Ever since its inception in 1998, the virtual band Gorillaz has been all about
doing things differently. Created by Damon Albarn and James Hewlett,
the group's story is one of celebrity collaborators, experimental sounds,
and cutting-edge animation. This is the untold truth of Gorillaz.
Many bands are made up of old friends — and if they're not,
they're usually at least friendly with each other. As ever, though, Gorillaz was a different
story. Originally, the two brains behind the iconic group didn't even like each other.
Damon Albarn was already a big name in the late 90s. His band, Blur, were a Britpop phenomenon,
with a string of hits including "Parklife" and "Song 2," and a series of albums that had topped
the British charts. Meanwhile, Jamie Hewlett was a celebrated cult artist, whose Tank Girl
comic strip had attracted a devoted following. It was in 1990, while working for Deadline magazine,
that Hewlett first came into contact with Albarn, after being commissioned to interview Blur.
But the interview was a disaster. Certain members of the band were drunk,
and Albarn himself gave off a confrontational vibe. The situation was further complicated
when Hewlett later began a relationship with the ex-girlfriend of Graham Coxon, Blur's
guitarist. While the other members of Blur began to turn against Hewlett, the pop artist found his
friendship with Albarn growing — until the two ended up as flatmates in Notting Hill, London.
In 1998, both Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett found themselves newly single.
So the two of them did what anyone does when they're young, rich,
successful, and living in London — they started partying.
Albarn and Hewlett's parties were such a regular occurrence, in fact,
that the flatmates' fellow celebrities soon wanted to get in on the scene,
with members of the Spice Girls mixing with musicians from bands such as Radiohead and
Pavement. According to Hewlett, even David Bowie was getting in touch to hunt down an invite. It
was after one of these parties that the idea for Gorillaz first arose. Hewlett later told WIRED:
"We were home watching MTV with our eyes just kind of glazed. Because if you watch MTV for too long,
it's a bit like hell — there's nothing of substance there. So we got this idea for
a cartoon band, something that would be a comment on that."
At the time, the UK music scene was populated by a number of highly-manufactured groups,
with boy-bands such as Westlife and Take That dominating the charts. Gorillaz, however, was
conceived as a reaction to this — a band for which even the members themselves were manufactured.
The idea for Gorillaz came about at a time when both of its principal creators had become
creatively restless. Jamie Hewlett had been working on Tank Girl for many years and was
reportedly growing "bored" of his project. Meanwhile, Damon Albarn was looking around
for outlets through which to channel his many disparate musical influences that, for one reason
or another, wouldn't marry with the style of Blur. For example, Albarn had recently contributed to
the debut album by hip-hop supergroup Deltron 3030, a "rap opera" set in the distant future,
which featured rapper Del the Funky Homosapien, producer Dan the Automator, and DJ Kid Koala.
The grand themes and genre-bending sound of Deltron 3030 surely had a huge influence
on Albarn, who around the same time was working on Gorillaz's debut EP and album.
Albarn had already composed much of the music for what would be 2001's Gorillaz LP and invited
the Automator to help finish off the record. The super producer, whose real name is Dan Nakamura,
was behind the idea to bring in collaborators — while his experience in hip-hop and sampling
gave the album a vastly different sound to the music Albarn had created with Blur.
Gorillaz immediately caught the attention of the British music press,
and their debut single "Clint Eastwood" became a huge hit, introducing Gorillaz to
a wider audience. The group's debut album was released to positive reviews, too,
and was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize — before being withdrawn at the
band's own request. A statement released by the band's fictional bassist Murdoc
likened the Mercury Prize nom to carrying a dead albatross around your neck for eternity.
Meanwhile, fans of the band were making the most of the immersive Gorillaz experience,
enjoying a huge amount of extra material on deluxe editions of the album and on the Gorillaz website,
which was particularly cutting edge for a band at the turn of the century.
But while Gorillaz was making a success of the musical, marketing, and multimedia possibilities
of being a virtual band, actual live performances still proved to be something of a challenge. Early
concerts were conducted with the entire live band, including Albarn, obscured behind an animation
screen, which Albarn later admitted was hugely difficult to pull off. Eventually, Gorillaz would
drop such self-imposed limitations, and allow the audience to see the live performers themselves.
The five-year gap between the first and second Gorillaz albums proved to be something of a
habit for the group. Though they followed up both albums with a number of B-sides,
alternate versions, and demos, Gorillaz fans would have to wait until
2010 for another full-length collection of new material. But it was more than worth the wait.
After a lengthy promotional run-up, which mostly focused on telling more of the group's story,
Plastic Beach dropped in March 2010. The list of featured artists alone was hugely impressive,
and featured some of the most famous musicians in the world — all of whom made a significant
contribution to what, upon release, was lauded by critics as Gorillaz' third great album.
"Thanks to all the fab artists, management, Phil the driver, Keith my zumba teacher,
Sid 'the Psycho 'Smith, my friend Axel, Harry... Shut up!"
Not only did Gorillaz once again draw together an eclectic musical ensemble
with an immersive visual world, but the project was permeated with the theme of environmentalism.
So much so that critics agreed that Gorillaz had successfully pulled
off their first concept album. Albarn subsequently released a fourth album,
The Fall, which had been recorded entirely on his iPad during the band's North American tour.
