The idea for Gorillaz was inspired by the many cartoon bands that came before them in the 1960s such as the Banana Splits, the Archies, Josie and the Pussycats, and Alvin and the Chipmunks, and real bands with fictional stage personas like ABC (circa How to Be a ...
Zillionaire!) and Silicon Teens. Musical artists who have been influenced by Gorillaz include Major Lazer, Dethklok, Rat Boy, Chromeo, Flume, Foster the People, the 1975, 5 Seconds of Summer, Awolnation, Paramore, Grimes, Kesha, A.G.
Featuring "simple, mostly upbeat songs" and 1980s new wave influences, the album was noted for its distinctly small list of featured artists compared to previous Gorillaz work, with only two tracks featuring any outside artists (the album's lead single "Humility" featuring George Benson and "Hollywood" featuring Snoop Dogg and Jamie Principle).
They have also been nominated for 11 Brit Awards and won Best British Group at the 2018 Brit Awards. ==History== ===Creation (1990–1999)=== Musician Damon Albarn and comic artist Jamie Hewlett met in 1990 when guitarist Graham Coxon, a fan of Hewlett's work, asked him to interview Blur, which Albarn and Coxon had recently formed.
Despite this, Albarn and Hewlett started sharing a flat on Westbourne Grove in London in 1997.
Gorillaz are an English virtual band created in 1998 by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett.
The sessions resulted in the band's first release, the EP Tomorrow Comes Today, released on 27 November 2000.
Directed by Ceri Levy, the film documents the behind-the-scenes history of the band from 2000 to 2006. ===Plastic Beach and The Fall (2008–13)=== Albarn and Hewlett's next project together was the opera Journey to the West based on the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West, which premiered at the 2007 Manchester International Festival.
Humanz was also co-produced by Remi Kabaka Jr., a friend of Albarn's who had worked with him in the non-profit musical organization Africa Express and also has been the voice actor for the Gorillaz virtual band member Russel Hobbs since 2000.
Gorillaz’ primary visual influences include Hanna-Barbera, Looney Tunes, Mad magazine, The Simpsons, 2000 AD, and Métal hurlant (Heavy Metal).
The band's use of the internet and digital media for promotion as early as 2000 has been touched on in retrospective reviews for being ahead of its time.
The band's 2001 debut album Gorillaz, which featured dub and Latin 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".
And I have to say, some nights I just wanted to get a knife and just cut [the screen] and stick my head through." The album was followed by the B-sides compilation G-Sides released in December 2001. On 7 December 2001, the band released the single "911" a collaboration with hip hop group D12 (without Eminem) and singer Terry Hall of the Specials about the September 11 attacks.
At the 2002 Brit Awards the virtual members of Gorillaz "performed" for the first time, appearing in 3D animation on four large screens along with rap accompaniment by Phi Life Cypher, a production which reportedly cost £300,000 to create.
The band were nominated for four Brit Awards, including Best British Group, Best British Album and British Breakthrough Act, but did not win any awards. On 1 July 2002, a remix album titled Laika Come Home was released, containing most of the tracks from Gorillaz remixed in dub and reggae style by the DJ group Spacemonkeyz.
We said, fuck it, we'll sit on the idea until we can do it ourselves, and maybe even raise the money ourselves." ===Demon Days (2004–07)=== Albarn spent the majority of 2003 on tour with Blur in support of their newly released album Think Tank; however, upon completion of the tour, he decided to return to Gorillaz, reuniting with Hewlett to prepare for a second album.
It's what we're living in basically, the world in a state of night." Believing that the album needed "a slightly different approach" compared to the first album, Albarn enlisted American producer Brian Burton, better known by his stage name Danger Mouse, to produce the album, whom Albarn praised as "one of the best young producers in the world" after hearing his 2004 mashup album The Grey Album.
Hewlett explained that the duo chose to continue Gorillaz to prove that the project was not "a gimmick": "If you do it again, it's no longer a gimmick, and if it works then we've proved a point." The result was Demon Days, released on 11 May 2005.
The residency was later repeated in April 2006 at New York City's Apollo Theater and the Manchester performances were later released on DVD as Demon Days: Live at the Manchester Opera House. The virtual Gorillaz members "performed" at the 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2005 and again at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2006, appearing to perform on stage via Musion Eyeliner technology.
The residency was later repeated in April 2006 at New York City's Apollo Theater and the Manchester performances were later released on DVD as Demon Days: Live at the Manchester Opera House. The virtual Gorillaz members "performed" at the 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2005 and again at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2006, appearing to perform on stage via Musion Eyeliner technology.
Albarn and Hewlett explored the idea of producing a full "live holographic tour" featuring the virtual Gorillaz appearing on stage with Munsion Eyeliner technology after the Grammys performance, but the tour was ultimately never realised due to the tremendous expense and logistical issues that would have resulted. In October 2006, the band released the book Rise of the Ogre.
