Gorillaz
Gorillaz
[Virgin]
Rating: 7.0
Somewhere in England, or maybe Iceland, Graham Coxon is crying. Blur
recently announced that their hiatus will continue through the year's end,
due to Damon Albarn's collaboration with Norman Cook. "I can't keep recording
these shite solo records forever!" cries Coxon, as Janet Jackson's "Come Back
to Me" blares in the background. To make matter worse, another Albarn side
project, Gorillaz, has already hit stores on both sides of the Atlantic.
The novelty group finds Albarn assuming the role of 2-D, the animated lead
singer of a pack of four misfits, whose likeness was envisioned by Tank
Girl creator Jamie Hewlett. The Automator-produced "act" is a smarmy,
promotional gimmick. And it's the best Blur offshoot released to date.
As soon as the record begins, the cartoon façade fades. Even people who
only know Blur as "that band who did 'Whoo-hoo,'" will immediately detect
Albarn's ever-so-Brit pipes. Though early reports suggested that Albarn
contributed to only a few songs, he could right be called the band's frontman;
his croon can be heard on all but four of the album's 16 tracks. Dan "The
Automator" Nakamura is similarly recognizable. There's no band (animated,
or otherwise) making this music; it's the Automator throwing down beats,
manipulating samples, and letting Kid Koala's scratches interrupt his flow.
And that, friends, is why Gorillaz is a conceptual failure.
But maybe this is for the best. Nakamura's refreshing production doesn't
rely on today's hip-hop skitters and squiggles for its futurism. No, what
we've got here is the same brooding backpacker hip-hop that elevated the
similar Deltron 3030 LP to unforeseen heights. As a result, this
record reveals itself as far less disposable than its cartoon cover art
suggests.
Gorillaz's best tracks exploit the unlikely, but successful dynamic
between Albarn and Nakamura. On "Man Research (Clapper)," Damon wails
hysterically over Dan's relentless, echoing thump. "New Genious (Brother)"
is gloomy trip-hop with orchestral flourishes that wrap around the flux of
Albarn's falsetto. On "Clint Eastwood," Del tha Funkee Homosapien handles
the song's verses, allowing Damon a small cameo in the looped chorus. And
strangely, I can think of few other samples that would compliment Del's
urgent delivery as effectively as Albarn's laconic vocal haze.
The album's foray into dub-lite, "Slow Country," is Gorillaz's charming peak.
A light, Latin-tinged piano playfully slides over a sunny groove while Albarn
exhibits "Tender"-like plaintiveness with lines like, "I can't stand your
loneliness." Despite the fact that this track is unfamiliar territory for
both Nakamura and Albarn, their charismatic playfulness makes for undeniable
fun.
The small-scale experimentation, though, falls flat on the record's few rock
tracks. The appropriately titled "Re-Hash" is such a generic marriage of
acoustic pop and stock hip-hop beats that, were Albarn to come in chanting,
"Come, m'lady, come, come m'lady," it would hardly come as a surprise. The
Wire reject, "Punk," suffers from an asinine formula (play a sloppy riff, clap
three times, add cockney vocals, repeat) that makes each of the track's 90
seconds harrowing.
The fact that Gorillaz's closing number-- Ed Case's two-step-meets-raga
remix of "Clint Eastwood"-- doesn't feel out of place could be taken as
testament to how successfully eclectic the album is. But in actuality, it's
a sign of the record's short-lasting, faddish appeal. Gorillaz is the
definitive side-project: even at its best, it's never more than a divergent
one-off stint. Albarn may occasionally succeed on non-Blur outings, but as
with Coxon and Alex James' solo affairs, they only further prove that Blur
is equal to much more than the sum of its parts.
Keep ya head up, Graham.
-Richard M. Juzwiak