Gorillaz

[work in progress]

About

Gorillaz is an animated band created by Blur frontman Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett. The band is well known for their animated, multi-media music videos, the animated characters and its genre-crossing music style, with influences from hip-hop, reggae, dub, rock, alternative and indie music among other genres as well as their collaborations with various artists.

History

Formation

Gorillaz was created by Albarn and Hewlett after watching MTV in their flat, stating that “If you watch MTV for too long, it’s a bit like hell – there’s nothing of substance there. So we got this idea for a cartoon band, something that would be a comment on that.”^[1]. From there on, they first identified the band as “Gorilla” and recorded a single track under the name titled “Ghost Train”^[2]. From there on, the group collaborated with Deltron 3030 to produce their first album, Gorillaz.

The fictional band members are:

Stuart “2D” Pot
Murdoc Niccals
Noodle
Russell Hobbs

Discography

Gorillaz has gone through several phases, with each phase bringing a new style of music and art style.

Phase One: Celebrity Takedown

The first phase of Gorillaz, the phase lasted from 1999 to 2003. With the phase came the release of their self-titled album along side 4 singles, Tomorrow Comes Today, Clint Eastwood, 19-2000 and Rock the House. The album had sold 6 million copies worldwide and had earned the group the Guiness World Record of “Most Successful Virtual Band”^[3].

Phase Two: Slowboat to Hades

The second phase of Gorillaz, lasting from 2004 to 2007. The phase lead to the release of their most successful album to date, known as Demon Days, with 5 singles being released during the phase, including Rock It, Feel Good Inc., El Mañana, Dirty Harry, and DARE. Since the release of Demon Days, the album has gone 5 times platinum in the UK, double platinum in the USA and has sold over 6 million copies^[4].

Phase Three: Escape to Plastic Beach

The latest phase in Gorillaz’ history, this phase lasted from 2008 to 2012. This phase lead to the release of Plastic Beach and The Fall, alongside the release of 5 singles, Stylo, Superfast Jellyfish, On Melancholy Hill, Rhinestone Eyes and Doncamatic^[5].

Online Presence

Gorillaz has a large online following due to their interactive website Gorillaz.com^[6], a website showcasing the fictional band members biographies and their current home in the animated universe. There was also an unofficial fan-created Gorillaz website (known as Gorillaz Unofficial^[17]) that had posted announcements and news that the official website hadn’t posted, but it has been down since April 2014. Gorillaz has also had Twitter accounts made for each of the animated characters^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10].
As of February 2015, the Gorillaz Facebook page has over 9 million likes^[11] and the main Twitter account has 300 000 followers^[12].

Fandom

The group has gained a large fandom due to its genre crossing music and because of its animated members. The group has several tumblr blogs related to them, such as fuckyeahgorillaz^[13] and Gorillaz Confessions^[14]. Gorillaz also has a sub-reddit^[15] and over 100 000 tagged images on DeviantArt^[16], many of them being fanarts.

Related Memes

Gorillaz “Demon Days” Cover Parodies

Gorillaz “Demon Days” Cover Parodies are parodies of the cover of the album art of Demon Days, often replacing the band members with other fictional characters, often stylized in a similar way.