Don't waste your dollars
By WILL SPITZ | November 13, 2006
Gorillaz |
Although Gorillaz musical mastermind Damon Albarn is busy recording with the Good, the Bad and the Queen (his new project with Clash bassist Paul Simonon, pioneering Afrobeat percussionist Tony Allen, and frequent Albarn collaborator Simon Tong), all’s not quiet on the Gorillaz front, at least not on the commercial front. In addition to a new DVD, Phase Two: Slowboat to Hades (Virgin), and book, Rise of the Ogre (Riverhead), the world’s richest virtual band have begun rolling out four two-song/two-video iTunes-only EPs, starting with DARE, which became available on the first Tuesday of November. We plunked down $5.96 and here’s what we got.Gorillaz, “DARE (Live in Harlem)” (video)
Taken from one of the five “Demon Days Live” shows the band (not virtual but real: Albarn with 20-plus-piece backing and a slew of special guests) played at the Apollo Theater in Harlem back in April, the video captures Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder in all his creepy, lollipop-sucking glory. Fun stuff, but is it really worth $1.99 when you probably already have the Demon Days: Live at the Manchester Opera House DVD? Hardly.
Gorillaz, “DARE (Animatic)” (Video)
$1.99 for the “DARE” video storyboards (which you can get on YouTube if you’re really interested)? No thanks.
Gorillaz, “Clint Eastwood (Live feat. De La Soul & Bootie Brown)”
Taken from some unspecified live show (a good guess would be one of the “Demon Days Live” performances), this version of the band’s first single is a cool curiosity in that De La Soul and Bootie Brown step in for Del tha Funkee Homosapien on the raps. It’s probably nothing that your music blog aggregator can’t scare up, though.
Gorillaz, “People”
This demo version of “DARE” amounts to the same beat from the finished song with fewer flourishes and different vocals. Again, it’s not much more than a curiosity for completists — and a reminder of why bands do demos. Isn’t that what rarities collections are for?
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- Gorillaz at the Apollo
There were puppets, singing and dancing middle schoolers, a gospel choir, a 14-piece string section from Juilliard, a who’s who of guests, including Neneh Cherry, De La Soul, Ike Turner, and a lollipop-sucking Shaun Ryder. But no Jamie Hewlett animations?!
- Gorillaz in the midst
Remember the great electronica gold rush of ’97, the year Madonna’s Maverick label won a massive bidding war over long-ignored rave mystic Liam Howlett, a/k/a Prodigy, and we all grooved to the electropunk clash of “Smack My Bitch Up”?
- Gorillaz | Plastic Beach
Although this is their first album without an indie-chic producer, the fake band with fake cartoon characters known as Gorillaz stay the course as a very real post-Blur conduit for Damon Albarn's quasi-apocalyptic, '80s-daydreaming, neon-pop habit.
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