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Cleverly mixes soft-focus hip-hop, trippy space rock and Ennio Morricone-style melodrama with Albarn's unwavering pop melodies.
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Hands down, this is one of the best-produced albums of the year...
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Alternative PressWhereas the Beckster tends to wriggle cheekily along to his funk, and Badly Drawn Boy does his own thing in spite of it, Gorillaz don't give a rat's ass about acting funky; they just are. [July 2001, p.68]
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Albarn is the melodious voice of western pop tradition throughout; at first you might think his are the barmy brains behind this band, but it's just not so. His loose-kneed vocals are like pop tarts in this bumbling hip-hop parade, but it's the bumble that makes the rumble.
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The slow rumble of Nakamura's production, Hewlett's outstanding graphic model, even Albarn himself all fuse into a convincing gestalt.
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The album has its share of enjoyable tunes, and more than a couple great ones.
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A couple of tracks flounder around South of no North but as a whole Gorillaz, should be pretty pleased with what they've been able to achieve, considering the high risk concept involved.
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MagnetThis secret society's sonic output is nothing short of sheer musical buggery, a hip-hop twilight realm where Dr. Octagon performs transplant surgery on Mellow Gold with the cast of Scooby Doo in the gallery. [#50, p.89]
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SpinWhat could have been hipster reach is multiculti grasp of the sweetest kind. [Jun 2001, p.148]
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It's at its best when it puts Albarn in situations that you wouldn't normally hear him in, but also stumbles occassionally with a couple tracks that feel rather tossed-off and others that feel like they could have come off a Blur b-side.
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Gorillaz is every bit as hit-or-miss as expected, but to its credit, the hits on its self-titled debut sound more impressive and infectious than the misses sound like indulgent flops.
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Taken only for what it is, Gorillaz is an engaging, if not entirely arresting, journey through sluggish mood rock and jazzy hip-hop. Taken for what it aspires to be, though, it's more disappointing than awe-inspiring...
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Much of the album has the odd, rehashed sound of a Blur record produced by the Automator, but the diverse guests keep at least every other song fresh and new.
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Inspired by the punky reggae parties of Sandinista!-era Clash, tracks like the dub-rap-rock mutation "Clint Eastwood" and its catchier two-step Rasta remix bring back the exuberance missing from Blur's last album, 13, while running with its anything-goes avant-aesthetic.
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I so want to hate this album.... If only the album flat-out sucked, I'd be on much firmer ground. Too bad it doesn't.
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Neither Brit-pop nor hip-hop, "Gorillaz" contains a motley, dub-influenced collection of songs that are, like Hewlett's drawings, an exercise in sophisticated immaturity
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As forward-thinking as this sounds, it just kind of makes Gorillaz an Archies/Josie & The Pussycats for the new millennium. It also makes them and their album fit in with everyone else in the progressive hip-hop canon, all of whom see fit to make slightly ludicrous concept records.
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It's what you might expect from a bunch of musos playing with Cubase or ProTools: sampled loops, Brixton dub, trip-hoppy tangents. U.N.K.L.E.'s bratty nephew, really, though the album sounds like the group locked the metronome on "heavy funk groove"--chugging and satisfying at first, it feels exhausted by the fifth or sixth track.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 322 out of 339
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Mixed: 11 out of 339
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Negative: 6 out of 339
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VadamercaNJul 27, 2007
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Sep 26, 2010
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Nov 24, 2021Certified hood classic. Every time I listen to this album I fall in love listening to the band again. Very good enjoy.