Gorillaz – ‘Clint Eastwood’

“Hey happy/I’m feeling glad
I got sunshine/In a bag
I’m useless/But not for long
The future/Is comin’ on…”

Now that Damon Albarn’s profile has grown the size of England, many of us forget the humble origins of his cartoon experiment the Gorillaz. With the Gorillaz Sound System about to blow shit up at Global Gathering [see: four deejays, lots of animation], I think it’s high time we took a step back and looked at the amazing trajectory of a band that will never, ever get snapped by the paparazzi.

Gorillaz is the brainchild of Blur front man and Oasis arch-nemesis Damon Albarn, whose output and talent means that he could probably eat most of the Gallgher’s records for dinner and Definitely, Maybe still have room for desert. If Albarn is one thing, he’s forward thinking. Rather than languishing in the ashes of Blur (‘wooohooo’ does get a bit boring after a while), he promptly went out and started a million different projects, including The Good, The Bad and The Queen and Monkey:Journey To The West, which is so fucking bizarre that I still can’t really get my head around it. Albarn is to Britain what Timbaland is to America, a songwriter so hip, and so incredibly kooky that he makes Lupe Fiasco look like a twelve year old on a skateboard. He doesn’t need a Kanye-sized blog to show us inside his brain, he does it all with music. And when that fails, he’s got Tank Girl comic artist Jamie Hewlett, the chief architect behind the amazing Gorillaz personas and videos.

Recently, Albarn smashed up the charts world wide with Feel Good Inc., the one song of the year that didn’t wear out from repeated listens and got added to every playlist on Earth. The inclusion of De La Soul laughing like mad men seemed odd to many people, and they’re the same ones who didn’t really pay attention to Clint Eastwood when it dropped. They also forget that aside from Albarn, there are no actual living members of this band. It’s like the mystery project from heaven, because guest stars rock up and disappear without ever mentioning their affiliation with the project.

What we do know is Del tha Funkee Homosapien (Gorillaz, Monkeys, Homosapiens…man I wish I’d paid attention in Biology class) lends his phenomenal rap skills to this track. Despite the fact that this song has nothing to do with Mr Million Dollar Baby, it has a sample from one of his films and a whole lot of creepy Halloween type shit going on that you wouldn’t think would work with any rapper. Except for the fact that Del is going off about some pretty damn scary stuff, which really frightened the bejesus out of me when I heard at for the first time at age fourteen. Lines like:

“No squealing, remember/That it’s all in your head” AND
“Spiritual/hero who/appears in you/To clear yo’ view/But you’re too crazy”

Would generally indicate that Albarn had lost his mind. Certainly his later collaboration with Happy Mondays trainwreck Shaun Ryder indicated as mucy, but somehow, he’s kept his shit together, despite rarely being seen in public.

Gorillaz prove that music should be able to sell itself without wet t-shirt contests and sexual come-ons. Their videos and songs are laced with the kind of imagery you’ll never find on commercial radio, and Albarn manages to outshine all of his contemporaries every time he enters the studio. I’d love to meet this guy, he’d be a real interesting character.

Gorillaz – ‘Clint Eastwood’

Watch Gorillaz in 3D here