If there was a lot of talk during the later months of 2009 that a new Gorillaz album was coming out soon, I had somehow missed out on all of it. At that time, I was 14, my sister had gone to university for her first year and my mum would usually be at work for some hours of the day during her shift. So I suddenly found myself having a lot of freedom at the house. And I spent that freedom watching more TV and spending more time playing video games. During the times when I was watching more television, the programme Soccer AM was on. That was a sport-comedy show that had guests and skits and focused on the great sport of football for two hours. Got cancelled a couple years ago. But it was during a “best goals in League [number I can’t recall]” montage on there that ‘Stylo’ played in the background, and I found out that Gorillaz had a new single and a new album coming soon after five years of waiting.

That album turned out to be Plastic Beach. I was gonna say, “We all know how I feel about this album.” It’s much more likely you all don’t know. It’s probably my favourite one by Damon Albarn and co. In my opinion, still the last great, great one they’ve done. Even though it was the first single, ‘Stylo’ has never reached the sort of popularity that their previous first singles received almost instantly. ‘On Melancholy Hill’ seems to be the number that did instead. But I’d be in ‘Stylo”s corner if time came that I had to defend it. Like some of the greatest Gorillaz tunes, the song relies on an unexpected collaboration of artists. The blend of hip-hop artist formerly known as Mos Def and legendary soul-man Bobby Womack is one that shouldn’t work on paper. But with Albarn tying it all together, it somehow does. How could you hold any negative feeling about the way Bobby Womack explodes into the track (“IF IT’S LOOOOVE, it’s electric”) or how Albarn delivers his soft, melodically ascending vocal? With Mos Def bookending it all with his verses as well? It’s a fine concoction.

All three artists respectively sing about completely different things, though mentions of ‘love’ and ‘electricity’ aid in threading their lyrical sections together. What the song’s about, I couldn’t tell you, but I’m sure it ties in with the whole anti-pollution/overpopulation themes the whole album was built around. The official music video for the song, featuring Bruce Willis of all people, wasn’t released until September 2010. That was eight months after the single’s initial release. I’d like to think that had the visuals been initially released alongside the song, it could have done so much better commercially. The song didn’t even chart over here in the UK, being only available to download digitally. It opens up a can of worms about that whole Plastic Beach era of the band. This fanmade documentary explains the time very well. It’s just the way things have to go sometimes. But despite all that, the music’s always been damn good. And ‘Stylo’ is a mark of that quality.