Gorillaz
Gorillaz is a British virtual alternative hip-hop band created in 1998 by musician Damon Albarn and graphic artist Jamie Hewlett. The band is known for its animated characters, including 2D, Russel Hobbs, Murdoc Niccals, and Noodle, who serve as the band's persona. Gorillaz gained significant recognition with their debut album, released in 2001, which featured the hit single "Clint Eastwood." The band's innovative mix of genres, including hip-hop, rock, and electronic dance music, achieved critical acclaim, culminating in a Grammy Award in 2005 for their collaboration on "Feel Good Inc." with De La Soul.
Throughout their career, Gorillaz has collaborated with a variety of renowned artists and producers, including Danger Mouse, contributing to albums like "Demon Days" and "Plastic Beach." The band's creative approach to music, coupled with their unique visual style, has had a lasting impact on the music industry, influencing a new wave of cross-genre experimentation. Despite taking a hiatus in 2012, Gorillaz reunited in 2017 and have since released multiple albums, maintaining their relevance in contemporary music. The band's contributions extend beyond music, highlighting the importance of graphic design in popular culture.
Subject Terms
Gorillaz
Music group
Jamie Hewlett
- Born: April 3, 1968
- Place of Birth: Horsham, England
Damon Albarn
- Born: March 23, 1968
- Place of Birth: London, England
- Damon Albarn
- Singer-songwriter
- Jamie Hewlett
- Graphic artist
Contribution: Gorillaz are a “virtual” British alternative hip-hop band who won the 2005 Grammy Award for best pop collaboration with vocals for their single “Feel Good Inc.,” which they recorded with venerated hip-hop group De La Soul.
Background
Graphic artist Jamie Hewlett and musician Damon Albarn conceived of the idea for a virtual band as roommates in 1998. Hewlett provided the graphic imagery and visual aesthetic, designing the band’s animated cast of four gorillas named 2D, Russel Hobbs, Murdoc Niccals, and Noodle, among others, while Albarn lent his multi-instrumental talents to the songwriting, working with a rotating cast of contributing musicians.
At the time of the group’s founding, Albarn was already a commercially successful and critically acclaimed rock musician, having recorded and toured worldwide as lead vocalist with the seminal British alternative rock band Blur in the early 1990s. Hewlett, meanwhile, came from a formal graphic-arts background. After studying graphic arts at Northbrook College in West Sussex from 1985 to 1987, he achieved success with the widely popular and critically acclaimed comic strip Tank Girl, for which he collaborated with cocreator Alan Martin.
Hewlett and Albarn created Gorillaz during a time of increasing musical experimentation for Albarn and Blur, which had shaken its pop-rock roots and delved into more rhythmic sounds by the early 2000s. Gorillaz allowed Albarn to form a voice with which to pursue new musical styles free from the shadow of Blur’s legacy. With assistance from drummer Cass Browne and keyboardist Mike Smith, the group released their four-song debut EP, Tomorrow Comes Today, in November 2000.
Career
Fueled by the underground popularity and critical success of their debut EP, Gorillaz released their self-titled full-length debut album in March 2001. The release was propelled by the massive success of its first single, “Clint Eastwood,” a lavishly creative, experimental mix of dub, hip-hop, rock, and electronic dance music. The lead single was accompanied by an animated music video, complete with Jamie Hewlett’s band of gorilla characters performing the song. “Clint Eastwood” went on to be nominated for a Grammy Award for best rap performance by a duo or group in 2001.
After a slew of virtual and live performances in Europe and the United States in support of their debut, Gorillaz joined forces with renowned hip-hop producer Danger Mouse for their 2005 follow-up album, Demon Days. Danger Mouse had achieved notoriety for his 2004 release The Grey Album, a combination of instrumentals from the Beatles’ White Album and rap lyrics from superstar Jay-Z’s The Black Album that established him as one of the frontrunners of the decade’s new hybrid rock-rap genre.
Gorillaz relied on the rap talents of the American trio De La Soul for the album’s most popular single, “Feel Good Inc.,” which ultimately became one of the top songs of the summer of 2005. The single earned the band the 2005 Grammy Award for best pop collaboration with vocals, and its music video, directed by Hewlett and Pete Candeland, won the MTV Video Music Awards for best special effects and breakthrough video. In 2006, the Design Museum named Hewlett the designer of the year for his Gorillaz artwork.
In 2010, Gorillaz released their third studio album, Plastic Beach, which featured an all-star cast of contributing artists, including such venerated rap and rock artists as Snoop Dogg, Mos Def, Lou Reed, and Mark E. Smith. Critic Huw Jones, in a review for Slant magazine, praised the release as “the almighty shakeup that pop music has needed for some time.”
The band’s next release, The Fall, was released in December 2010 as a free download for fan club members on the band’s website. A physical release went on sale in April 2011. The Fall was well received by fans but failed to garner the critical praise of the band’s previous efforts. Later in 2011, Gorillaz released a fifteen-track greatest-hits compilation chronicling the band's successes from 2001 to 2011. In 2012, Albarn announced that he and Hewlett were taking an indefinite hiatus from Gorillaz.
Four years later, Albarn and Hewlett reconciled, releasing several interactive videos depicting what the band's fictional characters had been doing while on hiatus in preparation for a new album. The first single from the album, "Hallelujah Money," was released in January 2017. The album, titled Humanz, followed in April 2017. Other singles from the album include "Andromeda," which features rapper D.R.A.M, and "We Got the Power," featuring Jehnny Beth from the band Savages and Noel Gallagher from Oasis. For the album, Gorillaz earned the 2018 Brit Award for British Group. Their next album, The Now Now, followed in June 2018.
Humanz received Grammy nominations for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Dance Recording for the single “Andromeda.” In 2020, the band released its next studio album, Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez. They followed that up with 2022’s Cracker Island, which was also nominated for a Best Alternative Music Album Grammy.
Impact
Predicted to be a short-lived concept band by music critics shortly after their formation, Gorillaz were ultimately representative of a sea change in popular music that would take place during the 2000s. Few bands that preceded the group had so creatively embraced and successfully integrated the disparate qualities of rock, hip-hop, dance, and electronic music. Through the band’s extensive catalog, Albarn and his cohorts helped to forge new musical avenues for further experimentation for a generation of musicians and fans. Gorillaz were also at the forefront of an emerging trend of increased prominence of graphic design and mixed-media artwork as well as multi-instrumentation and cross-genre collaboration that would ultimately become a major focal point of the popular music landscape of the early twenty-first century.
Personal Life
Hewlett married actor Emma de Caunes in 2011. Albarn began a long-term relationship with artist Suzi Winstanley in the late 1990s; the two have a daughter, Missy, who was born in 1999.
Bibliography
Albarn, Damon, and Jamie Hewlett. “Keeping It (Un)real.” Interview by Neil Gaiman. Wired, July 2005, www.wired.com/2005/07/gorillaz-2/. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.
"Gorillaz." All Music, 2024, www.allmusic.com/artist/gorillaz-mn0000664770. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.
Harris, John. “Damon Albarn: Gorillaz, Heroin and the Last Days of Blur.” Guardian, 6 Apr. 2012, www.theguardian.com/music/2012/apr/07/damon-albarn-gorillaz-heroin-blur. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.
Kermode, Mark. “The Year of the Monkey.” Observer, 19 July 2008,www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/jul/20/art. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.
Mulholland, Tara. “Damon Albarn’s Shapeshifting Career.” New York Times, 25 July 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/arts/26iht-albarn26.html. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.