Gorillaz - Demon Days
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Free Music Notes for Demon Days
Free Music Review: A nice blend of rock, rap, and electronica
Hit: 5 Stars
It may sound like a gimmick, but it actually works well. The band is Gorillaz...the members do not exist in real life. They are animated characters hailing from Britain. The project is really the project of a member of Blur (you know...the group that does that Song 2 Woo hoo song from sporting events). The animated group placed together an interesting album full of steady rock beats, some rhymes, elements of electronica, and the help of some rap acts that really deserve more attention than...Young Jeezy.
Anyways, here's my scores on the tracks:
1. Intro - Not much here, 5/10
2. Last Living Souls - 7.3/10, cool song, but it gets better.
3. Kids With Guns - 8.5/10, the beat to the song is quite good and the lyrics are simple. The ending is the best part.
4. O Green World - 8.7/10, decent
5. Dirty Harry - 9.3/10, now comes the good stuff, the chorus is great
6. Feel Good Inc. - 10/10, the big attraction. You've seen this on the ipod commercials. Great stuff.
7. El Manana - 9.9/10, another good song. The real reason why I got the album.
8. Every Planet We Reach Is Dead - 9.4/10, an easy going song with a sad-like message.
9. November Has Come - 9.5/10, MF Doom...he's the man.
10. All Alone - 8.7/10, the "All Alone" vocals are cool
11. White Light - 9.7/10, lot of people hate this song, but I think it's pretty damn cool
12. Dare - 8.4/10, a little on the poppish feel
13. Fire Coming Out Of A Monkey's Head - 9.0/10, admire the reading of Dennis Hopper
14. Don't Get Lost in Heaven - 6.7/10, just a prelude into the final song
15. Demon Days - 8.5/10, the title track is really not my favorite, but it is a good way for the album to close out.
Overall, this album delivered during a time when people constantly claimed new music sucks (which isn't really true at all...stop watching MTV dude!). If you're interested in something different, give this album a try. Fans of rap acts like De La Soul, MF Doom, and Roots Manuva may also enjoy this album.
Free Music Review: In these Demon Days it's so cold outside...
Hit: 5 Stars
Previously to buying this album, the only thing I ever heard by Gorillaz was Clint Eastwood way back in the day. So I basically bought this album without any preconceived notions, and damn, it blew me away. This cd eclipses everything else I heard in 2005, although Don't Believe The Truth by Oasis was one hell of a listen too.
With this album, Damon Albarn does something with his musical talent that he hasn't done in a very long time: sum up life in the present tense. Where Damon focused on the working class in Britain on "Parklife" and the white collar upper class on "The Great Escape", this cd reflects the general post-9/11 anxiety of the years just following 2001. It's greatly reflected in the day-for-night tone of the album, and the album title itself.
This is also the most consistant cd that Damon has put out in a long long time. Every track stands out and every songs flows smoothly into the next. These 15 songs fly by, while at the same time, every song grabs your attention. Like the work of Radiohead, these songs will reveal more and more to you about them with each repeated listen. So you'll no doubt find yourself coming back to this cd again and again. Even the simpler songs have moments of sheer depth to them. Halfway through "All Alone" comes one of the most psychedelic and dreamy moments to be heard in modern pop music for a long time. This is just one example of the hidden gems on this disc.
The main recurring and unifying theme of this cd is anxiety and confusion brought on by life in the aftermath of something big (symbolized on this cd in the song "Fire Coming Out Of A Monkey's Head"). Through the noirish darkness of this album, comes hope for a better future and new beginning in the psychedelic title track.
If you don't want deep meaning though and you're looking for just something to listen to, this album is one hell of a ride. Damon Albarn has said that this may be the last Gorillaz album, saying that they can't get much better than this. If so, it is an extremely good note to end on.
Free Music Review: Demon Daze
Hit: 5 Stars
as pretty much every reviewer before me stated, DD takes some getting used to. I fell in love with "Feel Good Inc." the first time I heard it, so I knew I had to get the album, and it is, in one word, spectacular.
I don't own, nor have I ever owned, the first Gorillaz album, so I really didn't have any idea what the concept was, after many listens, I have been able to come up with a rough story, for me, the album represents the events from the end of the world (last living souls) to society outbreak (Feel Good Inc.)and ultimatly rebuilding of civilization (Demon Days)
Now I'm willing to bet this is just me, I'm the kind of person who would obsess over finding hidden meanings in Beatles songs, I nearly believed Paul was dead, I still believe Hotel California is about devil worship, so yeah, give me any Beatles song, and I can insanely break it down, Maxwells Silver Hammer, comentary on murder at the time, and the corrupt justice system, um, Yellow Submarine, metaphore for dying and going to heaven (sea of green) I am the walrus, metaphore for death, and rebirth, yeah, thats the kind of person I am.
