Gorillaz is the debut album by the English virtual band Gorillaz, released on 26 March 2001 in the United Kingdom by Parlophone and on 19 June 2001 in the United States by Virgin Records. The album was recorded between 1998 and 2000 at Damon Albarn's Studio 13 in London, as well as at Geejam Studios in Jamaica, and was produced by Dan the Automator, alongside the band themselves, Tom Girling, and Jason Cox. The album features guest contributions from Del the Funky Homosapien, Miho Hatori, Ibrahim Ferrer, and Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz of Tom Tom Club, establishing the pattern of Gorillaz music involving a variety of featured guest collaborators.
Marking a departure from the distinct Britpop sound of Albarn's band Blur, Gorillaz incorporates an eclectic mix of stylistic influences, including trip hop, dub, Latin and punk rock. The album was preceded by the Tomorrow Comes Today EP (2000), which featured three songs that would later appear on the album. The album spawned four singles, including "Clint Eastwood" (featuring Del the Funky Homosapien), "19-2000" (featuring Miho Hatori and Tina Weymouth), "Rock the House" (featuring Del the Funky Homosapien) and "Tomorrow Comes Today". The release of the album was promoted across a variety of multimedia including interactive websites, animated music videos and short cartoons created by Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett, with the album's associated visual media later compiled and released as the video album Phase One: Celebrity Take Down (2002).
Fueled by the success of the "Clint Eastwood" single, Gorillaz was a major commercial success upon its release, going on to sell over seven million copies worldwide and being certified platinum in the US and triple platinum in the UK. The album's success earned the group an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "Most Successful Virtual Band." The album was promoted via a 2001–2002 world tour, in which Albarn and a backing band performed obscured behind projection screens upon which Hewlett's visuals were displayed. The album received generally positive reviews from critics and has been ranked as among the best albums of the 2000s. B-sides and outtakes from the album's sessions were later released as the compilation album G-Sides, in December 2001. A 20th anniversary reissue of Gorillaz was released in 2021.
Background
Musician Damon Albarn and comic book creator Jamie Hewlett met in 1990 when guitarist Graham Coxon, a fan of Hewlett's work, asked him to interview Blur, a band <span lang="es" dir="ltr">Albarn</span> and Coxon had recently formed. The interview was published in Deadline magazine, home of Hewlett's comic strip, Tank Girl. Hewlett initially thought Albarn was "arsey, a wanker"; despite becoming acquaintances with the band, they often did not get on, especially after Hewlett began seeing Coxon's ex-girlfriend Jane Olliver. Hewlett had recently broken up with Olliver and Albarn was at the end of his highly publicised relationship with Justine Frischmann of Elastica. The band originally identified themselves as "Gorilla" and the first song they recorded was "Ghost Train" which was later released as a B-side on their single "Rock the House" and the B-side compilation G-Sides. The musicians behind Gorillaz' first incarnation included Albarn, Del the Funky Homosapien, Dan the Automator and Kid Koala, who had previously worked together on the track "Time Keeps on Slipping" for Deltron 3030's first album Deltron 3030.
Although not released under the Gorillaz name, Albarn has said that "one of the first ever Gorillaz tunes" was Blur's 1997 single "On Your Own", which was released for their fifth studio album Blur (1997).
20th anniversary reissue
In March 2021, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album's release, a vinyl box set was announced. The first edition of the boxset, which was exclusive to the band's webstore, was released on 10 December 2021. The boxset includes previously released material, including the original album, the B-sides compilation album G-Sides, and the remix album Laika Come Home (which received its first reissue since its initial press) and previously unreleased material, including live performances from the 2001 London Forum concert and five demos. Additionally, it also includes notes and early sketches by Jamie Hewlett during the making of the album.
Composition
Critics have described the album as alternative rock, lo-fi, dub, trip hop, and art pop, rap rock, art rock, Britpop, Latin,
All editions of the Gorillaz album feature an enhanced section that included screen savers, wallpaper and an autoplay, featuring a short movie which opens the user's web browser to a special section of the Gorillaz website, which gives the user full access to Murdoc's Winnebago.
