Customer Reviews

Plastic Beach

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

"Empire Ants" starts off like the nice-but-boring ballads from the last Blur album. Then it suddenly explodes into a dazzling rush of impossibly clean keyboards and Yukimi Nagano's lost, spaced-out vocals. It is an incredible, beautiful contrast with Damon Albarn's conventional balladeering in the beginning.

Ultimately, Plastic Beach isn't as visionary as Demon Days (surely one of the top five albums of the 2000s), but when it does come together, there's nothing else like it. The album's other peak is the lead single "Stylo," which unsurprisingly bears the most resemblance to the dark mood of Demon Days. It's packed with even more brilliant left-field juxtapositions than "Feel Good Inc." The music is based on a cold pinpoint-techno crawl with dark keyboard overlays. The lead vocal is passed from a smooth vocoded rap by Mos Def, to Albarn's fragile lost soul (much like in "Feel Good Inc."), to a colossal, histrionic turn by soul legend Bobby Womack. The smooth, easy way with which these three very different vocal styles alternate is remarkable, and the first two vocalists create a restrained counterpoint to Womack's overpowering, force-of-nature voice.

Alas, "Stylo" is the only time Plastic Beach flirts with darkness. The other catchy pop moments are of a more comic, whimsical nature. "Superfast Jellyfish" has De La Soul on lead vocals, but it's really a classicist British pop song masquerading as hip-hop. It has more in common with catchy, fey Blur songs like "For Tomorrow" and "Charmless Man" (and with predecessors like the Kinks) than with rap or electronic music. I predict that it will be massively popular in Britain, but I personally prefer the more dramatic tone of Demon Days.

Albarn produces the album himself this time, and it shows. Aside from the one brilliant moment in "Empire Ants," there are no sudden, abrupt shifts like the crashing rap verse in "Dirty Harry" or the move from keyboards to acoustic guitar to strings in "Last Living Souls." That was a large part of what made Demon Days so captivating -- you never knew what was coming next, even over the course of one song. Plastic Beach is less unpredictable.

Furthermore, Albarn's background in Britpop leads him to make less effective use of the rappers than previous producer Danger Mouse. On "White Flag," Albarn tries to create an unconventional Gorillaz juxtaposition by putting a string and woodwind section together with rapping. Unfortunately, instead of flowing together seamlessly like "Dirty Harry," it sounds really jarring. I think Kano and Bashy have an awkward flow, especially when compared to the effortless way in which Bootie Brown dominated a much more complex rhythm-and-strings combination on Demon Days. Additionally, "Sweepstakes" is a very ungainly and repetitive song (unfortunately much longer than "White Light") -- Mos Def basically yells a few lines over and over, a far cry from his own performance in "Stylo."

The huge number of collaborations on Plastic Beach means less than the sum of its parts. What's the point of getting Mark E. Smith on your album if you only have him sing a couple of lines? "Glitter Freeze" may have Smith's name on it, but it's basically an instrumental -- a good one, but you'd expect more. "Superfast Jellyfish" has Gruff Rhys on the chorus, but he sounds completely identical to Albarn. The title track features Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of the Clash, but there's nothing about it that really stands out from any other Gorillaz song. If Jones is participating in the vocals, I couldn't tell him from Albarn either.

On the plus side, "Some Kind Of Nature" features a hugely appealing performance by Lou Reed. His bemused affectations, together with the music-hall backing, make him sound like a more gravelly-voiced version of Bowie. The positive tone is really infectious, and Albarn provides a bit of creeping melancholy in the chorus. Furthermore, Snoop Dogg is the perfect choice for "Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach." His extremely lazy, luxuriant style is an ideal match for the tropical-resort image of the "plastic beach," and he offers a generally positive message, but his voice always has this sleazy, threatening undercurrent that is also perfect for Albarn's vision of "plastic" debris. The glitzy, chintzy horns blaring throughout the track are a great touch, creating a seductively futuristic, extravagant sound.

Also, Albarn always has Britpop balladry to fall back on. He finds two gems in this vein: "Rhinestone Eyes," where woozy synth-funk combines with his detached speak-singing (surprisingly poignant when it leans toward singing at the end of a line), and the gently rolling "On Melancholy Hill." Other songs like "Broken" cover the same emotional territory, but "Rhinestone Eyes" is by far the best.

