Gorillaz are a virtual band who were created by Damon Albarn a musician and the artist Jamie Hewlette. Damon voices the lead singer of the virtual band, 2D. Damon is the only permanent member so the other band members are never really the same person giving the band a unique sound. However the virtual band consists of 4 members, 2D (lead vocalist), Murdoc(bassist), Russel(drummer) and Noodle (guitarist).
I could go into the lore of the virtual group but first you should get to know the music and the sound of the group. Starting Gorillaz along with being the groups name is also the name of the first album they put out in 2001. So After Gorillaz came Demon Days in 2005; Plastic Beach (2010); The Fall (2010); Humanz (2017); The Now Now (2018) and Song Machine: Season 1 (2020). Each album contains extreme amounts of lore and story line that as much as Id like to write about would be too much to put into a singular post.
Now finally onto the main event my top 9 favorite songs. Before listing these off I want to say first that these are my personal opinion and these will probably change over time but for now take this list with a grain of salt.
Number 9: Feel Good inc.; Demon days 2005. I feel that if i didn't include Feel good someone would get mad with it being arguably their most popular song. The song is made with the intent of making fun of the music industry with people who make music without personal value simply making feel good songs that get stuck in your head. Funnily enough the song they made to mock the music industry became popular, most likely because I feel that they polished the song to a main stream music standard. The song itself is catchy with a stick in your head kind of bass line.
Number 8: Plastic beach; Plastic Beach 2010. Plastic beach has a electric feel to it with a catchy beat. Its a bit repetitive but is a funky song.
Number 7: Rhinestone Eyes; Plastic Beach 2010. Rhinestone eyes is another one of their more popular songs. The very robotic feel complaints the raspy filtered voice of 2D in the song. The lyrics are pretty memorable too. However the song feel repetitive but on the first few listens its very good.
Number 6: Empire Ants; Plastic Beach 2010. Starting with a relaxing lullaby esk intro that 2D kills on the vocals. Than Little Dragon features on the song wit the background beat turning to a electric beat. Her vocals contrast well with the electric beat. pretty good song.
Number 5: Fire Flies; The Now Now 2018. This song has a very moody sound, almost said but kind of angry. The sound is funky with a deep revered bass (I think Im not sure) the vocals are pretty good and the lyrics dont repeat to badly. Fun fact Murdoc the bassist was in jail during The Now Now so there was a replacement bassist in the virtual band his name is Ace.
Number 4: Andromeda; Humanz 2017. The song has a very lofi feeling beat with a very catchy bass line an easy song to groove to. On top of that Damons (2D) voice blends in perfectly with the beat. However I could see myself getting bored of this song easily and has a kinda basic sound for their music placing it at 4.
Number 3: Désolé; Song Machine 2020. Désolé has a very unique sound featuring Fatoumata Diawara a Malian singer. Throughout the song it switches from being sung in English, French and Bambara. The sound is melancholy and remorseful topped with the vocals of Damon and Fatoumata going together extremely well.
Number 2: The Pink Phantom; Song Machine 2020. Starting off this song features Elton John and 6LACK. 6LACK's rap clashes in the best way with 2D and Elton John's voices perfectly. The classical piano on top of the features make it such a unique song. With a sound that gets better with ever listen.
Number 1: The Lost Cord; Song Machine 2020. The lost chord finishes off the album in such a stunning way, in the music video the Virtual Band gets teleported back to plastic beach. The whole video is filled with Easter eggs and answers many question about the gorillaz story line. Leee John is featured and does a good job featuring in the song. The sound is hard to describe but very good . At the end of the music video plastic beach gets exploded leaving the past behind and making the band turn to the future. This song only really got number 1 cause of the music video however the sound of the song is still pretty good.
I dont know if you guys would be interested in learning more about the lore of Gorillaz but if you guys do leave a comment about that. I had to try really hard not to dump too much info into this one post. I hope this post was helpful and enjoyable to read. Who knows I might have just caused you to be into Gorillaz too.