Del the Funky Homosapien collaborated on two songs on the album, "Clint Eastwood" and "Rock the House", both of which became singles and videos and achieved chart success. Del was not originally slated to collaborate on these songs. By the time Del came onto the project, the album was already finished, and Phi Life Cypher had recorded verses for "Clint Eastwood"; but when Del finished making Deltron 3030 with Dan the Automator, Automator asked if he could stay in the studio a little longer to record new verses for the Gorillaz songs. For the purposes of the music videos and the Gorillaz storyline canon, Del performed as Gorillaz character "Del the Ghost Rapper", who was said to be a spirit that was hiding from death within the band's drummer, Russel Hobbs. Del later commented in an interview on the success of "Clint Eastwood" by saying that he actually wrote his rap for the song using the book How to Write a Hit Song, a book that he bought with a coupon his mother gave him. After the song went platinum he gave the plaque to his mother. As part of Russel Hobbs' backstory, the character of Del was one of Russel's friends that was gunned down in a drive-by shooting, whose ghost possessed Russel.
In 2004, the album was packaged with 2002's Laika Come Home in a limited edition box set as part of EMI's "2CD Originals" collection. Other saw a release such as the reggae-dub "Dub Dumb", which features British-Jamaican artist Sweetie Irie; it is available on the PlayStation 2 game MTV Music Generator 2 rather than on G-Sides or the album itself. Other tracks include "Gor Beaten", which was another track that didn't make the album; however, elements of the track's instrumental were once available on one of the Gorillaz member's computers in Kong Studios.
Critical reception
Gorillaz received generally positive reviews from critics. It was ranked sixth in both Spins and Kludges end-of-year lists, 48 on NME's 2001 year-end list and Q ranked it among the 50 best albums of the year. The album was nominated for the 2001 Mercury Music Prize (Gorillaz was bookmakers' favourite before the nomination was withdrawn at the band's request).
The album made some retrospective "best of" lists. Slant Magazine ranked the album number 96 in its best of the 2000s, Complex, Consequence Of Sound and Rhapsody ranked it among the top 100 albums of the 2000s and Gigwise included it in its 2013 best self-titled albums of all time. The album was given an entry in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Singles
- "Tomorrow Comes Today" was released as an EP before the album was released. A video for the single was also released.
- "Clint Eastwood" was the first single from the album, debuting on 4 March 2001. The single peaked at number 4 on the UK Singles Chart, number 57 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 3 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart.
- "19-2000" was the second single from the album, released in June 2001. The single peaked at number 6 on the UK Singles Chart
| title1 = Re-Hash
| length1 = 3:40
| title2 = 5/4
| length2 = 2:42
| title3 = Tomorrow Comes Today
| length3 = 3:13
| title4 = New Genious<!-- "Genious" is correct. Do not change to "Genius" --> (Brother)
| note4 =
| writer4 =
| length4 = 3:59
| title5 = Clint Eastwood
| writer5 =
| extra5 =
| length5 = 5:41
| title6 = Man Research (Clapper)
| length6 = 4:30
| title7 = Punk
| length7 = 1:36
| title8 = Sound Check (Gravity)
| length8 = 4:41
| title9 = Double Bass
| length9 = 4:45
| title10 = Rock the House
| writer10 =
| extra10 =
| length10 = 4:08
| title11 = 19-2000
| length11 = 3:27
| title12 = Latin Simone (¿Qué Pasa Contigo?)
| writer12 =
| extra12 =
| length12 = 3:36
| title13 = Starshine
| length13 = 3:31
| title14 = Slow Country
| length14 = 3:34
| title15 = M1 A1
| note15 =
| writer15 =
| length15 = 3:50
| total_length = 56:56
Sample credits
Source:
- "New Genious (Brother)" contains samples of "Hit or Miss", written by Odetta Gordon and performed by Bo Diddley.
- "Man Research (Clapper)" contains samples of "In the Hall of the Mountain Queen" written and performed by Raymond Scott.