I think we all wanted this to be the ultimate globe-trotting, ultra-hip, futuristic album. Actually, Plastic Beach is more like The Great Escape to Demon Days' Parklife. It has more pop, more hooks, more collaborations, more everything, and sometimes it's even better, but still, it was Demon Days that really nailed the mood of the decade. Plastic Beach doesn't have the same effect, but it has moments of brilliant inspiration.

I open this review with a very strong piece of advice: please listen to this album in its entirety. Then come back to it within a day or two (or sooner, if you are so inclined) and give it a second listen from beginning to end. If you do that, unless you really dislike "this kind of music", I'm relatively certain you will be enchanted with the album permanently. Plastic Beach is truly an amazing work.

Keep the following thoughts in mind as you navigate through other reviews of Plastic Beach. First, immediately discount any that express disillusion that this album is not the sequel to its stellar predecessor, Demon Days (2005). Comparisons to Demon Days (and, by extension, the 2001 self-titled debut album) are useful to the extent they allow you to see how the Gorillaz sound has evolved over the course of a decade. To truly appreciate this work fairly, however, you should judge it on the strength of its own merits. Moreover, this review is being written the day of its United States release, and there are currently a handful of reviews that rate the album poorly. These reviews seem to have a few things in common: they show very little regard to not only the craftsmanship and genius behind this work, but seem to be written from a jaded aspect that belies someone writing against a deadline and only taking time to listen to the album once (if they even listened that much).

That said, while this album isn't perfection personified, it really is quite good, easily earning a 9 out of 10 rating. Below I will grade each track individually, but first I want to address the album as a whole. Clocking in at just under an hour, this album is a cohesive whole that takes you on a sonic journey full of unlikely sights and stops along the way (often even within the individual songs themselves). It's not surprising that this album in its formative stages was originally named "Carousel" by its loving architect, musical wizard Damon Albarn. The album is a special kind of ride. At times the album makes you think, but not too hard, because it doesn't purport to take a stand on any of the issues it brings to the surface. Other times the album makes you want to sing along, but not too loudly, because you want to be able to appreciate the artistry at work in each song. Most importantly, the album makes you feel emotion. Whether it be exhilaration, abandon, wonderment, or disquiet, you feel it with force.

On to the snapshots of each song in the US track-list.

1) Orchestral Intro -- 4/5
This track lets you know you are headed somewhere important and maybe just a little bit different. If you listen closely, the fade-out carries a hint of distortion, which I take as an indication that the nature you are about to experience is quite unnatural.

2) Welcome to The World of The Plastic Beach -- 3/5
There's probably no truer living representation of hip-hop than Snoop Dogg, and he serves as an apropos master of ceremonies welcoming you to your destination. Snoop has always had a unique five-star flow, and it's on full display on this track. Ever since his debut album Doggystyle (1993), however, he has an uneven track-record of bringing the heat to whatever song he's spitting rhymes on. The frustrating thing about Snoop is that both the listener and he are in on the fact that many times he is as lazy a lyricist as the flow of his trademark delivery, and that is indeed the case in this song, using trite expressions like "Boss Dogg" (not once, but twice), "mirror, mirror on the wall" and "crack-a-lackin". For the record, my wife thinks that Snoop did exactly what he was supposed to do on this track: introduce, not steal the stage. Regardless, aided by the sick horns of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, this song helps get you in the mood to groove.

3) White Flag -- 3/5
A light, flighty orchestral piece by the Lebanese National Orchestra For Oriental and Arabic Music (I think I got that right...) takes you to Bollywood and some other exotic places you've probably never been to as you skip across the sand of Plastic Beach for the first time. You are suddenly greeted by a hot potato back-and-forth rap between British grime rap stars Kano and Bashy set to a dub beat. Their wordplay forms the musical meat sandwiched between the previously mentioned beginning of the track and its conclusion, which is a synthesis of the orchestral part and the dub beat. The final outcome is both an unlikely treat and treatise from your locale.

4) Rhinestone Eyes -- 5/5
This song has video single written all over it. 2D's vocals take center stage for the first time. It's a heavily synthesized pop tune complete with catchy not-quite-a-chorus repeats of the phrase "Love Electric-tric-tric-tric-tric" that you can only imagine yourself chanting alongside Noodle. This song also carries that signature "Gorillaz sound" of keyboards and drumbeats that can be traced back to their debut album. This song is definitely one of the reasons I regard the album so highly.

