Tag Archives: gorillaz

My iPod #363: Gorillaz – Feel Good Inc.

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Yeeaaaahh. I remember seeing the video for “Feel Good Inc.” when it was an exclusive, brand new, never before seen thing getting its debut on music television. Nine years later, people know it as being Gorillaz’s signature track (either that or “Clint Eastwood“) but even then, at the age of ten, I knew Gorillaz was onto something.

2D, Noodle, Murdoc & Russell were looking better and more badass than before. One thing that was clearly noticeable was the improvement in animation. Four years gives you a lot of time to get shit done. But the track was so funky and dark with that phat, iconic bassline and manic laughter provided by Maseo of De La Soul. I liked it, my sister liked it. Every time the video ended on TV, we waited for the coming of the next hour so we could see it again. We searched on the ‘Windows Media Guide’ on the Windows Media Player to try and find an mp3 of the thing we thought it was the shit. This was the best ‘new’ song that I had heard for a very long time. The song would be played everywhere – it featured on an iPod advert, the group performed it on stage at 2005 EMA Awards… this was really the song of the year.

The track comes in around the middle of “Demon Days” fading in from the children’s laughter from the previous track. 2D wants us to feel good and also sings about a magical windmill in the chorus, Murdoc plays that bass, Russell provides the solid drum beat and De La Soul (well, Dave from the hip hop trio) come in for the killer rap bridge, sounding very grimy and intimidating. The video reinforces this. Witness 2D’s suffering when the rapping starts. It’s brutal.

And it still sounds as good today as it did then. Almost a decade, Dios Mío.

If you haven’t heard the song before….. where have you been? Under a rock? In a cave? I joke. You’ve heard it. You know you have.

My iPod #323: Gorillaz ft. Little Dragon – Empire Ants

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“Plastic Beach” was a big deal in 2010. It was Gorillaz’s comeback after a five year disappearance after “Demon Days”, and the commotion for its arrival began once the first single “Stylo” featuring the late Bobby Womack and Mos Def in January of that year. You got the sense that something big was coming. It eventually did in March with sixteen tracks (and a few others if you ordered on iTunes or live in Japan) and a great amount of guests varying from Snoop Dogg to Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of The Clash. “Plastic Beach” was good. It still is. Probably my favourite album of the group.

“Empire Ants” comes from that album and features the vocals of Yukimi Nagano, singer from the Swedish electronic band Little Dragon. Now before I actually heard “Plastic Beach” in full, I decided to go online to YouTube and search it for a reason that I can’t think of thinking about it now. But when I did, there was this guy who had heard it (the channel was GD Entertainment or something like that; the channel’s gone now) reviewed each track and noted “Empire Ants” as being one of the album’s highlights.

Why was that? Just because it does one of those things where it sends the listener in one direction for about half of its duration before taking a sudden turn and going down a different route…. like “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac or “2+2=5” by Radiohead. For the first half, Damon Albarn sings about the joy of the taking pleasure in the sun’s arrival amongst a wave of calming noises and acoustic guitar. Very beautiful. It’s the perfect type of music to listen on a beach, gazing at the sea as the sun sets. Then a disturbing, almost distorted synthesizer signifies the abrupt change where the funky beat kicks in and Nagano takes over on the singing. At this point the red sky as drastically turned black, the stars are shooting across the sky and the tidal waves are coming in. The whole song is sick, but that second half is too much.

My iPod #314: Gorillaz – El Mañana

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“El Mañana” was the last single released from Gorillaz’s second album “Demon Days”. It was a double-A single released alongside the other song “Kids with Guns“, which I don’t have on my iPod because I don’t care for it that much.

I’ve always thought “Demon Days” was some sort of concept album detailing a story of the final days on Earth before the apocalypse. “El Mañana” coming from the perspective of a person who has actually witnessed ‘the end’ (in their mind, obviously) and has been reduced to a shivering mess because of it.

I first heard the song on the Yahoo Internet radio thing that I’ve mentioned in a lot of posts before. I thought it was alright. Didn’t really matter that much because I was just absorbing what I was listening to. I would go on to find out that it is probably the most emotional song on the whole album. But still, at that point, it was just a track. Three minutes and a half of Damon Albarn singing.

Then its official music video came out a few months later….. that’s when it really hit home. The dramatic music set up against helicopters shooting down Noodle’s peaceful windmill island out of the sky….. I know it is only a cartoon, but it is very difficult to contain the feels when watching that music video. Then all Gorillaz fans wondered if she had died, and if so what would happen to the group. All of this takes up about half of the page on the song’s Wikipedia article, so you can read about it all there.

Long story short: Noodle didn’t die. But listening to “El Mañana” takes me back when most Gorillaz fans thought “wh-what the fuck is happening?” Including myself.

My iPod #278: Gorillaz – Dirty Harry

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Woop woop, hi everyone. Can you tell I am in a good mood? Only because the football team I’ve supported for about twelve years has made it to the final of a tournament, and actually have a chance of winning their first piece of silverware in nine years. It has been a long wait, but it has never stopped me dreaming.

Still, I have a song to write about. It’s “Dirty Harry”, another reference to Clint Eastwood, the song and third single from “Demon Days” by the cartoon group Gorillaz. The video for the track was another that premiered in the very early hours of a morning in 2005; I watched it, but I had a very hard time remembering the melody because I was almost half asleep whilst viewing it. It got its airtime on every music channel but failed to reach number one in the charts like “Feel Good Inc.” or “DARE“, and peaked at number six. That’s not that bad either, considering interest for “Demon Days” had not diminished in any way at the time.

“Dirty Harry” was actually released a few years earlier albeit in a more minimal, and unfinished manner. This time, the song was risen to a higher pedestal thanks to the addition of a children’s choir and a rap by Bootie Brown, rapper from hip-hop group The Pharcyde.

Simply it is a funky and upbeat song about a very serious matter, which ends with maniacal laughter and segues into the next track…. you all know that one.

Yeah, give it a listen why don’t you.

My iPod #193: Gorillaz – Clint Eastwood

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Hi everybody.

Just came back from my presentation evening where all my former colleagues and I received our A-Level certificates. It was really nice. I was dreading going to my old school – just because, well…. it’s kinda crappy. But seeing all my friends and catching up was cool. All in all, a good night was had.

That is why today’s post has come quite later than usual. It’s “Clint Eastwood” by Gorillaz, their first…. let’s say ‘proper’ single ever. You may also know it as the ‘Sunshine in a Bag’ song? Ring a bell?

I can barely remember actually being five/six and seeing this on the TV. Just about. But it’s one of those tracks you’ve heard in an advert, or one which your friends mentions in passing and you instantly know what they are talking about.

The music video did leave me confused on whether Noodle was a boy or a girl. I later found out that she was indeed female, but I do not know how her design in this video was meant to show that.

The track also features Del the Funky Homosapien, the rapper with the song in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3. He and Damon Albarn collaborated quite a bit during the early years of the last decade.