Gorillaz "Plastic Beach" Reviewed by Hear/Say™, Buy it now

		Feature: Sharon Jones Circa Survive Owl City Concert Connection Peter Gabriel Campus Concerts on the Cheap Part 2 Campus Concerts on the Cheap Part 1 Goo Goo Dolls Owl City Jazz & Heritage Festival Elton John’s “Billy Elliot” Straight No Chaser Julian Casablancas Michael Buble Campus Correspondent The Rocket Summer Jonny Lang Carole King & James Taylor Liars Daniel Merriweather Keane Jet Velvet The Audition Streetlight Manifesto The Watson Twins Gorillaz The Classic Crime Broken Bells The Bird & The Bee Corinne Bailey Rae Peter Frampton Aiden Benny Andersson Band Beach House Hacienda Ok Go Peter Gabriel

		Fyfe Dangerfield Fly Yellow Moon A Neon Trees Habits B Caribou Swim B+ Big Audio Dynamite This is Big Audio Dynamite A Barenaked Ladies All in Good Time B+ Jeff's Picks Deborah's Picks

		The Men Who Stare at Goats B Sherlock Holmes C Up in the Air B

Gorillaz
Plastic Beach

Campus Correspondent Review By Matthew Paulus,
North Central College

It was March of 2001 when listeners obtained their first taste of a strange cartoon band singing about sunshine in a bag. Nine years later, Gorillaz continue to rock the digital (and the real) world. The band follow 2005’s Demon Days with its latest release entitled Plastic Beach(Virgin). Fans of past Gorillaz records will find a greater pop influence and sound on the current collection with touches of hip-hop and alternative rock. As one may gather from the album’s title, Plastic Beach contains environmental-like awareness themes, although these aspects are not over emphasized to the point of hindering the music.

One of the top songs on the record, “Rhinestone Eyes,” employs a synth backbeat that will surely cause many heads to nod in unison. Here we find Damon Albarn singing solo as he delivers some of his best lyrics to date: “I’m a scary gargoyle on the tower/That you made with plastic power/Your rhinestone eyes are like factories far away.” Gorillaz sound best on “Melancholy Hill,” another song in which Albarn is the sole voice and contributor. This track invokes layers upon layers of sound – including hazy undertones, Albarn’s swaying “ah-ahhs,” rain-drop-like keys, or the varying noise of a scrambled transmission signal – that are skillfully meshed together. The song’s lyrics reflect its title, yet still offer hope: “Cause you are my medicine when you’re close to me,” the singer notes.

There is also a sense of ease here that has been absent in other Gorillaz recordings. Those looking for tracks that are a bit more bumpin’ will enjoy “Stylo,” a charging single with excellent vocal work by Mos Def and Bobby Womack, while “To Binge” features a mysteriously breezy duet between Little Dragon and Albarn. Plastic Beach is not as instantly catchy as most of Gorillaz past work and some of its songs seem to lack any umph (“Cloud of Unknowing”) or sound a bit repetitive (“Some Kind of Nature”). Yet after a couple of listens, numerous tracks stand out and reveal aspects that weren’t appreciated beforehand. Gorillaz have to be considered one of the most novel bands and ideas to emerge in the past 20 years, and Plastic Beach further exemplifies this standpoint.