5) Stylo -- 5/5
The lead single and video from the album. "Feel Good, Inc." it is not, but this fact only adds to "Stylo"'s charm. An unyielding beat accentuated by an insidious, haunting repetition of the phrase "Overload", a slick verse from Mos Def, and the undeniable raw power of Bobby Womack make this song an instant classic. You don't get "Stylo" at first, you just know it has a catchy beat. After multiple listens, though, you realize the song is consummate. It is worth mentioning that essential to the whole Gorillaz concept is the fact that their music is both an audio and visual experience. Taken in that light, the promotional video shot for this track by co-creator Jaime Hewlett does an excellent job of immediately engaging the audience and drawing them into Plastic Beach.

6) Superfast Jellyfish -- 4/5
Rumored to be the second video and single from the album, this song is dripping with sinister irony. De La Soul become the first rap artists to score a follow-up opportunity with the Gorillaz, and they do not disappoint in this twisted indictment of consumerism, cloaked in a breakfast meal jingle. Though not as in-your-face and extreme as, say, Johnathan Swift's 1729 pamphlet "A Modest Proposal" the implications of this song are meant to be frightening. Gruff Rhys also lends his vocals to the track that is both scary and scary good.

7) Empire Ants -- 5/5
The beautiful, peaceful beginning of this song shows Plastic Beach at its most serene. The guitar makes a rare appearance, and it strums blissfully along in concert with 2D's singing and piano accompaniment. Then, halfway through, the song it improbably explodes into a shimmering disco-pop tune completed by the vocals of Yukumi Nagano from the Swedish group, Little Dragon. This may very well be the album's best song, though "Broken" gives it a serious run for its money a few songs later.

8) Glitter Freeze -- 2/5
Personal preference here, but this is my least favorite song of the lot. Mostly instrumental with a few sparse words from curmudgeon Mark E Smith, this song is an aural assault on your eardrums and mind. Often, after this song ends, I'm relieved, because it feels like I've just been willingly violated, which might just be a microcosm for one of the tenets of the album, namely the willful violation of our own home planet. But just as soon as you begin to contemplate that we are off to our next song.

9) Some Kind of Nature -- 3/5
Many are split on this Lou Reed guest effort, where his sing-song voice takes Albarn's piano-based beatnik ditty for a quick spin. Some hail it as the watermark of Plastic Beach, while others decry it as its nadir. The song comes pre-loaded with a fully realized chorus and simulated clapping that beckons singing along. I'm still not sure what to make of it all, I find myself in neither of the previously mentioned camps of supporters or naysayers, but I believe it is a solid addition to the album regardless.

10) On Melancholy Hill -- 5/5
An endearing track. Listen closely and you'll hear a rhythm that lies beneath Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" and the song it borrowed heavily from "Foreigner Suite" by Cat Stevens. I doubt it is intentional, and it is otherwise completely overshadowed by what is quite an uncharacteristically upbeat, almost saccharine ode from Albarn. While this song is technically 2D from Gorillaz, it is also every bit just Damon being himself.

11) Broken -- 5/5
My favorite of the album. The song evokes Clint Eastwood with its pseudo-riff on "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" theme by Hugo Montenegro. The song is beyond phenomenal, and I think this is no coincidence, another 2D solo joint that can just as easily be seen as Damon Albarn as himself. The beat is seriously sick and haunting at the same time. The production sounds as if lifted off a top-flight hip-hop producer's private instrumental songbook, but it is so much more due to Damon's vocals dominating the song. I don't care what he is singing about in this song, I just want to listen and feel his lament. It's why this album, and its creator, are one-of-a-kind.

12) Sweepstakes -- 4/5
Hated this song at first, due to the repetition of the beat and the rhyme. However, keep listening: the lyrics actually change, not in their content, but in their delivery, just as the song itself transforms into something greater than the sum of its parts. Several minutes of repetition in, you are greeted again by the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble amplified this time with a percussion section that evokes an American college football halftime band performance. Mos Def is most definitely a winner on this track. Hip-hop heads will prefer this track to the rest of the album's offerings, which speaks to the fact that there is almost something for everyone here.

13) Plastic Beach -- 3/5
I can't hear Mick Jones' contribution to this song, but ex-Clash band-mate (and frequent Albarn-collaborator) Paul Simonon's strings sound pretty good on the title track. The track is funky, a little bit eerie, and definitely keeps the mood of the album and its maybe-fictional-maybe-real setting at the center of your mind as your trek through Plastic Beach nears its end.

