Making the video that made Gorillaz(animationobsessive.substack.com) |
Making the video that made Gorillaz(animationobsessive.substack.com) |
Gorillaz were an excellent exercise in reminding me as a youth that it was okay to build this sort of fantasy world and make it real. It was more than okay, it was cool.
If anyone has the Japanese minidisc kids with guns and they wanna part with it https://www.discogs.com/release/16025872-Gorillaz-Kids-With-...
my email is in my profile!
There's also a track on Deltron 3030 (an album I liked a lot more when it was new than I do now) which I have tagged as “feat. 2-D” instead of “feat. Damon Albarn” because come on :p https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxd_eDTbBMQ
It's also kinda funny that 2D's entire existence is just a stupid pun on Robert Del (lol) Naja a.k.a. “3D” (a.k.a. Banksy?) from Massive Attack, although the later Gorillaz albums strayed from the trip-hop thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unTP4rn0nc4
And RIP Gorillaz-Unofficial https://web.archive.org/web/20071222221958/http://www.gorill...
† https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13ub5EfL6YHel5_Gn36v4...
edit: and the art Jamie Hewlett is editing in the article's photo was part of the 19／2000 single: https://www.discogs.com/release/66714-Gorillaz-192000/image/...
Have you ever seen Interstella 5555? It's a documentary actually.
I only discovered Deltron 3030 a couple of years ago, fucking love it. Why do you like it less now? Is there a controversy around it or him?
Gorillaz songs do a great job of saying a bunch of different things all layered together, like literally about the fictional band and simultaneously allegorically about capital-H Humanity and our collective perpetuity, the mortal coil, the [G]reat Work, whatever you want to call it. They're all super coded once you're willing to stop caring about the opinions of people who think it's weird/cringe to think about that kind of stuff.
“Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head” is a great example of one I only recently feel like I “get” even though I've been listening to it for twenty years. Like, why Monkey? Just because Gorillaz, or have I looked in a mirror recently? Why a mountain? What shape are those, and where else have I encountered that shape? Without the truth of the eyes, I was blind. Probably still am to a lot of it :)
Or “Saturnz Barz” where the title is about bars in a musical sense but also bars as in jail (hint: you're in it — we all are. They have Broken Our Love.)
It's really impressive he has managed to remain anonymous for so long, really.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/...
>The Beatles: Rock Band Trailer/Opening Movie
>Motorcity
>Tron: Uprising
>Love, Death, and Robots: Ice
I always forget if it was Candeland or the other guy who was prominent in early Gorillaz productions, but suffice it to say, those videos spawned quite the rad pedigree.
EDIT: Forgot to add that, since this is a Gorillaz-related comment section, I'm obligated to state my personal esoteric theory that DD/PB/HZ constitute Albarn's attempt to reboot Dante's Divine Comedy. (Among all the other fantastic things those albums are.) (Think about it.)
1. The drum beat is just the Rock 1 preset of the Suzuki Omnichord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDX6l9_58RA
2. Del tha Funkee Homosapien wrote the full lyrics in 30 minutes with the help of the book "How to Write a Hit Song": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq2qSq6NpNY#t=373
3. The first version of the song didn't feature Del, but the British group Phi Life Cypher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM-DK3b5yuo
I wonder if you need to pay royalties or get permission for that kind of thing... or is license to use it commercially included in the price of the instrument?
Includes: "STYLES, VOICES, PERFORMANCES, PATTERNS, ARPEGGIOS"
https://usa.yamaha.com/about_yamaha/proprietary_rights_notic...
There are limits to prevent copying of raw sounds and reselling.
Actually, I'm not sure if that demo/game came from the CD or from a promo website. It's been so long I don't remember.
Here's a widescreen ver: https://archive.org/details/final_drive
It was a cool demo of the new-at-the-time 3D features in Macromedia Shockwave 8.5 (Director; not Shockwave Flash)
"I'm useless, but not for long
The future is coming on"
Gangnam Style?
Also, if you like that rap verse, check out Del the Funky Homosapien/Deltron
> But we still grouped together like a fuckin' survey
Deltron 3030 -- Madness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3EiAYQB0pY
Coincidentally the album Plastic Beach came out 1 month before the BP oil spill.
Thank you :)
And please keep in mind that when I say it's a documentary I mean that in an allegorical sense, not that I believe there is literally a mirrored world of blue humans which we could travel to if only we had the technology. I see it as a depiction of an alternate way of being that Humanity could know if left to our natural predisposition toward Love and Oneness.
I see it as disclosure from Daft Punk about what happened to them after Discovery got so huge. It depicts the media industry as one tentacle of an inhuman system of control which lives forever by finding talented people whose work might lead others toward Oneness, pumping and dumping them, owning their work, and moving on to the next fad while the artists burn out to their coping method of choice (many depictions I won't spoil).
Scenes toward the end (sorry if vague — no spoilers!) do a great job depicting the actual “big bad” as an idea, a concept which only appears to take human form in rich and privileged people due to those people's own trauma but is actually something that's passed down to them. Some people would use the term “archon” but I tend not to because there are too many competing definitions. You'll notice how Crescendolls in their home “world” have no record label, no manager, no grueling tour schedule, no snooty award shows, no record stores — they just are, and it's a big party, and everyone is too busy having a good time and loving each other to notice the intruders who come to take ownership of them.