Kid Koala and Del the Funky Homosapien, both of whom worked with Nakamura on the Deltron 3030 project, completed the creative team behind the Gorillaz quartet, which included virtual members 2-D, a cute but spacy singer/keyboardist Murdoc, a spooky, possibly Satanic bassist and the brains behind the group Russel, a drummer who is both inspired by “Farrakhan and Chaka Khan” and possessed by “funk The group’s website included Hewlett’s photographs as well as the group’s music in a way that was both visually and acoustically appealing.Īfter releasing the Tomorrow Comes Today EP in late 2000, Gorillaz went on to release a successful single featuring Clint Eastwood, which became a worldwide hit the following year, which was titled “Clint Eastwood.”The band’s self-titled debut full-length album was released in the spring of 2001. The band went on to become one of the most successful alternative rock bands in history. The initial lineup of Gorillaz combined the musical abilities of Albarn, Dan “The Automator” Nakamura, Cibo Matto’s Miho Hatori, and Tom Tom Club’s Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz with the captivating graphics of Jamie Hewlett, who is best known as the author of the cult comic Tank Girl. Over the years, the group has collaborated with artists such as Del the Funky Homosapien, De La Soul, Shay Ryder, Mick Jones of the Clash, Lou Reed, James Murphy, André 3000, George Benson, and Elton John. The band’s musical constant throughout their existence has been Albarn, who has driven the group ahead while also stretching the bounds of his own comfort zone to greater heights. Hewlett’s cartoon avatars provided Gorillaz a tinge of levity, and that levity, when combined with Albarn’s shifting roster of collaborators, helped to soften the band’s darker moments in the early years. This was taken even further with the 2010s environmentally conscious Plastic Beach. Gorillaz’s self-titled first album was an international success right out of the gate in 2001, thanks in part to the gloomy, slinky smash single “Clint Eastwood,” which served as the album’s centerpiece.įeel Good Inc.’s brighter counterpart, “Feel Good Inc.,” was an even bigger hit in 2005, and the album that gave birth to it, Demon Days, revealed how Albarn used Gorillaz as a way to incorporate non-rock music while also addressing larger political and societal concerns. In spite of this, the “virtual band” he developed with artist Jamie Hewlett in the last years of the twentieth century has evolved into his primary performing vehicle in the twenty-first century. MEMBERS: Murdoc Niccals, 2-D, Noodle, Russel Hobbsĭamon Albarn started Gorillaz on a whim, as a way for the singer/songwriter to experiment with music that his Brit-pop band Blur couldn’t compose on their own.