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Gorillaz - Demon Days
Reviewed
by
NME, May 2005
Technological
expertise and a cast of thousands but, under EMI's
watchful eye, can Damon and pals pull off album number
two?
 If
you were to invent a pop act right now, where would you
begin? well, human beings take too many drugs and start
boo-hooing when they don't get their own way, so you'd
create something, like a cartoon character, to front the
whole sheband. You'd do something to make sure The Kids
parents didn't understand the appeal - it's the punk rock
way after all. And since we live in such modern times,
you'd promote this new pop star not through conventional
channels like the gig circuit or CD:UK, but through some
semi-interactive platform, to star with the world's
most-can't-get-out-of-your-headbale tune, and once the
entire project reached critical mass, whack out a single.
Congratulations: you've just invented the Crazy Frog. You
are, to all intents and purposes, a cunt.
Of course, nobody would suggest Damon Albarn
is a cunt - he was far too pretty in his 20s to be truly
hateable - but if you need proof of how far we've come
since the first Gorillaz album dropped four years ago,
just think how unextraordinary the band's shenanigans
seem now. We don't think, 'Hold your horses, cartoons
can't make albums' - we just wonder how Gorillaz sold so
many albums in America when 2D's teeth were in such a
state. Gorillaz, now, are just a normal band. For this
secona lbum the music steps up a gear to compensate for
that conceptual shortfall by conjuring up a unique mix
that's darker, but often more accessible, than its
predecessor and strutting around very much like the
ultimate pop album. But that's not the only significant
development.
Where 2001's 'Gorillaz' began life as an
elaborate and self-indulgent vanity project and
accidently turned out to be quite good to the tune of six
million copies sold, 'Demon Days' is, alongside the
Coldplay album, one of 2005's biggest bankers for EMI.
none of this is a happy accident, and nothing has been
left to chance. It speaks volumes that legal downloads of
the splendid lead single 'Feel Good Inc.' became chart
eligible - thanks to a limited run of vinyl, ussued to
record shops simply to satisfy chart regulations - in the
very week that downloads first qualified in the UK
charts. Reckon Damon sat at home and thought of that one?
Already, the Gorillaz' return feels less like a group of
mavericks operating in some musical wasteland on the edge
of civilisation and more as if EMI's marketing gurus have
sprung into life scribbling 'MAINSTREAM VS UNDERGROUND'
and 'ASDA BUYERS VS PUNK KIDZ' on flipcharts. Given the
first album's scucess, the big challenge must have been
"how do you manufacture spontaneity?"
They haven't been short of ideas.
Practicality, sadly has got in the way of the band
embarking on a series of Gorillaz guerilla gigs. Instead,
a similarly self-conscious culture jamming exercise was
set in motion, through which a viral-type campaign
encoruage fans to stick anti-celebrity 'Reject False
Icons' stickers on billboards. One fan recently noted, in
their online diary: "I plan on going to the mall
this week, and writing 'Reject False Icons' on some
bathroom stalls. Have to do my part, and trust me, I'm
not the only one who has done this... I'm part of a
'team' who does this kind of thing every day. Pretty
exciting actually."
'Exciting'. Make no mistake, this as
sophisticated and insidious as the 'street teams'
orchestrated for bands like Busted and McFly, except at
least that lot get a free frisbee for their troubles.
Alongside (but hamfistedly at odds with) the 'Reject
False Icons' campaign, Gorillaz alos launched their
'Search For A Star' online campaign, which incorrectly
billed itself as the first online-only talent search.
Either it was Gorillaz' intention to eventually telll the
applicants 'Look, Michelle McManus isn't really *that*
bad - what you've done is exactly what she did', or this
supposed satire of the game game was simply in place to
have a laugh at the expense of the band's fans. At the
very least, those fans are being used to promote 'Demon
Days', just like the fans who bought the limited edition
'Feel Good Inc.' vinyl were used to create acres of
publicity when then single charted.
Have those fans been cheated? Have we all
been cheated? It all become irrelevant as soon as you
press play, because beyond the mixed messages and
startling lack of logic in the album's promotion, 'Demon
Days' may end 2005 as one of the year's most celebrated
albums. Before you even consider the sonic and melodic
innvoation paraded through the album, there's so much
crammed into each of these 15 songs (without any one of
them sounding over-produced or cluttered) that repeated
listening is a must. There's always something new to
enjoy.
Instrumental in this album's charm is Danger
Mouse's production, which propels it far beyong the
limits of its predecessor; the standard Gorillaz sonic
motifs (light-headed dub, left-of-centre electronic
flourished, caricatured wailing from another planet and
the irresistible thud of a thousand bass bins) remain,
but there's a seemingly unselfconscious desire from all
parties to innovate within the realms of the modern pop
song. They succeed at every turn, and the inevitable
rolecall of guests keep it moving. With the exception of
the London Community Gospel Choir, who'd arguably turn up
to the recording of an envelope being opened, this is an
unexpected and imaginatively plucked succession of
cameos, taking in De La Soul, Martina Topley-Bird, Neneh
Cherry (on the droopily spectacular 'Kids With Guns'),
Roots Manuva (on 'All Alone', the most 'Gorillaz'
sounding track), Ike 'nice guy' Turner, Dennis Hopper...
even the score from 'Dawn Of The Dead' pops in to say a
spooky hello at the album's outset.
We also find Shaun Ryder sounding genuinely
relevant for the first time in 15 years, in an electronic
pop masterpiece called 'DARE'. With the exception of 'O
Green World' (whose chorus lyric 'Uhhhh-uhhhhh-uhhhhh-uh'
sounds like Jimmy Saville at the dentist) 'DARE' is the
finest moment on an album which never drops below total
brilliance: it's convention and will be everywhere this
summer.
If you believe Gorillaz are genuinely
inverting popular culture then you probably also think
Apple present some sort of 'cool' alternative to
Microsoft, but while 'Demon Days' is as fastidiously
packaged and cynically promoted as your average Shania
Twain release, it's an honest overview of the
rarely-accepted fact that it never really *is* all about
the music, even when the music's this extraordinary.
'Demon Days' is also just a few IQ points away from being
as clever as it thinks it is. Pretty clever.
8/10 Peter
Robinson
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