For the past 24 years, Gorillaz has collaborated with many artists and created seven main albums. (Along with three others that contain demos and singles). While producing music, they also have collaborated with a variety of different companies such as Converse, Red bull, Spotify, Pandora, Super plastic and Kidrobot.
If there is one thing that Gorillaz is most known for, it’s being entirely fictional.
Gorillaz was first formed when one of its co-creators, Damon Albarn, (The lead singer for Gorillaz in real life) became bored of basic pop culture and wanted to make something more entertaining and unique for society. He then met Jamie Hewlett, who had the same opinion and later became the artist for Gorillaz. Together, with Albarn making music, and Hewlett creating visual effects, Gorillaz began to flourish and grew to become what it is today.
Who are the so called Cartoons?
There are four main characters that make up the Gorillaz, each of them having ages, birthdays, and even backstories that make it to where an audience can be manipulated to feel as if they are real people. There’s Noodle, a 33 year old Japanese woman who is not only the lead guitarist for the band, but also has a modeling career, and is a martial arts professional. She is also the only female in the band. Russel is the drummer for the band, He is African American and 49 years old. He enjoys boxing, collecting sneakers, and making new recipes for food. (he also had a random taxidermy phase at one point in time). He is recognized by his larger build and height.
Murdoc is the band’s bassist who is 57 years old and British. He is most known for being the “gross one” as he is claimed to have greasy black hair, green skin, bad breath, and just an overall smell to him. His hobbies include trying to flirt with women, stealing from random places for the fun of it, and being an overall menace to society. Last but not least, there is 2-D, the lead singer and keyboardist. He is 46 years old and also happens to be British. He enjoys watching zombie movies, writing poems, and reading books. He is known for his blue spiky hair and eight-ball fractures in both eyes. 2-D is terrified of whales due to him being eaten and almost killed by one. Before the band started, he had studied to become a lawyer.
Conclusion and details about upcoming articles.
Now that you have read a bit about the basics of the band, what it is and how it came to be, you can start looking into the deep and mysterious world known as the lore behind each album. In the near future, there will be an article (written by me of course) dedicated to each album and what happened with the characters at the time of its creation. There will be seven articles for each of the seven main albums released.
Gorillaz is a truly fascinating band that deserves more recognition for the things that people might not really think about. While many people may have heard about it on the surface, there is a whole world of creativity and character development waiting to be unwrapped.