Gorillaz began as a joke about manufactured pop and sold millions
Flatmates Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett watched too much MTV in the late 1990s and decided that if boy bands were fabricated anyway, they would fabricate a better one. Their cartoon quartet debuted in 2001, and on its first tour the real musicians played hidden behind a giant screen.
Albarn, the Blur frontman, and Hewlett, co-creator of the comic Tank Girl, first met in 1990 when guitarist Graham Coxon arranged an interview for the magazine Deadline. Hewlett's first impression of the singer was unflattering, and the two often clashed, yet by 1997 they were sharing a flat on Westbourne Grove in London. There, sickened by what they saw as the emptiness of music television, they sketched out a virtual band: 2-D on vocals, Murdoc Niccals on bass, Noodle on guitar and Russel Hobbs on drums.
Albarn recorded the first album between 1998 and 2000 at his new Studio 13 in London and at Geejam Studios in Jamaica, using hip-hop, dub and Latin rhythms that had never fitted Blur. Halfway through he called in producer Dan the Automator, who brought rapper Del the Funky Homosapien and turntablist Kid Koala. Released on 26 March 2001, the record reached No. 3 in Britain and sold over 7 million copies, carried by the single Clint Eastwood.
The concept made touring awkward. Albarn later admitted that after a decade as a frontman, playing unseen behind projected cartoons felt so strange that some nights he wanted to slash through the screen. At the 2002 Brit Awards the animated members appeared in 3D on four giant screens, a stunt reportedly costing 300,000 pounds. Since 2010 the band has toured with its human players fully visible.
Hewlett argued that a second album would prove the idea was no gimmick, and Demon Days in 2005 did exactly that, entering the British chart at No. 1 and becoming their best seller; its single Feel Good Inc., with De La Soul, led a US alternative chart for eight weeks. Later projects included an album recorded largely on an iPad while touring and a web series of standalone singles called Song Machine. Albarn remains the only permanent musician, and the band has collected a Grammy and a 2018 Brit Award for Best British Group.
Source: Gorillaz