- "Rock the House" contains samples of "Modesty Blaise", written and performed by John Dankworth.
- "Slow Country" contains samples of "Ghost Town" written by Jerry Dammers and performed by The Specials.
- "M1 A1" contains samples of music from the film Day of the Dead, written by John Harrison.
20th Anniversary super deluxe vinyl boxset
LP 3: G-Sides
LP 4 and 5: Laika Come Home (Spacemonkeyz vs Gorillaz)
LP 6 and 7: Live At The Forum, 2001
LP 8: Demoz
Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Gorillaz.
|style="text-align:center;"|9
|-
|-
!scope="row"| Australian Alternative Albums (ARIA)
|style="text-align:center;"|1
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Chilean Albums Chart
|align="center"|1
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|European Albums (Music & Media)
|style="text-align:center;"|1
|-
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Greek Albums (IFPI)
|style="text-align:center;"|6
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Japanese Albums (Oricon)
|style="text-align:center;"|49
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Slovak Albums (IFPI)
| style="text-align:center;"|18
|-
!scope="row"|Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)
| style="text-align:center;"|10
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Uruguayan Albums (CUD)
| style="text-align:center;"|1
|-
|-
|}
{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
!Chart (2005)
!Peak<br />position
|-
|}
{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
!Chart (2017)
!Peak<br />position
|-
|-
|}
{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
!Chart (2021)
!Peak<br />position
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|-
! scope="col"| Chart (2001)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| Australian Albums (ARIA)
| style="text-align:center;"| 43
|-
! scope="row"| Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)
|style="text-align:center;"|10
|-
! scope="row"| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)
| style="text-align:center;"| 45
|-
! scope="row"| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)
| style="text-align:center;"| 27
|-
! scope="row"| Belgian Alternative Albums (Ultratop Flanders)
| style="text-align:center;"| 22
|-
!scope="row"|Canadian Albums (Nielsen SoundScan)
|84
|-
! scope="row"| Danish Albums (Hitlisten)
|style="text-align:center;"|42
|-
! scope="row"| Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)
| style="text-align:center;"| 68
|-
! scope="row"| European Albums (Music & Media)
|15
|-
! scope="row"| French Albums (SNEP)
| style="text-align:center;"| 25
|-
! scope="row"| German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)
| style="text-align:center;"| 22
|-
! scope="row"| Italian Albums (FIMI)
|style="text-align:center;"| 43
|-
! scope="row"| New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)
| style="text-align:center;"| 10
|-
! scope="row"| Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)
| style="text-align:center;"| 54
|-
! scope="row"| Swedish Albums & Compilations (Sverigetopplistan)
| style="text-align:center;"| 73
|-
! scope="row"| Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)
| style="text-align:center;"| 33
|-
! scope="row"| UK Albums (OCC)
| style="text-align:center;"| 22
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200
| style="text-align:center;"| 93
|-
! scope="row"| Worldwide Albums (IFPI)
| style="text-align:center;"| 18
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|-
! scope="col"| Chart (2002)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| UK Albums (OCC)
| style="text-align:center;"| 158
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|-
! scope="col"| Chart (2005)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"| UK Albums (OCC)
| style="text-align:center;"| 185
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|-
! scope="col"| Chart (2006)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
! scope="row"|UK Albums (OCC)
|202
|}
Certifications and sales
Release history
{|class="wikitable sortable"
|-
!Region
!Label
!Catalog
!Edition
|-
|rowspan="2"|United Kingdom
|rowspan="3"|Parlophone
||7243 5 32093 0
||original
|-
|7243 5 31138 0 3
|reissue
|-
||France
||7243 5 34488 0 6
||limited
|-
|rowspan="2"|United States
|rowspan="2"|Virgin
|rowspan="2"|7243 5 33748 0 8
||original
|-
|reissue
|-
||Malaysia
||EMI
||7243 5 38704 0 9
||limited
|-
||USA
||Warner Bros. Records
||337480-2PRL
||December 2013, reissued after Universal acquired EMI and Warner's acquisition of Parlophone.
|}
Notes
References
<!-- width should match Div col above -->