petridis' review of Plastic Beach reads almost as if he somehow telepathically read my mind, and made what I was thinking coherent; using language, sentences, and proper grammar. I think Alexis Petridis should be the ghost writer of my opinions from now on.
He brilliantly describes exactly how I'm feeling about Gorillaz:

"Never quite as hilarious as its creators thought it was, the conceit about Gorillaz's records being made by a quartet of cartoon figures is beginning to look exhausted. "I'm so fucking bored of drawing those characters," protested Albarn's creative partner, artist Jamie Hewlett, recently, and indeed, seeing it dragged out over eight pages of a recent edition of a rock magazine, it's hard not to concur: journalist drugged and kidnapped by bandleader Murdoc; album funded by arms-dealing to third world dictators and recorded on a floating island made up of the world's rubbish; one member replaced by a robot. Jesus, give it a rest, will you?"

You know what? As sacrilegious as it may seem, I am a bit over the cartoon character shtick. It seems almost too much, a bit overwhelming. Especially for someone who occasionally likes to blog about every single thing Damon Albarn does in detail. I love this album, but I don't really care one bit if Noodle is a robot or not. I think that's what made Monkey: Journey To The West so cool. Jamie got to explore his creativity just as much as Damon did. It seems that with Gorillaz, Damon gets to reinvent and innovate as much as he wants, but poor Jamie is stuck in some sort of groundhog day nightmare; having to draw Murdoc ad infinitum.

It's not all negative, in fact Alexis' review is as glowing as one could ever hope for. His take on the 90's britpop war between Blur and Oasis should be the definitive description of what went down, it's so funny...and so true:

"If you favoured Oasis during the Battle of Britpop, it's also hard not to suffer a pang of regret: you feel a bit stupid, like an early-70s record buyer who somehow came to conclusion that Showaddywaddy were better than Roxy Music."

Brilliant. Ha! That's exactly it. Thankfully, I was always on team Blur, which left me a bit lonely as all my friends were team Oasis and would belt out "Wonderwall" on the recreation field. Meanwhile, I was etching the lyrics to "For Tomorrow" on the bottom of my Tintin pencil tin. Yeah, I think we can see who was cooler in retrospect... me, right?

Talking about Roxy Music, I think the one glaring omission from Plastic Beach's roster of big name guests is Bryan Ferry. Come on, he would've fit right in. Damon did get the one person who might be just as grumpy, Lou Reed to grouch all over "Some Kind of Nature". Alexis' description of that anomaly is spot on too:

"You can't help but be impressed by Albarn's apparently limitless powers of persuasion, given that he's also somehow managed to get Lou Reed to add his ornery tones to a jaunty piano-plonking bit of whimsy called Some Kind of Nature. The effect is deeply incongruous, like Robert Mugabe turning up on an episode of Big Cook Little Cook and making a dragon out of a croissant."

Plastic Beach is weird, fantastic, wonky pop. Damon is the master. We should all bow down to his brilliance. Alexis agrees:

"That said, what is here does enough to underline the fact that Albarn is the only artist from the whole Britpop imbroglio to whom you could attach the word genius without causing widespread mocking laughter. He's certainly the only one with this kind of kaleidoscopic musical ambition. At one extreme, there's Empire Ants, which opens with a gently pattering drum machine and one of Albarn's languidly melancholy melodies, then unexpectedly explodes into glittery disco. At the other, there's Sweepstakes, spectacularly off-kilter, brass-powered hip hop featuring Mos Def."

Alexis gives the album 4/5. I would say it should get...oh, I don't know 6/5. But I'm not given to objectivity where Damon is involved.

Read the entire review, get involved, leave a nice comment.

[Guardian]

Murdoc: Gorillaz will "Raze Coachella to the ground"

The Gorillaz Camaro is at full speed, with the album set to drop in less than a week here in magic America. It's a special treat for us Gorillaz fans in the US, be it pasty British ex-pats like myself, or actual brilliant Americans. We were painfully shunned by Blur last year. This year we get our Damon Albarn fueled comeuppance; we get to see Murdoc, "Noodle", 2D (and Russel?) FIRST! Yeah, firsties. Suck it Europe and Japan.
In an interview with The Independent Murdoc Niccals; erstwhile metalhead, Gorillaz leader, and badass bass player, hints at the mind-blowing Californian show to come...

Actually it's funny because I was just thinking about this big concert I'm planning and all the espionage going on around it.

I'm not really prone to excitement, due to all the medication and everything, but this is really something! Something unbelievable. Something that we may even tour until we're skeletons...

We're doing Coachella, this fantastic festival in Palm Springs, near Los Angeles. Great golfing round there. It's like a big hot car park in the middle of the desert. And we've drafted in a whole slurry of big-name guest-stars, so check check check it out. 19 April. 2010. We're going to raze it to the ground.

(FYI, Gorillaz actually play April 18th.)

[independent]

Why is Bruce Willis trying to kill Gorillaz?

Mark E. Smith: Gorillaz-ar styl-arrrr

blurscans via Gorillaz-unofficial

The first listen verdict of Plastic Beach

It's the most Damon Albarn-y thing you've ever heard, the lack of an outside producer has preserved his quirky genius in its original rambling form. A mess of brilliance.








1. "Orchestral Intro" (featuring sinfonia ViVA)
- An Orchestral Intro, yes
2. "Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach" (featuring Snoop Dogg and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble)
- Wish this was longer. I didn't think I'd love the Snoop track this much. The lazy beat is amazing... one of my faves.
3. "White Flag" (featuring Kano, Bashy and The Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music)
- Aww, bless Bashy and Kano. I love the Lebanese Orchestra with GRIME. Needs some 2D
4. "Rhinestone Eyes"
- Perhaps one of the greatest Gorillaz tracks ever? I can see this launching 1,000 remixes right now...
5. "Stylo" (featuring Bobby Womack and Mos Def)
- 70's/80's electro tastic.
6. "Superfast Jellyfish" (featuring Gruff Rhys and De La Soul)
- Yo Gabba Gabba ready...
7. "Empire Ants" (featuring Little Dragon)
- All the Little Dragon tracks are sooo pretty, Damon sounds great, and oh, THE END!
8. "Glitter Freeze" (featuring Mark E. Smith)
- It's like Gary Glitter and Muse remade the Dr. Who theme and Mark E. Smith angrily wandered into the studio. Glam Rock City. EPIC.
9. "Some Kind of Nature" (featuring Lou Reed)
- Lou, 2D, pretty, piano, love. Most like Gorillaz of yore.
10. "On Melancholy Hill"
- Lovely. Not sure about the weird guitar shredding softly in the background...
11. "Broken"
- Just like the demo. Nice. Damon belts it out.
12. "Sweepstakes" (featuring Mos Def and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble)
- Cacophony plus Mos Def = A song you'll learn to love. The end gets all crunchy
13. "Plastic Beach" (featuring Mick Jones and Paul Simonon)
- Spaghetti Western beginning, 2D and Mick Jones harmonic ending.
14. "To Binge" (featuring Little Dragon)
- Another lovely Little Dragon one. Britpoppy.
15. "Cloud of Unknowing" (featuring Bobby Womack and sinfonia ViVA)
- Amazing left turn, Bobby is the man.
16. "Pirate Jet"
-70's glammy genius

NPR Exclusive First Listen: Gorillaz Plastic Beach in its entirety!

Oh no, I pressed play without getting settled, I don't have a lemonade, or a comfy beach chair in the shade! Must pause it to get my Plastic Beach listening party together...
Exciting-

NPR Exclusive First Listen: Gorillaz Plastic Beach