14) To Binge -- 5/5
For those not expecting Blur to ever make a guest appearance on this album -- well, don't worry, they didn't. But this is as close as you'll ever get, since even the most casual Gorillaz fan will notice that 2D doesn't sound anything like himself on this record. In fact, he sounds just like Albarn from Blur during the height of the 90s Britpop era. This time, however, he is trading verses with guest singer Yukumi Nagano who appears in her second contribution to the album. The song is like a fading sunset, with clouds developing as the song itself fades out. If this is the final album from the Gorillaz, I think this song serves as its official good-bye. And even though two more tracks come after this one, they feel more like encores than anything.

15) On The Cloud of Unknowing -- 4/5
But what encores they are! Powerful, powerful stuff from Bobby Womack here, coupled with chilling and atmospheric instrumentation from Sinfonia ViVA, make this a contemplative song, even if the first few listens give little clue as to what you and singer are contemplating. It can be simply described as a pretty song.

16) Pirate Jet -- 4/5
I have an image of an animated pogo-stick or slinky, or something bouncy like that just hopping all over this song like a little kid. "It's all good news now, because we left the taps running for a hundred years." Call it tongue-wagging sarcastic optimism at the prospect that even as foolish and wasteful we humans are, Nature will adapt to whatever is thrown at it, and persevere. That's my take, at least. And with that, the final opus in the Gorillaz trilogy (this is widely rumored to be the final album for the group) comes to a close.

If you have made it to the end of this review, thank you. I had fun sharing my rambling thoughts on what I feel is a great album. If you have not already purchased this album, give it a try, you will be happy you did.

This album is innovative, because it demands that you pay close attention to every word, and every sound. The melodies are really catchy and stick with you after you turn off the CD player. This isn't the kind of music you can put on in the background while you are cooking, cleaning, etc. It wants you to sit down, close your eyes, and listen to every nuance of the sound. Enter the world of Gorillaz and check out this album!

I had long since given up on Gorillaz until I heard Plastic Beach playing in a local Seattle Coffee shop. I was waiting in line when "Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach" started playing in a weird jolt of synthetic curiosity. What was this, I wondered - spoken word? A DJ with a poet at his side (it helps that the lyrics generously nudge "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised")? Wait, was that - Snoop Dogg?? Before I knew it too, I was so drawn in by the beats, I had to know more anyway. What comes afterwards, "White Flag," a rap-meets-middle-east-rave mashup, is joyously off-kilter. It wasn't until the single "Rhinestone Eyes" that it even occurred to me that I could be hearing a Gorillaz record. I was hooked. I immediately got a copy and found almost endless things to love - "Stylo," a deep-techno explosion, "Empire Ants" with its stoned-chill groove, "Sweepstakes," which explodes from beatless meandering into an invigorating anthem, and "Superfast Jellyfish," about as infectiously stupid and wonderful as any indie-rap song ever has been. I listened to the record full of moments where I thought, "Jesus, is that Lou Reed?" Or, "Wow, did they get Mos Def on this track?" All I can say is that a record providing this much discovery in its hearing is a gift. Reviews seized on the deflation of several of the songs towards the album's end. Yet actually, I find "Cloud of Unknowing" a sort of edifying, sweet bow to a record that releases you from a peak of joyous highs. Even if I don't come back to the tracks on the second half of the record, they undeniably complete the astonishing creation that comes before it. Plastic Beach is a joy to dance to and think about, and remains an ongoing thrill every time I put it on.

There are not many albums I look forward to any more. I can't tell you exactly why this is the case, perhaps I'm just getting older. "Plastic Beach" however was one of the few albums in recent years that I actually preordered. I own the first two Gorillaz albums-the self-titled and "Demon Days"-and while not a ravenous, hardcore fan, I generally thought both albums were pretty solid. Each album had songs that I really liked a lot, and a few that while not my taste, I could appreciate for their uniqueness.

I guess you could say that's mostly what I think about this album: I appreciate the uniqueness. It's definitely a well thought out album that is woven well to be a cohesive whole, I'm just not very fond of the whole. I can definitely tell that this is an album that fans of indie rock will eat up, and most likely fans of Damon Albarn and Blur. I can't comment specifically on the last two because I'm not entirely familiar with all of his work, but regardless this is definitely a rock album.

