Lead single “Stylo” plays even better in context, a dark funk number in which Bobby Womack steals the show with his rapturous howling.
First, “Rhinestone Eyes” sees 2D (Gorillaz’s titular frontman, whom Albarn voices personally) take center stage for the first time, softly sighing his lo-fi vocal track over dense layers of synthesizers. The scene has been set, then, allowing the album to swagger through its three most radio-friendly ditties.
This mélange of white-collar instruments and blue-collar beats in the album’s early stages yields exceptional results, foreshadowing the unpredictable nature of the record and emphatically justifying Albarn’s exodus from his “Country House” to this Plastic Beach. rappers Kano and Bashy to wax lyrical on war, crime, and religion atop spells of electronic grime. The horns make way for elaborate string arrangements and jubilant flute work on the serene preamble to “White Flag,” paving the way for U.K. Albarn fashions a beat of ill-omened synthesizers and sonorous bass glides upon which the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble impose their platoon of trumpets and trombones. But despite hamfisted references to Planet of the Apes and “drinking lemonade in the shade getting blazed,” it isn’t without its charms. Ironically, after a sweeping orchestral introduction, we’re welcomed to Plastic Beach by Snoop Dogg, the G-funk crooner who swapped his hip-hop credibility for a banal MTV reality show to cement his celebrity status. This could be why the illusory members of Gorillaz have emigrated to this plastic beach, a far-flung island formed entirely of consumer waste and detritus, which Albarn has gathered and tailored to form what could well be his magnum opus. These days our stars are force-fed to us by Simon Cowell and reality television, our chart-topping singles merely cover versions of songs that were cutting edge decades ago, and the entire concept of “pop music” is relegated to fodder for our celebrity voyeurism: penned by the talented, performed by the beautiful. It’s been 12 years since Blur songster and Britpop poster boy Damon Albarn first sat down with comic book artist Jamie Hewlett to draft their response to the decaying state of the music industry, and yet there’s never been a time where the message of their avant-garde virtual band was quite so pertinent.
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