Gorillaz - Demon Days
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Music CD Cover
Artist: GorillazEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-05-24
Music Label: Virgin Records Us
Soundtracks:
- Intro
- Last Living Souls
- Kids With Guns
- O Green World
- Dirty Harry
- Feel Good Inc.
- El Manana
- Every Planet We Reach Is Dead
- November Has Come
- All Alone
- White Light
- DARE
- Fire Coming Out Of A Monkey's Head
- Don't Get Lost in Heaven
- Demon Days
Free Music Notes for Demon Days
Free Music Review: A high point of the 2000s.
Hit: 5 Stars
What began as a novelty act with cartoon monkeys ended up becoming the most creative band of the decade. By now, the innovations of Demon Days have become more common (even a Japanese video game soundtrack composer got wise to them, in 2007). But even so, the album remains absolutely dazzling. The sound of Demon Days is a freewheeling, kaleidoscopic fusion of rock, rap and electronica. The cartoon concept is a blessing, allowing mastermind Damon Albarn (the single most talented pop musician working today) to surround himself with numerous guest stars, shuffling them in and out of his songs at will. The album is more of a theatrical production than an album by a band.
For instance, the single "Dirty Harry" has the most unconventional song structure to be found in any hit single. The chorus is sung by a gospel choir; it is repeated twice in the beginning, with no words in between, and then the first line resurfaces once at the very end. After the second chorus, there is one long verse, performed by the Pharcyde rapper Bootie Brown. The music itself makes an abrupt change, from a funk guitar in the beginning to a string-laden break and a much harder, crashing beat on the rap verse. "Kids With Guns" is a loping groove reminiscent of "The Guns Of Brixton" by The Clash, but ends with a crescendo of crashing guitars against a slow, blunt beat and a fragile keyboard counter-melody. A less sudden change is the way the main melody switches from keyboards to strings in the second half of "Last Living Souls."
The whole album does this. It jumps from one type of vocalist to another, often in the space of the same song, but somehow the elements of the songs always make a good fit. Albarn's sexy, dangerous vocal on the chorus of "November Has Come" makes a perfect match with MF Doom's slow, sinister rap delivery. The smash single "Feel Good Inc." (the best single of the decade) has Albarn first sing-speaking a verse with an uneasy, dark vibe, then moving to a more emotional, wistful chorus with an acoustic guitar backdrop, and then brings in De La Soul for a blustering rap. Most of the guest stars are singers and rappers who have long been past their prime (most notably Shaun Ryder), but who are reinvigorated by the modern production. As for Albarn himself, his singing is excellent, smoother and more technically proficient than in the Blur days. His forlorn, gentle falsetto in "Every Planet We Reach Is Dead" is his best vocal performance to date.
Aside from the stylistic variety, the album's secret weapon is the inventive drum programming by producer Danger Mouse, chosen for this project on the strength of his underground mash-up The Grey Album. I've already mentioned the incredible beat in the second half of "Dirty Harry," but even when he's using more conventional rhythms ("Feel Good Inc."), he adds all kinds of breaks and fills. "El Manana" is a relatively straightforward ballad, but it gains a certain resilience from the unobtrusive, yet detailed and varied percussion.
For all the pop flourishes, however, the album is also very atmospheric. Danger Mouse throws all kinds of sound effects into the backgrounds, creating a murky feeling. The bass is prominent throughout: among its many strengths, "Feel Good Inc." also has a superb bass line. The strings in "Dirty Harry" and "Every Planet We Reach Is Dead" have a vaguely sorrowful sound, and the keyboard melodies in "Last Living Souls" and "Kids With Guns" are spare and spooky. The production gives a glacial sheen to the disco stylings of "DARE."
The lyrics are impressionistic, but usually contribute to the dark mood in some way, like Albarn's tense, portending chorus of "now you know November has come, and it's gone away," or his laments about how "I lost my way" and "we're the last living souls," or even Shaun Ryder's plea (surrounded by ghostly multi-tracked backing vocals) of "never did no harm" in "DARE." The rap verse in "Dirty Harry" makes a topical connection, evoking the paranoia of a soldier trying to survive in a strange land. But the unease of Demon Days is all-pervasive. In some way, the album captures the mood of the 2000s just as well as Blur's landmark Parklife epitomized the 1990s.
The best songs occur in the middle of the album -- tracks five through nine are spell-binding. But, unfortunately, the sprawling compositional style does over-extend itself sometimes. I'm not sure the album really needed two songs with a gospel choir at the end. Sure, the title track is supposed to show a ray of hope among the clouds, but when it urges you to "turn to the sun," that sounds like an awfully glib resolution. Furthermore, a couple of songs borrow the drab guitar chug of "Crazy Beat" from the last Blur album: "O Green World" has a good vocal performance, but the backing is grating, and "White Light" is a drag, a noisy and pointless two-minute instrumental with pounding drums. On the plus side, the reggae-inflected spoken-word track "Fire Coming Out Of A Monkey's Head" (where Dennis Hopper reads a morality play of sorts), though it may sound like a bad idea, actually ends up being very enjoyable.
The fact remains that, out of the fifteen tracks on Demon Days, seven or eight are the best music made by anyone during the 2000s. I recommend Demon Days to everyone. Even if you don't normally like rap or electronica, this may be the one album that warrants making an exception.
Demon Days Poster
Gorillaz Photos
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More from Gorillaz
 Gorillaz |  G-Sides |  Spacemonkeyz Vs. Gorillaz: Laika Come Home |
 Gorillaz - Phase One - Celebrity Take Down |  Gorillaz - Phase Two - Slowboat to Hades |  Demon Days Live |
A side project doesn't usually hit gold, especially when said project is a quirky virtual collective fronted by cartoon characters. But the first, self-titled album by Gorillaz--the brainchild of illustrator Jamie Hewlett and Blur frontman Damon Albarn--actually hit platinum and turned into a surprise worldwide hit. Naturally expectations were a lot higher for Gorillaz's sophomore effort, but Demon Days actually is even better than its predecessor. With producer Dan "the Automator" Nakamura gone, Albarn, a.k.a. 2D, has paired up with DJ Danger Mouse (responsible for the infamous Grey Album that illegally mixed the Beatles and Jay-Z) to steer the musical ship, while a whole new slew of guests enlivens the proceedings. Albarn has described Demon Days as being darker, but there's a real kooky dance-party vibe coursing through the CD. Despite its somber tone, "Kids with Guns" is lifted by a killer bass line, for instance, while the catchy first single, "Feel Good Inc," is augmented by an appealing contribution from De La Soul. Other noteworthy guests include Roots Manuva and Tricky collaborator Martina Topley-Bird on the dubby "All Alone" and Happy Mondays singer Shaun Ryder on the bouncy "DARE." And yet it's a 69-year-old actor who gets to deliver the most baffling contribution--just listen to Dennis Hopper's spoken-word narrative on "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head." Elisabeth Vincentelli
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