Hiya! Lillaz and Gale here again, bringing you the news from the last week. It was a big week to say the least… you’ll see why!
This week:
Happy Birthday Damon!
Happy 53rd birthday to Damon Albarn!
Everyone reading knows him as the awesome musician behind Gorillaz, but the co-creator of our favorite band is also involved in numerous other projects! Check out some of the musical projects we also celebrate him for:
Blur
Damon’s band before Gorillaz. A massively popular Britpop group, with an extensive catalog, spanning up to 2015!
Monkey
This project is the closest you can get to Gorillaz; the art is by Jamie and music by Damon. Arguably a prettier project, Monkey is an amazing opera by the duo!
The Good, the Bad, and the Queen
MY (Gale’s) personal favorite, an amazing supergroup headed by Damon Albarn with two AMAZING albums, backed by Tony Allen’s iconic drumming. Check out Merrie Land, it’s one of Damon’s BEST albums right now.
Solo Work
Damon has done several collaborations with artists, as well as an opera and solo album under his name! We suggest Everyday Robots.
20th Anniversary
March 26th marked the 20th anniversary of Gorillaz – the day their self titled album came out in 2001. Unreal that a cartoon band has survived in the limelight for this long — it might be the fact that Jamie, Damon and the whole Gorillaz team seem to reinvent themselves and stay modern and new with each phase. There are great things about this, but also things that fans consider detrimental (see NFTs in the next headline).
In celebration of the anniversary, fans came up with some beautiful art! See some below:
The Big Drop
Two days ago, on the 20th anniversary, Gorillaz announced not only a new line of G-Foot clothing, but a reissue of every Gorillaz album, finally backed with newly unheard songs from every PHASE! Read more about it here.
Leviathan, anyone?
Gorillaz also announced a series of vinyl toys and art collectibles in collaboration with brand Superplastic. The art collectables are actually “NFTs,” Non-Fungible Tokens, digital collectables bought in the form of cryptocurrency.
The news of the Gorillaz NFT sparked a lot of controversy with the fan base, namely due to the major damage these can have to the earth. You can learn more about the environmental impacts here.
Besides the impact of NFTs, we are personally super excited for the outcome of this 20th anniversary drop! Here’s to some more tunes, y’all.
It’s Not Easy Being Green
In celebration of St. Patrick’s day, Murdoc released another eclectic playlist, all about, well, the color green. Listen to it here:
Gorillazland 