The Week after next, the New Gorillaz Album, Plastic Beach, Arrives. Alongside Damon Albarn and His Usual Cartoon Crew, We’re Going to Be Treated to an Incredible and Eclectic Line-Up of Guest Stars
March 3rd, 2010The week after next, the new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, arrives. Alongside Damon Albarn and his usual cartoon crew, we’re going to be treated to an incredible and eclectic line-up of guest stars. You can watch the latest video here. Plastic Beach features appearances by Lou Reed, Bobby Womack, Mark E Smith, Gruff Rhys, Snoop Dogg, Mos Def, De La Soul, Kano, Bashy, even a reunion of the Clash’s Mick Jones and Paul Simonon rock legends, punk legends, soul legends, rap legends and dirt luminaries, all brought together under the banner of pop’s most proudly made band. Plastic Beach arrives only one or two weeks after the likewise guest-starry Heligoland, the 1st album for 7 years from Massive Attack. Heligoland includes contributions from long-time sparring partners Horace Andy and Martina Topley-Bird, alongside Hope Sandoval, Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Television on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe and Gorillaz’s ( or, if you like, Blur’s ) Damon Albarn.
When they began, back in the late 1980s, Huge Attack were strange in giving such precedence to guest artists, pioneering a trend which has become much more common over the succeeding years. Requirement could have been the root of creativity here.
On the new album, Guy Garvey takes on the personality of a soldier in the track Flat of the Blade : I have got abilities I cannot talk of, he sings ominously. The talent he has that he’ll talk of is that he is rather a good vocalist. Great Attack do not have one of those.
Robert Del Naja’s hushed vocals work fine carefully, but would struggle to hold an entire album ; the band’s origins as a hiphop crew are mirrored in the undeniable fact that they are far happier making peculiar sounds in the studio and rapping ( or mumbling ) a bit than really fronting their songs. Gorillaz is a different beast. Albarn is one of the most versatile vocalists and suave front men around, as well as one of the most bountiful tunesmiths. Gorillaz albums do not need any guest stars in any way. And it’s not the guest stars who sell Gorillaz records : usually, they have lower commercial profiles than Albarn himself. We will only presume that, for Albarn, Gorillaz presents a chance to contact any musician he admires and ask if they would like to work with him. Given the successfulness of the prior 2 Gorillaz albums, he is sure to get a yes.