What...

the.. hell..?

The Gorillaz

I've had a soft spot for these guys since two thousand and god-knows-when

 * (did my research, it was actually 2001) 

 when i received their first album as a gift for a birthday. 

I was only 10 at the time, but this album, along with Linkin Park's REANIMATION would soon become the albums that got this intrepid little child into his hip-hop in later years,

and into good music from such an early age.

Who was i to know JUST how much i would love this and appreciate it as my years wore on?

anyway - the reasons why i like hip-hop have NOTHING to do with this. 

What i wanted to originally say about this album is that it amazed me from the first time i'd ever heard it.

it was like nothing i'd ever heard before - with songs ranging from 
Clint Eastwood  to
Rock The House, and Latin Simone
i was pretty stunned by the range of things they could produce.
so i loved the album for all of its individual songs, and if you don't have it already, i'd like to recommend it to you.


SO to follow up this album, Four years later, they released Demon Days.

the list of "featuring" artists on this album is incredible. De La Soul, Neneh Cherry, Roots Manuva, MF DOOM, Ike Turner, Bootie Brown of the Pharcyde, Shaun Ryder, Dennis Hopper, and then some choirs (a Gospel Choir and a Children's choir). 

That is not to say that the previous album didn't have some impressive people co-working with Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett (two geniuses). These included Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, Ibrahim Ferrer, and Miho Hatori, amongst a few others, but obviously the Gorillaz' little black book became a little less little after the reception and reputation of their first album.

IN SHORT, Demon Days was fantastic. if you play it for a friend and they don't enjoy it, it's time to get some new friends. 

[NB i'm always looking for friends.]

but anyway, Demon Days is even better than their first Album. after each of these they've released an album of B-Sides. respectively they've been G-Sides and D-Sides, and they've been mainly B-side tracks but also some fun remixes and re-edits, always good to listen to.

however, you do need to kind of focus and think about some of the songs.

and then some group who i've never heard of called Spacemonkeyz released a full CD of their own remixes of various Gorillaz songs, in dub and reggae style.

It's Called Lalika Come Home - but i think thats mostly a typo, 

cause it's a reference to Laika, the space dog.

Needless to say (almost) this album is really good. It's really nice and chilled and makes for good relaxing music with friends, driving music, background music, or anything really.

BACK TO REALITY. Four years after Demon Days, as if on cue, the Gorillaz announced Plastic Beach (their third studio album). of this, i've only heard as much as you fine people, 

the one track they've released - Stylo.

Now this album has a featuring list perhaps even more impressive than Demon Days:

 Snoop Dogg, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Kano, Bashy, Bobby Womack, Mos Def, Gruff Rhys, De La Soul, Little Dragon, Mark E. Smith, Lou Reed, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, sinfonia ViVA and The Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music.

I'm puzzled, intrigued, and excited about hearing what Lou Reed and Gorillaz do together.

i like the album art, too.

A live countdown to the album's release is available at Gorillaz.com, and as of this moment, there rests one day and seven hours on the countdown.

i'm excited, people. Very, very excited.

a wild genius appeared!

The Most Incredible Videos Ever

Holy Shit

if this is what the future sounds like, i want to go now

number 2 particularly is good for watching robots fighting.
advice: Mute a youtube montage of Transformer fights... such as this or this and try to get some synchronisation going. it looks really cool.

Yeah? Well i got a brown belt in leather-making.

reasons why paris is better than anywhere else

 

sorry team, i'm not entirely motivated to write a huge poster, just thought i'd show off some really cool things going on where i am. 

i'll hit up a large long post soon - it's the weekend after all - with links and things embedded and all the bells and whistles. really the kind of stuff you start reading blogs for

other than that though, new music lately has consisted of the dirtiest dubstep known to man, a dude named Excision who's from somewhere in england. his music is so industrial and fucked.

i think it should be the soundtrack to the transformers films:

Akira and Life in General

i'm going out on a bit of a limb here, people.

whipping out the animé.

however out of them all, this one is definitely the best. i hope that you can take a little bit of time out of your busy, busty schedules to watch this. on youtube, in parts, illegally.

[i don't condone these activities from a legal standpoint - just personal.]

i'm also sorry there's been very little action here over the past month. 

that will all change soon - when the ability to upload images gets better.

for now, i'll just take them from facebook and stuff.

photocreditz: Madeleine Rothery's incredible camera (pictured below)

the last thing i want to do is turn my blog into a bunch of esoteric personal jokes and stuff like that, so please don't get that idea. (regarding photos and whatnot)

i just think the photos look cool...

STEP ONE: wake up

STEP TWO: open iTunes

STEP THREE: click on the "Search" field, and type the words "Animal Collective"

STEP FOUR: Click the small symbol:

STEP FIVE: Press play and enjoy.