Directed by Ceri Levy, the film documents the behind-the-scenes history of the band from 2000 to 2006. ===Plastic Beach and The Fall (2008–13)=== Albarn and Hewlett's next project together was the opera Journey to the West based on the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West, which premiered at the 2007 Manchester International Festival.
A second B-sides compilation, D-Sides was released in November 2007, featuring B-sides and remixes associated with Demon Days as well as unreleased tracks from the sessions for the album.
Directed by Ceri Levy, the film documents the behind-the-scenes history of the band from 2000 to 2006. ===Plastic Beach and The Fall (2008–13)=== Albarn and Hewlett's next project together was the opera Journey to the West based on the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West, which premiered at the 2007 Manchester International Festival.
While not officially a Gorillaz project, Albarn mentioned in an interview that the project was "Gorillaz, really but we can't call it that for legal reasons." After completing work on Monkey in late 2007, Albarn and Hewlett began working on a new Gorillaz project entitled Carousel, described by Albarn as being about "the mystical aspects of Britain".
Hewlett described Carousel in a 2008 interview as "even bigger and more difficult than Monkey...
Albarn explained the expanded roster of featured artists represented his and Hewlett's new vision of Gorillaz as a project, explaining in a July 2008 interview that "Gorillaz now to us is not like four animated characters any more – it's more like an organisation of people doing new projects...
In April 2009, the documentary film Bananaz was released.
Their fourth album, The Fall (2010), was recorded on the road during the Escape to Plastic Beach Tour and released on 25 December 2010.
That's my ideal model." Released on 3 March 2010, Plastic Beach debuted at #2 on both the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200 chart, the band's highest placing debut chart position.
The album was supported by the lead single "Stylo" featuring Mos Def and Bobby Womack released in January 2010 and the later singles "On Melancholy Hill" and "Rhinestone Eyes".
On 21 November 2010, while still on tour, the band released the non-album single "Doncamatic" featuring British singer Daley. During the North American leg of the Escape to Plastic Beach tour in the fall of 2010, Albarn continued recording Gorillaz songs entirely on his iPad.
The recordings were later released as the album The Fall, first released digitally on Christmas Day 2010 and later given a physical release on 19 April 2011.
The recordings were later released as the album The Fall, first released digitally on Christmas Day 2010 and later given a physical release on 19 April 2011.
The song received positive reviews from critics, with particular praise given to André 3000's contributions to the track. In April 2012, Albarn told The Guardian that he and Hewlett had fallen out and that future Gorillaz projects were "unlikely".
It was one of those things, the music and the videos weren't working as well together, but I felt we'd made a really good record and I was into it." On 25 April 2012, in an interview with Metro, Albarn was more optimistic about Gorillaz' future, saying that once he had worked out his differences with Hewlett, he was sure that they would make another record.
In June 2013, Hewlett confirmed that he and Albarn planned to someday continue Gorillaz and record a follow-up album to Plastic Beach, saying "We'll come back to it when the time is right." ===Hiatus and Humanz (2014–17)=== Following the release of DoYaThing and the publicization of Albarn and Hewlett's fall-out in 2012, Gorillaz entered a multiyear hiatus.
In June 2013, Hewlett confirmed that he and Albarn planned to someday continue Gorillaz and record a follow-up album to Plastic Beach, saying "We'll come back to it when the time is right." ===Hiatus and Humanz (2014–17)=== Following the release of DoYaThing and the publicization of Albarn and Hewlett's fall-out in 2012, Gorillaz entered a multiyear hiatus.
While on tour in support of Everyday Robots in 2014, Albarn signaled openness to returning to Gorillaz, telling The National Post that he "wouldn't mind having another stab at a Gorillaz record." Two months later he reported that he had "been writing quite a lot of songs on the road for Gorillaz".
and at the end of 2014 confirmed in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald that he was planning to record another Gorillaz album.
Hewlett described the moment when he and Albarn agreed to continue Gorillaz at an afterparty after one of Albarn's solo shows in 2014: "We'd had a bit to drink, and he said, 'Do you want to do another one?' And I said, 'Do you?' and he said, 'Do you?' And I said, 'Yeah, sure.' I started work on it straight away, learning to draw the characters again.
I played around by myself for eight months while he was performing with Blur in 2015." Recording sessions for the band's fifth studio album Humanz began in late 2015 and continued through 2016, taking place in London, New York City, Paris and Jamaica.
became the producer for the band in 2016 after several years of providing the voice of Russel Hobbs and was listed as an official member alongside Albarn and Hewlett in the 2019 documentary Gorillaz: Reject False Icons. 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.