Plastic Beach cemented Gorillaz as one of the most innovative pop music projects on
the British music scene, and the band's so-called "Phase 3" peaked with a headline slot at England's
Glastonbury festival in 2010. Looking back, the concert showed how far the group had come
from their early live performances, with a huge ensemble cast of performers joining
Damon Albarn and his fellow musicians on stage. But reviews of the gig were mixed,
with many claiming that the band was too experimental for the Pyramid Stage's
headline slot — though many fans have since looked back on it as a classic performance.
However, one aspect of the show was a precursor to what was to come — a
distinct lack of focus on the animation, beyond what appeared on the screen behind the band.
As Jamie Hewlett later told The Guardian:
"Damon had half the Clash on stage, and Bobby Womack and Mos Def and De La Soul,
and [...] Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and Bashy and everyone else. It was the greatest band
ever. And the screen on stage behind them seemed to get smaller every day."
Around the same time, Gorillaz's label EMI cut the budget for a series of high-end animations
Hewlett had been commissioned for. The partnership was becoming distinctly uneven,
and eventually Albarn and Hewlett fell out. In the end,
the two friends and collaborators didn't speak to each other for three whole years.
Following the fallout of their argument, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett took a long hiatus
from Gorillaz. Albarn was especially productive, working on a number of different collaborations,
as well as his own debut solo record, Everyday Robots, which was released in 2014.
Meanwhile, Hewlett continued to make art and paint prolifically. The friends reconciled
at a Christmas party at the end of 2014, but, as Albarn was also in the middle of
reigniting his relationship with Blur at the time, Gorillaz remained on the back burner.
Work on the next Gorillaz album, Humanz, finally began in 2015 and 2016,
with sessions for the album taking place in London, Paris, New York, and Port Antonio in
Jamaica. The album was eventually released in 2017 — and proved to be another hit.
"I think we've all had a little bit of spiritual growth, and age will do that to you, I think."
"Yeah, whatever he said."
One particularly curious detail emerged during the album's promotion, when Pusha T, who appears
on Humanz, claimed that Albarn had predicted Donald Trump's ascent to the White House,
and that the album had first been planned as a "party for the end of the world"
based on Albarn's foresight. Albarn himself later said:
"I always had a slightly witchy element to
my psyche. The role of magic is not to be underestimated."
Humanz represented the return of Gorillaz as a big concept, innovative collective,
and was supported by the hugely ambitious "Demon Dayz" festival in Margate, England,
as well as an extensive world tour. Demonstrating the group's productivity after their reunion,
the album was followed by an extended "deluxe" version with an incredible 14 new tracks.
Then, just a year after Humanz,
another album was released — the relatively stripped-back but well-received The Now Now,
which predominantly featured Damon Albarn's vocals and relatively few guest features.
In the fictional world of Gorillaz, the period was notable for regular bassist Murdoc being
temporarily replaced by Ace, a character from Cartoon Network's Powerpuff Girls.
These details showed that Gorillaz was still looking to change things up
well into their second decade of success. The documentary, Gorillaz: Reject False Icons, was
released in 2019, but the next big change in the Gorillaz universe was the Song Machine project.
First announced in January 2020, Song Machine saw Gorillaz flip the typical album cycle on its head,
releasing a song a month throughout the "season," each featuring at least
one legendary guest. Reviews of the project were positive, and its roll-out also came
hand-in-hand with the release of a new book, a radio show, and a virtual tour.
Considering Damon Albarn believed Gorillaz was basically done-for following his falling out
with Jamie Hewlett, the group's fans have cause to be optimistic as the project looks forward
to the next decade. In October 2020, Albarn teased the second season of Song Machine,
hinting that it would include a collaboration with Australian psych band Tame Impala.
And with the Gorillaz movie already in the works, there is plenty more to look forward to.
For hardcore fans of one particular Gorillaz album,
news about one particular future project is sure to whet the appetite. The ever-prolific
Albarn has claimed to have been writing a number of songs that will expand the environmental themes
of the 2010 album Plastic Beach. So is Plastic Beach 2 on the cards? Albarn told Stereogum:
"I think sadly, more than ever the need to keep reminding people that we need to
change our habits. To somehow help our climate is really necessary. So maybe
I need to revisit it, really. I don't think we can ever leave Plastic Beach."
In October 2020, Damon Albarn finally confirmed what fans had been dreaming of
for decades: that a full-length Gorillaz movie is in the works.
Just because the world has had to wait 20 years for a Gorillaz movie,
however, doesn't mean that Gorillaz hasn't been telling one heck of a story along the way.
In fact, every aspect of Gorillaz' animation has added to an immersive and sprawling "Gorillaz
lore." And the band's origins, as told during the release of their debut album, were just the
first phase of the Gorillaz story, which became even weirder and more complex as time went on.
The narrative of each phase is soundtracked by the music, with the band's second album, Demon Days,
released in 2005, reflecting the dark themes of the band's story. Demon Days improved on the
formula of the band's debut, with a greater range of collaborators and an even greater assortment of
multimedia with which to tell the band's story. The album went to the top of the charts in the
U.K., and number six in the U.S., thanks in part to the now-iconic single "Feel Good Inc."
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