Perhaps this is why I only can appreciate it in part. I grew up on rock music and it will always be my first love, but Gorillaz for me has always been an equal blend of Funk, Hip-Hop, and Rock. This is what made it so great. Every song had a beat that made you want to move, despite the fact that every song exhibited a different theme or emotion. Almost all of these songs to me are mixtures of Ambient, Electronic, and Rock, with only the rapping and a few good basslines on a couple tracks giving it any distinction of Funk or Hip-Hop. I kind of feel like rappers were thrown in there because Albarn knew they had to be or else he could lay no claim to the Gorillaz name, even though he probably would have gladly excluded them. The long list of guest appearances to me seems more like an attempt to be hip, rather than an honest quest to blend styles of music. It's funny, because I would give this album 5 stars for following its theme (the beach), but can only give it 3 for continuing what made Gorillaz, Gorillaz.

I have listened to this album on repeat since it arrived in the mail Monday trying to give it a chance, but I think it will probably hit the shelf for awhile. Stylo and Superfast Jellyfish are my favorites, while everything else is a little too slow and boring for my taste. There are a few other tracks that have glimpses of that Gorillaz sound, but I definitely think Stylo is the closest this album ever gets. I'm definitely in for change and improvement, and who better than an animated band to significantly shake up their own sound, but when it's this far from where it came from, it seems like it should have been put out by another band. Just change the name to anything else but Gorillaz and I'll bump this album up a star.

I'm not a huge Gorillaz fan, but got into them when I was in Italy in 2001. I've enjoyed their beats and funky basslines with melodic sing mixed with rap. This new album is by far their best with so many attributes to so many different genres including symphonic classical, world beats, and still incorporating their own flavor. As a pro musician myself, this was ear candy to me and not just the same four chords repeated over and over. The trick is to listen to it the first time straight through. Don't jump around. Pure musical awesomeness.

This album drove me crazy for quite a while. When listening to the album straight through (what do you mean no one does that anymore?), I liked tracks individually, but disliked the album as a whole. Because of that, I started listening on shuffle: suddenly the album made sense. I set about re-ordering the tracks in a way that made sense, and came up with the following:

1 = 13 "Plastic Beach": the title track makes a lot more sense as the opener. the moody guitar line, the spacey feel, albarn's voice: it sets up the album a lot better than the orchestra-snoop dogg combo.
2 = 9 "some kind of nature": bouncy, contrasts with the prior track well and brings the tone of the album back up.
3 = 6 "superfast jellyfish": keeps the bouncy feel going. seems to follow better to me than "on melancholy hill"
4 = 8 "glitter freeze": moderates the bouncy feel from the last two tracks, and keeps things driving forward.
5 = 5 "stylo": keeps the driving feel from the last track, follows really nicely from the ending of "glitter freeze"
6 = 4 "rhinestone eyes": pulls back from the driving feel
7 = 3 "white flag": with how strident the previous track ends, the intro here is a very nice contrast. the bass-heavy rest of the the song is a nice contrast as well.
8 = 16 "pirate jet": pulls you back from the club and into the story of the album.
9 = 7 "empire ants": the previous track fades out to nothing, and hearing the intro to this track is almost like starting a new album. very much a rebirth, and works much more strongly than it would have following "superfast jellyfish"
10 = 11 "broken": a nice slow jam to keep the mood rising
11 = 10 "on melancholy hill": brings the mood up a bit more.
12 = 12 "sweepstakes": for how organic-feeling the previous three tracks were, this is a hard cut that i think works well.
13 = 14 "to binge": there's a similarity to the synth line from this and the previous track that works well. it's also a hard cut in feel as much as the last track was.
14 = 15 "cloud of unknowing": kept this and the last together, not only as the have a natural flow, but because the previous track doesn't really end and flows straight into this one.
15 = 1 "orchestral intro": the last track closes on an orchestral outro with beach and sea sounds, and this felt like a natural fit.
16 = 2 "welcome to the world of the plastic beach": i hated this song when i first heard it. it is not put as the closing track due to that, though. the first time i heard this track in this location (after listening to the rest of the album), it really did give me chills. it has a sound to it like it should have been here all along, like the exit music to a 70's blaxploitation film. hearing it in this context made it one of my favorite songs. and how awesome is it to end the album with snoop in solo mode. it doesn't hurt that there's also great symmetry with the intro track name, and saying "welcome to..." after the whole album has played)

i think this album, as originally presented, is a fine example of the downfall of the album-as-whole. this could with a little consideration, and maybe some presentation management, become one of the best *albums* of 2010. as it was, it was merely a good album with some nice singles. there may be a lyrical context to the way the album is presented, but it doesn't make sense sonically, and i think that's really all that should matter. the story being told doesn't have to have a linear progression, and flash-backs and -forwards can always have great dramatic effect.

re-ordered album = 5 starts from me

because it didn't come like that = 4 stars...

