2. Homage
Gorillaz pay homage to many artists in their songs, they use samples
from different artists in all of their songs and put their own unique style
on them. They do this in a respectful way to the artists, we can tell this
as firstly we know Damon Albarn’s personality and it’s unlikely he would
disrespect an artist. In the ‘Blur vs Oasis’ situation the Gallagher’s
constantly mocked Albarn and his band however from footage that we see
from the press, it seems Albarn tried to stay out of it.
The Gorillaz song Clint Eastwood uses a sample from Snoop Dogg’s ‘No
Gun’s Allowed’. In their Glastonbury set in 2010, Snoop Dogg makes an
appearance and performs the verses in the song. This is Albarn’s way of
paying respect to Snoop Dogg for letting him sample his song.
3. Simulacrum
Gorillaz are not a ‘real’ band, they are animated characters that play
animated instruments, however the samples from other songs are used to
create the effect of the animated characters creating new songs.
When they perform live, they are holograms on stage with the track being
played in time with them instead of Damon Albarn performing himself
with his band.
For this band, their image is just as important as their sound. Due to
them being made up characters it meant they could choose any image
that Albarn and co wanted. As they are considered by many to be the
‘first virtual band’, the characters must be interesting and look unique.
Each character has an interesting story of how they came to be in the
band.
4. Performance
The Gorillaz are an animated band. On their first tour of live shows, the
characters appeared on stage as holograms much like when Snoop Dogg
performed at Coachella festival with a hologram of Tupac. On this tour,
the live band played behind a giant projector screen which covered the
whole stage, on which was projected various visuals and images created
by Jamie Hewlett, the sketch artist for Gorillaz.
5. Creation
Gorillaz started off with Damon Albarn (Blur) and his old flatmate Jamie
Hewlett. Albarn would write the music whereas Hewlett drew up the
characters and storyboards. Albarn had songs recorded on his four-track
which he brought into the studio, then they would take the good parts
e.g. a drum loop, and use it as a starting point for a song using the
software Logic to sample songs and mix them. For some songs such as
Clint Eastwood, there is both a drum machine and live percussion using
obscure techniques such as shaking a plastic bag full of metal drum lugs.
Some members have been designed to take the image of a real artist for
example the singer called ‘2D’ takes the appearance of Damon Albarn, as
he created and stars in the band. The bassist known as ‘Murdoc’ takes
the image of a young Keith Richards.
6. Intertextual References
The Gorillaz debut single ‘Clint Eastwood’ was named after the actor with
the same name. This is because the song sounds similar to the theme
music of ‘The Good The Bad And The Ugly’ which was a film that Clint
Eastwood starred in.
7. Postmodernism in promotion
On the Gorillaz website, there is a game which can be played involving a
place called Plastic Beach which was the title of their album.
When doing interviews with radio/TV etc, the animated character is on
screen however the person who does the voice of the character is talking
behind the animation.
