gorillazmusic•1d ago

gorillaz is basically damon albarn’s long running side project turned global phenomenon, created in 1998 with artist jamie hewlett. on paper it’s a “virtual band” made up of four animated members: 2-d, murdoc, noodle and russel. in reality, albarn is the musical brain, constantly collaborating with different artists while the cartoon universe carries the visual identity. it started as a way for albarn to escape the britpop shadow of blur and experiment with hip hop, electronic, dub and world music. the debut album blew up with “clint eastwood,” and demon days made them massive thanks to “feel good inc.” after that came concept heavy projects like plastic beach, the tour recorded the fall, the guest packed humanz, the more stripped back the now now, the episodic song machine, and cracker island. they’ve always played with the idea of performance too, sometimes hiding the live band, sometimes projecting the animated characters, sometimes just going full traditional concert mode. one grammy, a bunch of mtv and brit awards, and still somehow not fitting neatly into any genre.