Review by Stan MossWhile many expected last year's reunion to spawn a brand new Blur album, Damon Albarn decided to get together again with comic book genius Jamie Hewlett and came up with another fantastic Gorillaz release five after from the success of Demon Days.
Plastic Beach is possibly the best out of all Gorillaz releases with their trademark eclectic sound pushed to further extremes and certainly an improvement on Damon Albarn's last project The Good The Bad and The Queen.
With an impressive array of collaborators, including Snoop Dogg, De La Soul, Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys, Lou Reed, The Fall's Mark E Smith, the Clash's Mick Jones and Paul Simonon and many others, Plastic Beach is set to become one of the biggest albums of 2010.
Albarn's fans may already be familiar with his musical eclectism. The man may be a total arse, but you can't knock his instinct for penning quirky, yet multi-million selling, tunes.
This time the variety and the catchiness are from another planet. From krautrock to "casiopop", and from orchestral to dub and hip hop, Plastic Beach is the ultimate pastiche: perfect, almost tailor-made, for the era of MP4s, smartphones and instant downloads with endless nods at Eighties' revivalism.
Just check out the grandiosity on single Stylo, the genuine pop moment of On Melancholy Hill and White Flag, the latter featuring the Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music.
Superfast Jellyfish is also a stunning track. Just imagine Super Furry Animals and De La Soul together, and that's because that's what it is. It's been defined as "souped-up, underwater commercial. It's a short but fatty song", and we can't possibly disagree.
From frontman to composer and puppetmaster. Damon Albarn's natural transition is coming close to completion.
1 comment:
My partner bought it, the 'Experience Edition' I think it's called, or similar.
He's more into it than I am. I actually find it really irritating.
Post a Comment