An ex-child super-soldier on guitar; a Satanist hoodlum on bass; the sole-survivor of a drive by shooting on drums; and a coma-surviving frontman are the ostensible recipe for success according to over 16 million album sales worldwide. The remarkable part? None of them exist.
Sometime in the late 90s, flatmates Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett were sick to death of how boring MTV was besides the odd Spike Jonze or Hype Williams music video. Jamie was a comic artist known for creating Tank-Girl; Damon had been the lead singer of Blur for ten years. After 6 months of demoing and doodling, Gorillaz was formed. Since then, the virtual band have released 6 studio albums, headlined the likes of Glastonbury and Coachella, and won a multitude of awards for both their musical and visual endeavours.
Every album has so far represented a ‘phase’ in which the visual style and extensive lore behind the characters progresses. This has been drip-fed to us using everything from music videos and biographies to more experimental means such as an interactive DVDs and fake interviews, compelling the fans to piece together the story themselves. While some might think it would be great to have a Gorillaz movie, finding and piecing together fragments of lore deepens the emotional connection to the band and gives the narrative more power than it might otherwise have if it was spoon-fed to the fans in a feature-length film.
Just as the storyline develops, so too does the graphic style. Hewlett’s two-dimensional characters may be just that, but they have garnered a brand identity that most big companies, never mind artists, can only dream of. That’s what impresses me most about Hewlett and Albarn’s creation today—the project’s art and music have become inseparable to the point that having one without the other feels soulless and empty. I remember becoming aware of Gorillaz for the first time and pursuing my interest in them myself when I was just nine years old: my attention being caught by the characters but captivated by the music—something I believe only a cartoon band could’ve done at that age.
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