I played around by myself for eight months while he was performing with Blur in 2015." Recording sessions for the band's fifth studio album Humanz began in late 2015 and continued through 2016, taking place in London, New York City, Paris and Jamaica.
In conceptualizing the album, Albarn and Khan envisioned Humanz as being the soundtrack for "a party for the end of the world", with Albarn specifically imagining a future in which Donald Trump won the 2016 U.S.
The band's fifth album, Humanz, was released after a seven-year hiatus on 28 April 2017.
Speaking to The Guardian in April 2017, Hewlett explained: "Damon had half the Clash on stage, and Bobby Womack and Mos Def and De La Soul, and fucking Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and Bashy and everyone else.
The first track from the album released publicly was "Hallelujah Money" featuring Benjamin Clementine, released on 20 January 2017 with an accompanying video featuring Clementine.
While not an official single, Albarn explained that the band chose to release the track on the day of Trump's inauguration because "It was meant to be something sung at the imaginary inauguration of Donald Trump, which turned out to be the real inauguration of Donald Trump, so we released it because we had imagined that happening and it did happen." Humanz was released on 28 April 2017, the band's first new studio album in 7 years.
The Hewlett-directed music video for "Saturnz Barz" made use of YouTube's 360-degree video format and reportedly cost $800,000 to create. The band embarked on the Humanz Tour to support the album from the summer of 2017 to early 2018.
The tour was preceded by a handful of European warm-up shows, including the first Demon Dayz Festival held on 10 June 2017 at the Dreamland Margate theme park, a Gorillaz curated music festival which was later repeated in Los Angeles in October 2018.
The band later debuted a new song "Idaho", which was later included on the album, at a concert in Seattle on 30 September 2017 with Albarn saying it had been written in the days prior. During a break in the Humanz Tour in February 2018, Albarn returned to London where he worked with producer James Ford, known for his work with Arctic Monkeys and Florence and the Machine, and Kabaka Jr.
They have also been nominated for 11 Brit Awards and won Best British Group at the 2018 Brit Awards. ==History== ===Creation (1990–1999)=== Musician Damon Albarn and comic artist Jamie Hewlett met in 1990 when guitarist Graham Coxon, a fan of Hewlett's work, asked him to interview Blur, which Albarn and Coxon had recently formed.
The Hewlett-directed music video for "Saturnz Barz" made use of YouTube's 360-degree video format and reportedly cost $800,000 to create. The band embarked on the Humanz Tour to support the album from the summer of 2017 to early 2018.
The tour was preceded by a handful of European warm-up shows, including the first Demon Dayz Festival held on 10 June 2017 at the Dreamland Margate theme park, a Gorillaz curated music festival which was later repeated in Los Angeles in October 2018.
The band later debuted a new song "Idaho", which was later included on the album, at a concert in Seattle on 30 September 2017 with Albarn saying it had been written in the days prior. During a break in the Humanz Tour in February 2018, Albarn returned to London where he worked with producer James Ford, known for his work with Arctic Monkeys and Florence and the Machine, and Kabaka Jr.
to finish the newly written material, resulting in the band's sixth studio album The Now Now released on 29 June 2018.
It was a very organic thing." The band's remaining 2018 live dates were billed as The Now Now Tour to support the album, and included a performance in Tokyo on 22 June 2018 billed as "The Now Now World Premiere" in which the band played the full album live for the first and only time, a performance which was later broadcast by Boiler Room.
became the producer for the band in 2016 after several years of providing the voice of Russel Hobbs and was listed as an official member alongside Albarn and Hewlett in the 2019 documentary Gorillaz: Reject False Icons. 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.
On 16 December 2019, the documentary Gorillaz: Reject False Icons was screened worldwide on a one-day theatrical release.
was listed as an official member of the band (labeled as "A&R/Producer") alongside Albarn and Hewlett for the first time. ===Song Machine project (2020–present)=== On 29 January 2020, the band announced its new project, Song Machine.
Gorillaz also announced the title and tracklist for Strange Timez, released on 23 October 2020, featuring further guest appearances from Elton John, 6lack, JPEGMafia, Kano, Roxani Arias, Moonchild Sanelly and Chai, among others. On 1 October, the band released "The Pink Phantom", the seventh episode of Song Machine.
On 9 March 2021, Gorillaz uploaded an alternative version of the music video to their official YouTube channel, which does not feature any gameplay from Grand Theft Auto V. On 24 December, the band released "The Lost Chord", the ninth and final episode of the first season of Song Machine.
The track features British musician Leee John. On 26 March 2021, the band celebrated its debut album's 20th anniversary with oncoming reissues of their catalog and teases of non-fungible tokens; due to its impact on climate change, the latter was met with criticism by various sources and fans—some noting that the act contradicts the environmental themes of Plastic Beach.
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