Glitter freeze, Pirate Jet, Superfast Jellyfish, Stylo, Plastic beach itself… well, let’s keep it at that. I like most of the tracks, it’s a wonderful ensemble, very warm and dreamy. It’s not as dark and doomy as ‘Demon Days’ was, and I’m glad about that. There are some dark edges here and there, but most of it is bright and makes you feel like you’re on a holiday. Damon Albarn collected all these debris and made a wonderful and strange island out of it.
The only catch there is that you’d have to listen to it a couple of times before you get hooked. It definately had to grow on me.
I’m a huge Blur fan, and gave the last Gorillaz album a quick listen. He’s got a great ensemble of artists on this one - Bobby Womack, Paul Simonon, and Mick Jones - so I will be checking it out…
I like “Plastic Beach” a lot, although it’s not quite as good as “Demon Days” IMO. A few too many straight-up dance/hip hop tracks for my taste, and too few of the atmospheric, melancholy songs that Albarn does so well (for reference, “El Manana” was my favorite track off “Demon Days”). But “Stylo” is a fantastic single, and it’s awesome to finally get some new Gorillaz animation to watch.
NPR had the full album on their website for streaming about a week and a half ago. I listened to the whole album twice through and it really grew on me the second time. I’ll probably get the album eventually, but the singles haven’t caught my interest the way that Feel Good Inc, and Clint Eastwood from the previous albums did.
I was going to start a thread about the Gorillaz being back, glad I searched first. The mods change their minds so many times about zombie threads, but I think they’re OK again. If not, sorry.
Have any of you seen the video for Stylo? I think it’s kind of cool, but creepy seeing them as CGI instead of animation. And the guest star in the video is pretty darn cool.
I just flat out don’t like pop rock/hip-hop. Emphasis on pop.
I was on a long business trip and I needed something to listen to. The album got a fairly glowing review on Pitchfork so I figured it was worth the risk.
Sorry, didn’t like it. As an album, there’s just no continuity. One random pop alterna rock song followed by another random pop hip-hop song.
Did almost nothing for me. I don’t hate it, I won’t criticize the people that like it, but to me it was an incredibly boring album. Got through about three full listens; at that point I could say that this, to me, was boring. It will probably go to the trash bin.
That’s a bit of a problem for the album; at first I didn’t like it much, either. It’s only after a few repeats that it clicked. I’m now absolutely hooked.
Apart from cloud of unknowing. Don’t much like that.
I did this with Demon Days. The album was almost universally acclaimed as awesome, so I bought a copy back when Tower Records went out of business ( I spent a lot of money during the 2 months they were selling off their inventory). I listened to it a couple of times, before putting it in the “sell” pile. It was boring, hookless, monotonous, underwhelming shite. Like The Who, I won’t get fooled again, at least not by this band.
ETA: The song Dirty Harry, supposedly the best song on that album, has no positively redeeming features at all.
ETA: I haven’t felt as cheated by an album purchase since that Gnarls Barkley thing that everyone was swooning over.
You just reminded me how much I miss Tower Records. They were the only store in my radius that actually stocked music beyond the Billboard Top 20.
Come to think of it, since they closed I don’t think I’ve bought more than 3 physical albums. It’s all downloadable now, and that’s ok, but I still miss strolling through a record store.
