Cartoon bands as a concept had existed before Gorillaz.
While The Archies, Josie and the Pussycats and Alvin and the Chipmunks had toyed with the medium,
Gorillaz was the first time where was more than just a novelty.
For the past two decades they've been pumping out weird and wonderful pop music,
spanning multiple genres and featuring far-reaching musical guests;
who would afford that the guy from Blur would work with Bobby Womack, Neneh Cherry,
Noel Gallagher and half of The Clash.
But beyond that, the group has defied all expectations and become global superstars.
As much as they are a 'cartoon band,' the project has evolved way beyond that.
But had to start somewhere, with their first tentative steps.
This is New British Canon and this is the story of "Clint Eastwood."
The creation of Gorillaz all comes down to two men: Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett.
Albarn had made himself known, in the UK at least, as the front man of Britpop entity, Blur.
With the band's previous two albums Blur and 13,
they had tried to distance themselves musically from their Britpop roots,
experimenting with American alt-rock,
psychedelia,
and electronica.
Despite this Albarn felt limited by the band dynamic, being one voice of four.
Some soundtrack work had whetted his appetite for a solo career
but was unsure of a direction.
On the other hand, Hewlett was the creator of the Tank Girl series of comics,
and deemed to be one of the defining pop artist of the 1990s.
But by 94, he'd grown tired of his creation, having been drawing her for six years.
The resultant film, 1995's Tank Girl, starring Lori Petti and Ice-T bombed financially
and critically was not well-received.
But what next?
Albarn and Hewlett had originally met in 1990.
Blur's guitarist Graham Coxon persuading Hewlett to interview the fledgling band
for Deadline magazine, home of Tank Girl.
Through the mid 90s London party scene, Hewlett and Albarn kept in touch.
After breakups with their respective long-term girlfriends, the pair decided to move in together.
After a few months of shameless celebrity-packed parties in their swanky new flat,
they began to look forwards.
Gorillaz originated with Murdoch Niccals.
Born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1966,
his formative inspirations were the likes of Black Sabbath, The Clash and Anton LaVey.
After making some negotiations with Beelzebub, he acquired Satan's own bass guitar,
fittingly named 'El Diablo.'
He spent his adolescence and early 20s fronting various groups,
including Patchouli Clark, Crimson Backdraft and Burning Sensations with limited success.
As much as he had musical vision and the Dark Lord's backing,
he needed a face and voice more agreeable than his own to get through to the music buying public.
In August 1997 Niccals' path collided with amateur keyboard geek Stuart Pott,
quite literally.
While attempting to acquire new musical equipment through non financial means,
Niccals drove a Vauxhall Astra through Uncle Norm's Organ Emporium,
straight into Pott, who happened to be working there at the time.
The collision knocked Pott's left eye straight out of his head
and left him in a vegetative state.
Nichols was sentenced to 30,000 hours of community services
and ten hours a week looking after the comatose Pott.
During one of these fun-filled sessions, while Niccals was doing doughnuts in a Nottingham car park,
a jolt made Pott fly through the windscreen, and hit the curb face-first.
This not only relieved him of his right eye but also his catatonic state.
As he rose to his feet, eyeless and half his face missing,
Niccals knew he'd found his frontman.
Pott would soon adopt the moniker of 2D in honor of the two deep black dents in his face.
Next was drummer Russel Hobbs.
Formerly of Brooklyn, New York he was sent to England by his parents for his own safety
after a drive-by shooting, by the Grim Reaper himself, killed all his friends but spared him.
The event turned his eyes a milky-white and gave him the musical abilities of his dead friends.
Hobbs was then kidnapped by Niccals and taken to Kong Studios in Essex.
He stayed because of how good Niccals' demos were.
Their guitarist Noodle, a Japanese ten-year-old,
joined the group after being sent to Kong Studios in a Fed-Ex crate.
With all their members in place they set about writing music,
their first creation being "Ghost Train,"
formed from a sample of The Human League's "The Sound of The Crowd."
Their first gig was at the Camden Brownhouse in November 1998
and it ended in a riot.
But despite having only one song, they were instantly signed by EMI for their Parlophone label.
What they needed now was to write more songs and assemble them into an album.
With the lore in place, Gorillaz needed a sound.
Albarn wasn't satisfied with doing Blur mark II and so for the most part abandoned guitar music
If he was trying to satirize the fake nature of pop bands like A1 and N Sync,
he would need to be making pop music but with a twist.
Bands like Big Audio Dynamite, The Specials and Massive Attack
were templates for what he wanted to do,
groups they created music unique to them, not tied down to a genre or scene.
