I was asked by someone what genre Gorillaz was a few weeks ago following the release of their heavily anticipated new album, Song Machine. As I thought about it for a second, I concluded that you cannot limit the virtual band under one genre or even an umbrella of genres. Every song off of their albums can be completely different from the last. For example, their 2017 album, Humanz has an Atlanta-based trap banger as the opening track featuring Vince Staples, and that same album features a dancehall track with Popcaan, a power-pop song with Jehnney Beth of Savages, and a psychedelic electropop song with DRAM. Damon Albarn used Gorillaz as an outlet to steer away from his more traditional alternative music with Blur and experiment with multiple genres at once. The band’s album, Humanz, is chock full of features with only one track off the album being just Damon on the vocals. The largest criticism of the album by fans and critics alike was there was too little of a presence of Albarn on the album and too much focus on the features. He tried to limit the features with the 2018 album The Now Now, but the album still seemed to fall flat from what made albums like Plastic Beach and Demon Dayz so wonderful.
At the beginning of 2020, a year that seems to feel like 3 months and 30 years at the same time, the band released a new single entitled Momentary Bliss which featured the hardcore punk rock duo Slaves and British rapper Slowthai. The track, while not only sounding like Gorillaz, also sounded like the song was tailored to fit both of the guests. A month later, Désolé was released with Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara that seemed to have Damon not only at the forefront of the song but share the spotlight with Diawara. These singles were continued to be released monthly with an accompanying music video including the New Order tribute, Aries, with Peter Hook on bass and background vocals, How Far? with rapper Skepta and Nigerian drummer Tony Allen following his passing, Friday 13th with Octavian, Pac-Man with ScHoolboy Q, Strange Timez with Robert Smith of The Cure, and The Pink Phantom with Elton John, and R&B singer 6LACK before the release of the entire album with new features from Beck, St. Vincent, Kano, EarthGang, Joan As Police Woman, Goldlink, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, JPEGMafia, Chai, and many other contributors.
Every track not only follows the normal Gorillaz style but also works in a way to make the guests fit in the context of the song. Stylistically, the album is all over the place spanning from electronic and alternative dance, new wave, hip-hop, R&B, art pop, funk, and alternative rock, but this album shows how well the band is at dipping its toes in different genres of music and dominating it. Even with every single song having at least one feature on it, Damon Albarn’s vocals are on almost every song just as much as the guests are compared to Humanz where the guest’s presence overtook Damon’s. A lot of the collaborators on these songs in writing would not seem to mesh well together. For example, Gorillaz doing a song with piano rock and music legend Elton John and moody trap R&B singer 6LACK sounds like a dud, but it ends up being one of the best songs on the album where all 3 vocalists stand their ground taking from their own collective styles to create a beautiful piano-based ballad. Each artist compliments each other’s sound and with 6LACK crooning in autotune and Elton John singing his heart out which seems like the first time since the Lion King soundtrack, this might even be a top-five Gorillaz song ever. Another track worth mentioning is Aries with Peter Hook of Joy Division and New Order fame as well as drummer Georgia. The song through and through is a tribute to Peter Hook and New Order from the instrumentation to Damon’s vocals on the song. It’s an impressive feat being able to create a song that is so distinctly New Order while still making it feel like a Gorillaz song. A few quick mentions are MLS with experimental rapper JPEGMAFIA and Japanese pop group CHAI which makes me laugh thinking about it but surprised me with how well it worked as well as how cute and fun the track was, and Opium with EARTHGANG which has a wonderful buildup and holds the psychedelic afrobeat groove for its almost 7-minute runtime.
The album Song Machine is a fantastic collection of collaborations with artists from many generations and genres of music. Though Gorillaz is known to collaborate with many different artists from different areas of music, Song Machine is their first project that makes the features not seem to be placed on a higher or lower playing field than Damon. The songs feel like they were made from scratch with the feature artists helping every step of the way with the songs not only feeling distinctively Gorillaz but also feeling like a song that fits the strengths of the guest. I cannot wait for whatever the band has in store for season two.
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