Favorite Albums of 2010: Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

Gorillaz, On Melancholy Hill

Plastic Beach (2010)

I used to think Gorillaz were a total gimmick (although humans technically make the music, the band are actually cartoon characters), but still, they've put out some really cool songs.  This album is kind of indescribably weird.  It's like a surreal, electro-pop meets hip-hop slow-fi acid trip through a Hanna Barbera cartoon.  I mean, the album has both Lou Reed and Snoop Dogg on it, for goodness' sake.  Where else is that going to happen?

If you really want to be a hardcore Gorillaz fan, I guess there are all sorts of virtual universe ways to interact with the band and its listeners.  It's actually a rather interesting, post-modern social media-creates-reality experiment that Damon Albarn and Tank Girl illustrator Jamie Hewlett put together over a decade ago.  I haven't really gotten into all that stuff, and before Plastic Beach, never really spent much time on the concept.

But this year I've done a fair amount of flying, which I've grown to dislike quite a bit, and it's nice to have albums that take you away when you're already traveling to wherever it is you may not want to go. Plastic Beach is a really good album to listen to if you're in that state of mind, or if you want to pretend that you are.