While "Ghost Train" was indeed the first song Albarn wrote for the project,
back when they were named 'Gorilla' singular,
he'd been experimenting with that sound within Blur since 1997.
The album was written and recorded in bits and pieces from December 1998 through October 2000.
Initially starting in Albarn's London studio before moving over to Jamaica's Geejam Studios
to complement the reggae tinged music that Albarn was creating.
But the process wasn't all on Albarn.
He invited Dan the Automator of Dr. Octagon and Primal Scream's XTRMNTR fame to produce.
The musician guest list, something that later Gorillaz albums would double down on,
features Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads on "19-2000,"
Cuban singer Ibrahim Ferrer on "Latin Simone"
as well as scratching from Kid Koala and Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto supplying the vocal for Noodle.
As a result the final product is an eclectic mix of hip-hop, trip-hop, dub and pop.
But what it still needed was a blockbuster single.
Instrumentally "Clint Eastwood" is a very simple song.
Its reggae inspired chords were played on a Solina String Ensemble keyboard.
This was augmented with a drum machine beat and Albarn's favored instruments at the time, the melodica.
Inspired in part by Dub legend Augustus Pablo's use of the instrument
the melody line that Albarn peppers within the song is what gave "Clint Eastwood" its name,
due to his comparative similarity to Ennio Morricone's theme for The Good, The Bad & the Ugly:
Initially Phi Life Cypher rapped on the track
but Dan the Automator felt their verses could be improved on.
Having worked with Del the Funky Homosapien on the Deltron 3030 album,
Dan invited him to step it up and write something better.
Del would also feature on the single "Rock The House."
But the music video is what spun heads.
Created by a team of about 25 led by Hewlett,
the creepy cool video took just under four months to animate.
What could have been a standard band performance video is thrown out the window
because A, they are a cartoon band.
B, Russel's departed friend Del the Ghost Rapper makes an appearance.
and C, there are zombie gorillas.
Zombies in pop music videos are not new,
in fact Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video is explicitly referenced
but Hewlett's in particular had an affinity with the horror sub-genre
watching various zombie flicks while animating.
The opening of the video features an onscreen quote from 1978's Dawn of the Dead
in both Japanese and English
Zombies are always a metaphor.
In Dawn of the Dead, they represent rampant consumerism.
In "Clint Eastwood" they stand in for the fake pop bands that Gorillaz were formed to defeat.
The video was also the perfect way to introduce the band to the public.
By the end, viewers knew each member's name, look and personality.
The anonymity of Gorillaz was a plus for Albarn.
No longer having to be in the music video or be the centre of attention
that his Britpop years in Blur had thrust upon him.
"Clint Eastwood" was released as a single on the 5th March 2001.
Its innovative video and ample airplay got the track to number 3 in the UK Charts.
A more high tempo garage remix by Ed Case also helped the track get play with club DJs
and was the version that appeared on Now 48.
Said NME of the remix:
The album went number 3 in the UK Charts and climbed to number 14 in the US Billboard Charts.
Despite having three top 10 singles in the US Billboard Hot 100,
Blur were never really embraced by the US.
Gorillaz on the other hand were.
And worldwide Clint Eastwood became Damon Albarn's biggest hit
particularly resonating with Italy, Japan and South America.
It has since been praised by NME and Rolling Stone as one of the greatest songs of the 2000s.
The song and Gorillaz lasting impact can be seen on the next generation of alternative music.
No longer merely guitar pop, artists like The 1975, Foster the People, Awolnation and Paramore
have taken gorillas collision of rock, hip-hop and electronica and run with it.
From the hip hop side of things, Tyler the Creator, Brockhampton, Trippie Redd
and A$AP Rocky have all noted the influence of Gorillaz' first album.
They also proved their virtual band concept could work
resulting in Adult Swim's Dethklok, Hatsune Miku and even Poppy
pushing the boundaries of how you can deliver pop music in a postmodern context.
Gorillaz show that it could be more than a gimmick.
The animated video was no doubt attractive to younger fans,
aided by Gorillaz' award-winning web integration and it expanded that generation's sonic palette,
no longer satisfied with the sweetest pop bubblegum, with Gorillaz,
Albarn could expose them to concepts that did not get radio play: Latin folk, reggae, trip-hop,
spaghetti westerns and George Romero.
Gorillaz would go on to bigger and better things, with starrier guest musicians,
but "Clint Eastwood" was the start,
the moment where an art rocker, a cartoonist, a Satanist, an eyeless crooner,
a possessed drummer and a ten-year-old joined forces and somehow it made sense.
The future was coming on.
Thanks for watching.
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