With the release of Plastic Beach, Gorillaz has definitely diverged from the sound of previous albums. Plastic Beach is a noteworthy album in its own right but unfortunately leaves a lot to be desired.

The album is peppered with featured artists. This gives a lot of variety to the tracks but really inhibits the album's cohesiveness.

Some of the rap and instrumental pieces aren't that great and feel like filler for the really solid songs. Rhinestone Eyes is probably the first track that resounded with me. Its detached, half-spoken vocals invoke the melancholy of a plastic society.

Stylo is another good track - probably the darkest-sounding track on the album. Its fast pace is a nice complement to the slower ballad of Rhinestone Eyes.

I like the heavy irony in Superfast Jellyfish; the over-the-top-pop feel pokes good fun at modern convenience culture. The mix of the chorus, rapped verse and miscellaneous sound bites is sometimes annoying, but usually pretty good. All in all it's a nice track.

Empire Ants starts out slowly with a pleasant transition into Little Dragon. Not earth-shattering but a nice track. The switch from slow ocean sounds to dance beats is an enjoyable move.

Glitter Freeze is basically an instrumental track with a slightly harsh electronic sound. I like the track a lot, and feel like I've gone on a boat ride to the plastic beach every time I listen to it.

On Melancholy Hill is my favorite track on the album. The track maintains the vocal sound of other Gorillaz tracks but the rest of the song is very poppy, consonant and mellow. It fits right into the pop song formula and comes out a success.

The title track, Plastic Beach, makes a timely return to the quiet gloom of Rhinestone Eyes. The lyrics are a bit weird but catchy. A nice song.

Pirate Jet is a decent song. Sort of catchy and I like the lyrical ideas. Unfortunately it still leaves something to be desired.

The other half of the album doesn't really seem worth going into much detail. I felt most of the songs were just filler and kind of half-baked.

In conclusion, the album has a good concept and some good, solid songs, but an unfortunate amount of mediocre tracks. I'm definitely pleased to own some of the songs but annoyed to have the others.

ok, first of all i have been a fan of gorillaz work since clint eastwood, i bought all of their cd's and have not been disappointed yet. Plastic Beach IS gorillaz. They have always had a tremendous amount of creativity and talent.. I think this cd is the best example of both. I mean it has some smooth beats and crisp lyrics that would appeal to a wide audiance of hiphop fans. It also has the feel of an indy rock cd. I know that when you listen gorillaz the creative stands out and is kind of overwealming for newcommers to the band. I recommend listening to songs two or three times before you pass judgment. My favorite songs on the cd are 5. Stylo, and 9. Some kind of nature. The sound is so unique you have to appreciate the creativity. I would recommend this cd to anyone who likes to experiment with music because this cd is exactly that. In my opinion as far as talentwise plastic beach is gorillaz best work, and has their best collaborations ever.

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...The only Electronic group with literally animated group members and consistently mind-blowing videos have released their third album last month. Talking about the Gorillaz naturally, who have made a name for themselves with great imagery, hotly discussed videos, and a handful of insanely catchy and iconic hit singles. With the groups first single from their new album "Plastic Beach", you get a real indication of what the album will be. The video for "Stylo" follows in their great tradition, and is yet another consistent and captivating music video co-starring Bruce Willis of all people. The song however, while good, is just a bit Too mellow and even guest appearances from Mos Def and R&B veteran Bobby Womack can't really make the song itself more memorable. And that's the main problem with the album, which is in general a good effort just not a very hard-hitting one. Not that the Gorillaz have ever been anything other than a mellow/chill Electronic group, however in their previous albums they did a great job at infusing some really catchy and more upbeat cuts into the mix. This album doesn't have a "Dirty Harry" or a "Feel Good Inc." or even a "Dare" or "Clint Eastwood".
The good thing about the album is it's very cohesive and the "Plastic Beach" idea is felt in the vibe of the very relaxing tracks. And better still, the featured appearances from the likes of everyone from Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed and De La Soul mix in perfectly. There vocals never seem to take away from the moody and chill tone of the album. This album seems to be perfect if you are going to listen to the whole thing on maybe a road trip, or just some sort of a relaxing playlist for the beach or wherever. Not their best, but definitely not a bad album.