So, yeah, I see an apoclyptic nature in the first five tracks (especsially in Last Living Souls, for obvious reassons, and Dirty Harry, which for some reasson feels kind of like Road Warriors) and tracks 6-end feel to me like redemtion of society.
but really, aside from all the hidden messages I see, theres some mighty fine music here, Beatles played Beatles music, Pink Flyod played Pink Flyod music, The Stones played Stones music, and Gorillaz play Gorillaz music, its simply a genre all their own, the only songs I really don't like are the last four, I find Dare over-rated, Monkey's Head is simply to weird for me, and I'm the kind of guy who understands "within you without you" and the last two preachy songs feel very out of place in an otherwise stellar album, the best of 2005, it isn't often we get this kind of music, but in my view, Demon Days could very well be the "Dark Side of the Moon" of the 21st century.
Free Music Review: Albarn lights up a barnburner
Hit: 5 Stars
Writhing up through the topsoil in all their animated brilliance, the Gorillaz (Damon Albarn, Jamie Hewlett, Miho Hatori, and newcomer Danger Mouse) dump a dirty layer of alt rock, Brit pop, and hip hop into their official sophomore effort Demon Days. Too disillusioned to be completely sober and too hopeful to be apocalyptic, lead singer Damon Albarn depicts a shadow-riveted space opera played across a dancefloor littered with broken glass and burned bridges--an incredibly visual soundscape to say the least.
Some tracks certainly stand out as strong singular efforts--the undeniable craftsmanship of "Feel Good Inc." begs to be mentioned--but Days is best suited for a full playthrough, beginning to end, no skipping, no rewinding. The lurking-in-the-dark mythos unfolds like cigarette stained origami, offering glimpses of blinding light to showcase a masterful glint off the teeth of that 800-pound gorilla in the corner of the room. Sometimes playful but more often menacing, every track rides a storytelling narrative of danger and disguise, brutal honesty and beauty, slipping into a paranoid place between solace and solitude. While Albarn refuses the limelight (his obvious stratagem in becoming fully animated) this is the work of a reborn writer coming to terms with his craft. Anonymity is certainly an empowering factor in Albarn's world, and recruiting underground wunderkind Danger Mouse to spin gritty beats keeps things concrete.
The Dawn of the Dead intro dims the overheads from the beginning, creeping over the surface of the album like an eight-legged plague, and standing in stark contrast to the choral finale tracks. Days plays more like a movie score than it does a music album, appreciating like a slow burn in the back of your psyche, scrolling through desolate landscapes and zombie-bred rhythms that aim directly at the heart of a glossy-eyed MTV generation.
Free Music Review: Gorillaz Speak Out About New Video - Feel Good Inc.
Hit: 5 Stars
It is always important to know the background story of the Feel Good Inc. accurately from the source, not just merely listen to what others' said/interpretation of the story.
"...2D and Murdoc speak out for the first time about excess and hedonism, exactly what the video's about and what really happened on the shoot...
2D: I think Gorillaz built a tower around themselves that they couldn't get out of. Of excess and hedonism. The video is based on this feeling. For a while it was great to be on the inside, but the party's got out of hand. It' s become like the Last days of Pompeii....a...er...Sodding Gommorah. The Feelgood Inc Tower represents this. The palace we built has become a prison. In the video I'm just waking up from this year-long hedonists dream, and I realise that maybe... the fruits of success have turned sour.
Noodle is outside of the Tower, in the pale morning-after light, sitting on the edge of this floating island. And you can see she knows what's happening. But people have to wake up to it themselves. So that's what the video is about; being trapped by the things you make, and realising everyone else is caught up in it. Using it. Just...they need their party to continue, to keep this thing afloat. The Tower of Babel.
Murdoc: Apart from the obvious thing, which is my gyrating hips, the coolest thing about the video would be the the hydraulics on this gig. Just for the windmill section alone cost about 3.5 million pounds. That's sterling. We had to buy a small island, make a mold of it and then scrape out all the insides. When that was done we filled the whole thing full of helium. Using the motor from the windmill we managed to get the thing to float, but it was an absolute bugger."
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